Who Killed Ruth Perry?

 

Who Killed Ruth Perry?

by Christopher Draper

On 8th January 2023 the head teacher of Caversham Primary School killed herself when OFSTED downgraded her school from “Outstanding” to “Inadequate”. Matt Rodda, the local Labour MP demanded; “OFSTED must now ask themselves some tough questions about their role”. Yet many who now point the finger of blame at OFSTED colluded in creating the monster they now condemn.

The Nature of the Beast

On 25th March 2023 The Observer reported, “Stress caused by Ofsted inspections was cited in coroners’ reports on the deaths of 10 teachers over the past 25 years”. This could have been predicted by teachers from the time Ofsted began in 1992. I qualified as a teacher fifty years ago, in 1973, when I was criticised by comrades as a “soft cop for the system” I argued then that the old authoritarian school system (corporal punishment, examinations, grammar schools etc) was giving way to a more enlightened approach. Creative, child-centred, learning-by-discovery methods were being widely adopted by primary schools and beginning to influence the new comprehensives.

At that time education was administered locally and Local Authority school inspectors were formally reconstituting themselves as “Advisers” with the focus more on assisting teachers, schools and pupils rather than policing the system. I don’t claim it was heaven on earth but new ideas flourished and the educative process was moving from domination to liberation but as the education system was propelled by the radical cultural changes initiated in the 1960’s the reactionaries began to react.

The Roots of Uniformity

Many on the left blame Thatcher for turning the tide but years earlier Prime Minister James Callaghan sowed the seeds that sprouted Ofsted. Speaking at Ruskin College in 1976 Callaghan proposed replacing the autonomy of schools to create their own curricula with a standardised national curriculum. As the teachers’ delegate to York Trades Council at the time I was surprised to find fellow trade unionists welcomed this move towards centralization. They actually wanted their kids “trained at school for the world of work” whilst I argued, on the contrary, that schools should be less like factories not more.

An Authoritarian Framework

Callaghan’s government didn’t survive long enough to impose his centralised curriculum but Thatcher eagerly embraced his scheme. Sixties radicalism was anathema to Thatcher who recognised the potential of ideas to inspire progressive political change which she was not only determined to prevent but to roll back. Kenneth Baker was tasked with creating a National Curriculum fit for the nineteenth century. Learning was commodified and the whole system increasingly privatised with schools acting as competing businesses. Sadly, most head teachers proved only too willing to operate as CEO’s with balance sheets, elevated salaries and performance bonuses.

The National Curriculum was instituted in 1988 but it was left to John Major, in 1992, to create an Ofsted Inspectorate to enforce this regime. Where the previous inspection system helped schools identify and repair weaknesses the Ofsted role is to find fault not offer solutions. The consequence of an Ofsted inspection is that a school is crudely ranked on a four point scale, if assessed as grade four a school is placed in “special measures!”

The sixties philosophy of “The Child at the Centre of their Learning” has been supplanted by a top-down curriculum directed by public school educated politicians with creativity replaced by commercial values. From its origins, Ofsted was a political project devised by politicians of both major parties with collusion from self-serving individuals within the educational establishment.

Collaborators

Politicians enjoy wielding power over others and many head teachers are similarly motivated although some are simply politically naïve. Heads across England facilitated the Frankenstein’s monster that is Ofsted, incorporating quotes from inspection reports in prospectuses and even (as illustrated above) displaying banners at their boundaries boasting of a favourable Ofsted assessment. Under the old inspection system, schools were not permitted to selectively quote from inspection reports to prevent this shabby form of competitive advertising. Very few heads have had the courage or decency to publicly challenge Ofsted. In 2019 Ruth Perry herself invited Ofsted into her school for a voluntary inspection which included Chief Inspector Spielman! In seeking approval from Ofsted and advertising its commendations head teachers ultimately made a rod for their own backs which some have tragically come to regret.

Many heads have gone further and taken Ofsted’s shilling (or rather up to £500 a day) and acted as Inspectors at other schools. In doing so they have assisted Ofsted in creating the thoroughly toxic atmosphere that pervades schools throughout England to the detriment of teachers and even more so to children.

Education, More Political than Politics

Matt Rodda M.P. now seeks political advantage criticising Ofsted but I have before me a front page article I wrote for Freedom in March 2000 defending the internationally acclaimed free school, Summerhill, from a determined attempt by Ofsted (and then Labour Education Minister, David Blunkett) to close it down. Lest anyone be taken in by the belated bleating of Labour politicians and craven head teachers, my article noted, “British education has been colonised by government appointees, toadying heads and armies of commercial “consultants”. Collaboration is rife and children and teachers are kept chained to approved curricula by rigid testing and assessment”.

Ofsted is but one element in an ever more authoritarian education system dominated by commercial values. The one thing Ofsted accurately reflects is affluence with schools in well-off areas four times more likely to be assessed as “Outstanding” than schools in disadvantaged areas. Former inspector, Colin Richards, reveals how Ofsted obscures such politically inconvenient truths, “ much of what those undertaking the inspection had originally written was removed from the final report, including details of the number of pupils with special educational needs, from deprived backgrounds or were not English speakers."

Witchfinder General

Amanda Spielman, the current head of Ofsted, continues the long tradition begun by Chris Woodhead in 1992, of acting as a government stooge. Neither qualified nor experienced as a classroom teacher, Spielman’s background in City finance nonetheless commends her to government. After boarding school and Cambridge she worked successively for KMG Thomson McLintock; Kleinwort Benson; Newstead Capital; Bridgewater Business Analysis; Mercer Management Consulting and Nomura Principal Finance.

Appointed head of Ofsted in 2017, in 2019 Spielman said students accused of sexual assault should be free to attend school along with their accusers. This provoked criticism of her lack of understanding of basic safeguarding procedures and contradicted Ofsted’s own guidelines. Ironically this was very area of weakness cited in fatally branding Ruth Perry’s leadership as “Inadequate”.

Predictable gestures from Keir Starmer, such as sacking Spielman or reforming Ofsted will achieve little. The National Curriculum and the whole panoply of centralising measures and commercialisation of education must be scrapped with a return to a local system respecting the ideas and experiences of children, parents and teachers.