(TW : discussion of Ruth Perry's suicide) To feel uncomfortable with the way Ruth Perry's death was described as 'the fault' of Ofsted?

[Carla786]

From the evidence, it's clear that the Ofsted inspector behaved abominably and the whole organisation needs a thorough overhaul.

However, I was reading a recent thread on the Caroline Flack documentary and for all the differences, one thing that reporting of Flack's suicide has shared is that it has often explicitly laid blame for a suicide on someone else.

In Flack's case, the media have been blamed for her suicide. In Perry's case, the inquest explicitly blamed Ofsted, as did some media.

This makes me uncomfortable...maybe it's wrong of me to feel this way, but I think of the GC threads that originally drew me to MN. Threads on the reporting of suicides of trans teenagers often rightly pointed out the danger of media implying that external people/forces caused a suicide, noting that it contradicts guidelines that the Samaritans (among others) have for good reason.

Perry was an adult, but these guidelines aren't just for teenagers. I don't want to downplay the terrible way she was treated by Ofsted. But I just feel very uncomfortable about the implications of media and then the official inquest explicitly implicating Ofsted in her suicide.

Am I wrong to feel uncomfortable about this?

It was someone who came to see me for therapy for a deep depression - he had been a teacher, and head, then went to OFSTED because he wanted to help others. He said he had originally been in a role that was about sharing good practice and innovation and which was mostly supportive but which became about nit picking, box ticking and finding fault. He felt like he lost his lifes work and had become suicidal.

I have seen services blamed for the suicide of people who had never shown or reported any suicidal thoughts or feelings while in treatment. Once someone like this killed themself months and months after the end of treatment which they said had been helpful. Dont get me wrong - anyone taking their own life is a tragedy and investigation of this needs to be treated with utmost seriousness. But no one can foresee the future or read minds, and in that case, the coroner said the service had some blame for the suicide which I really could not see the grounds for. Sometimes coroners make attributions and statements which are unreasonable. And no one has the power to challenge them.

https://archive.ph/H5xbm#selection-1461.0-1461.18

The problem with this piece is that it takes the line of "OFSTED was the cause of", where the coroner said contributed to.

He seems to very much support OFSTED in the form that it was and doesn't recognise that it is not fit for purpose.

He also claims that it is impartial and it hasn't been that for many years.

That's awful, I didn't know about this...

Why are teachers treated so badly? My grandmother was one up until 1992 and she was never treated this way. Where has thus culture of contempt come from?

I can't help wondering if there's a misogynist element, partly. One report did mention a 'macho culture' at Ofsted.

I didn't mean to change it, I meant to implicitly include all you'd mentioned. I apologise for not making that clear.

Where has thus culture of contempt come from?

Step forward Michael Gove.

You’re missing the point.

I’m a brilliant, experienced teacher. I’m confident in my practice. Anyone can come in at any time and see me do my thing.

What makes ofsted so stressful is that they could potentially come in, judge you to be rubbish based on some arbitrary judgement based on children who are human too and then tell you you’re rubbish. They then tell the rest of the staff you’re rubbish and the parents and community too.

They also expect so much for nothing. Let’s take all your support staff as you can’t afford to pay them anymore then berate you for not doing constant interventions. You’re failing the children didn’t you know? Just work a bit harder.

So much that we are judged on is far beyond our control.

Where do you want to start.

Various governments saying that teachers are work shy, left wing, unionised slackers (the blob)
Various governments undermining teachers and education
Various governments using education as a political football
The MSM undermining schools.
Social media
The removal of schools being able to discipline pupils (not corporal punishment and sanction)
Soft parenting
Micheal Gove.
Piss poor Education ministers that have no idea what they are doing and changing things every year without allowing things to settle.
League tables.
Progress 8
The removal of vocational subjects and replacing them with academic variants (see that twat gove)
Older Headteachers leaving and fast tracked young heads moving in.
the super heads
Academies.

To name a few things

Sorry, I should have also mentioned that, that would clearly have been at the forefront...

