Ruth Perry - OFSTED ‘contributed to death of Headteacher’

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The Coroner today recorded that OFSTED contributed to Ruth Perry’s death.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-67612233

An OFSTED inspector - ALAN DERRY - and his lack of professionalism, his lack of fairness, contributed to another human being’s death.

That is not an opinion that is a fact as recorded by the Coroner.

The Coroner also found that “parts of the ALAN DERRY’S inspection were conducted in a manner which lacked fairness”.

Regulators like ALAN DERRY exist to ensure fairness and proper procedures are followed by others. Why did ALAN DERRY allow his inspection to be unfair?

Our children, teachers, support staff and headteachers need immediate protection from an inspection process so appalling that is has contributed to a person’s death.

The Head of OFSTED has announced a day of training next week to fix this issue.

A day of training.

A day of training to help Inspectors not contribute to a person taking their own life. If an organisation needs training so that its employees don’t contribute to the deaths of others - then that organisation is not fit for purpose and its leadership, culture and moral compass are either absent or so woeful and professionally incompetent that they are simply negligent in the duties as a public body.

I believe a crowdfunding page is being established this week to possibly fund and pursue a case of Corporate Manslaughter against OFSTED now that their role in Ruth Perry’s death has been established.

How awful that a system of school inspection has become such a deranged quango. All power and no responsibility is such a toxic mix - and one here that has contributed to the death of another person.

What if another Head or Teacher takes their life in the coming weeks or months because of OFSTED - how awful would that be? How culpable would that make those who do not make seismic changes now.

Unprofessionalism of this level will not be cured by a day’s training and some tweaks.

Only complete and immediate overhaul - led by the SoS for Education and the Government can ensure this tragic event is not repeated in the coming months.

I agree. Ofsted have a lot to answer for. I know many heads who had nervous breakdowns due to this hellish system. Thank god I'm no longer in teaching

Dear, dear Ruth.
The anguish she must have felt.

Despite being as ready as we'll ever be, this is the one thing that keeps me awake at night and significantly impacts my quality of life. Daily. Because you don't know what you're going to get. Or when.

After 25 years in the profession, and with several good inspections under my belt, I am technically at the top of my game, yet the knowledge that the work into which I pour my whole being -trust me, where I work it's all or nothing- will be judged on a snapshot, fills me with a kind of existential dread.

An inspectorate not fit for purpose should not be anywhere near education professionals and children. Of all the ways we could make constructive assessments of schools, the current inspection protocol has got to be the worst conceivable.

This is so sad. I completely agree with you.

We are due Ofsted imminently and there is a real air of tension and stress at my school. A friend of mine had their expectation recently and she said she was regularly asked if she was okay and whether the inspection was causing stress. I feel like this is an insulting measure - what would they do if she had said yes? What would they have changed? It isn't a less stressful process just because they are providing token well-being checks. Nothing has fundamentally changed to improve the process.

If I am asked the same question, I will be honest and tell them that I do find the process incredibly stressful.

The onus should be on ensuring any inspection is professional and supportive, rather than constantly asking if it is stressful as if the person under stress is somehow a weakling.

Thank you for starting this thread. We need to get justice for Ruth and fight for change as her legacy.

Thank you for starting this thread, with such an eloquent post.

Everything @EveSix has said needs to be shouted from the rooftops too.

I am aware of FAR too many excellent teachers and Head Teachers who have been broken by OFSTED. Not in any fair way, but simply because OFSTED is not fit for purpose, and has been bullying school staff for far too many years.

There are hundreds of thousands of excellent teachers who won't consider teaching anymore. Ofsted have to own a big part of that.

If this doesn't bring about seismic change, whatever will it take ?

They are so incredibly inconsistent - a different inspector, a different day - it could all have been so different.

Agreed - is this stressful? Is this too stressful?

Well, in all honesty- it’s been the last year of endless uncertain waiting and the middle of the night insomnia and the dread of the phone ringing when it could either be about Tom’s missing lunchbox or a call from which I’m then expected to leap
into a 3 day process where I won’t sleep, eat or relax until you have left.

And crucially the stress depends upon what one single word you use to describe my school when you leave for the next 4 years. If that word is ‘Good’ then it was stressful but the future now isn’t (for 3 yrs at least) but if that word is inadequate then it wouldn’t matter how bright and breezy the last 3 days were - it’s still awful
from here on in.

They must be changed - they won’t do anywhere near enough internally on their own. They don’t have the professional capacity at any level to make the changes they need to make to themselves. Nor the intellect or vision.

It’s just something so much more than sad - it’s so wrong - so utterly, appallingly wrong that I can’t believe it’s happened. A clerical, regulatory function is being carried out so appallingly by such an incompetent misguided group that it has caused the death of a person. Death. Not stress. Death.

Thank you for this thread. We need some sort of justice for Ruth Perry. What a dreadful, dreadful tragedy.

I spent many innocent years working in a 'big job' in the City until I jacked it in and took on an admin/finance role in a primary school. Up until then I had secretly wondered what all the fuss was about when my teacher friends used to talk in terror about Ofsted. I admit that I thought that they just didn't have enough backbone....what a fool I was.

A year into my new role we got the call from Ofsted and over a three day period I watched in horror as the dedicated, hard working (female) team was utterly destroyed by Ofsted. I literally witnessed the Head on the floor as she was informed that the school was INADEQUATE. Both the Head and the Deputy quickly disappeared and became shadows of their former selves. One left the country. The other left teaching. Neither of them deserved this. Neither of them deserved to be humiliated and torn to shreds at the ensuing parent ' information' meetings at which the caretaker (only male member of staff) and I stood up to try to protect the head from the aggression and abuse from some parents.

The whole process was like someone had lobbed a bomb into the school and then ran away.

No wonder there is a shortage of teachers and heads. Of course children's education is sacrosanct but Ofsted in its current form cannot continue. It's too high a price to pay.

We need to fight for change for Ruth and all those other Ruths whose names are unknown. The Head I worked with could very, very easily have become one.

Apart from the actual inspection days, the whole school focus between inspections is about getting ready for the next one or recovering from the previous one. As a PP has said it’s like dropping a bomb and walking away. It drives the agenda in school and dominates staff meetings and contributes massively to teacher workloads.

It doesn’t help anyone. I remember 25 years ago being watched by an HMI inspector as an NQT and he gave me helpful hints and pointers and things to think about to develop my teaching. He visited the school regularly and had a positive and productive relationship with staff and the head, as a school improvement partner.

Now it is just someone coming in and judging in a punitive way, with no real useful advice. I have been present for I think 5 inspections, and each time there has been some outside focus influencing the discussion such as spiritual and moral development, the Literacy hour and the latest one was almost all about reading.

It is one of the reasons that I, and many of my longstanding colleagues, have never been interested in becoming headteachers or deputies. Consequently there are shortages and then perhaps some of the wrong people get promoted, who then become part of the problem!

Poor Ruth Perry. We owe