As you've said, the whole system of no support allowed while waiting, no help in fixing issues identified, forcible conversion to academies even for errors like Perry's is completely wrong..

The bullying inspector would have been an extra layer of pain

I lost my DH to suicide too and I completely agree with this. In fact I would go as far to say, no-one is to blame for another person’s suicide (and I spent a lot of time with a counsellor working this through after it happened).

Ofsted was absolutely a part of the cause of her suicide. I left teaching after 20 years' in last year and it wasn't until I left that I realised how damaging it was to my MH. And I was only a class teacher - not even in management (thank goodness).

Yes,,I was sceptical of some of it...I mean,does Daniel Finkelstein have any special expertise in this area?

A huge problem in teaching is headteachers.

They are answerable to no one but OFSTED and while there are many decent ones, a bullying head teacher can destroy you and there’s not a thing you can do about it. Unless something comes to light such as maladministration or other misconduct it can go on for years unchecked. Teachers have ended their lives over this and yet nothing is done.

It’s that line between ‘you are accountable’ and ‘you are still a human being.’ Sometimes, it isn’t an easy line to draw if self worth is intrinsically linked to your work.

This is why the school was given an inadequate safeguarding rating.

Leaders have a weak understanding of safeguarding requirements and procedures.
They have not exercised sufficient leadership or oversight of this important work. As
a result, records of safeguarding concerns and the tracking of subsequent actions
are poor. Leaders have not ensured that all required employment checks are
complete for some staff employed at the school. These weaknesses pose potential
risks to pupils.
Some staff have not had the necessary training to be able to record concerns
accurately using the school’s online system.

This is not about a minor administrative issue. Very few schools get given inadequate for safeguarding, it's not handed out lightly.

It is written in Ofsted but what it means is:

At least one person working at the school didn't have a DBS - and probably more than one - so might have committed crimes against children for all the school knew.

The school leaders didn't understand the processes they were meant to follow to keep children safe - not just Ruth Perry but other senior leaders as well

When a concern about a child was spotted and action taken, it wasn't fully recorded - you might say "that's just paperwork" but if you read any serious case review about a child, like Sara Sharif, one of the failings is always that concerns weren't recorded and so the full picture wasn't apparent.

I'm sure Ofsted was a factor and the process should be better and kinder but it is not right at all to claim that the school was pulled up on something minor here

That is the main thing which makes me very uncomfortable about it, @weisatted ; remembering Soham as perhaps the most extreme example of this.

Indeed. And it doesn't sound like what the inspector found was that this was some kind of one off human error, it was a culture of senior leaders not prioritising safeguarding.

I am a safeguarding governor and this could not happen at our school - the school safeguarding lead does the recruitment checks, the head checks as well and I do a spot check on the whole staff records once a month. This school sounds like it did none of that

I think it’s more common than people think. I was honestly so shocked when I joined that school and it transpired the most basic checks hadn’t been done; they didn’t check I was who I said I was and they didn’t do a DBS. I could literally have been anybody.

Yes, schools should be hot on safeguarding. Yes, it was right that Ruth Perry’s school was picked up on inadequate processes.

What also needs to be recognised is that Ruth Perry’s death was also a safeguarding failure. If someone kills themself after a work audit and the coroner finds that the practices surrounding that work audit contributed to her death, not only that but people had been trying to raise the alarm about the brutality of the process for years, then that is a huge safeguarding failure. The government has a duty of care to its employees just as schools have a duty of care to its students,

They failed in that duty and it cannot simply be hidden or ignored because of Samaritan guidelines. That would be another failure of safeguarding. They need to act to prevent future deaths.

I don't disagree. But many people on this thread have dismissed the safeguarding failures at that school as "trivial paperwork" and I feel quite strongly that we don't do that.

Both things can be true - Ruth Perry and her SLT can have put the children at the school at risk and Ruth Perry can have not received sufficient support

so what do you think the words "contributed to" mean?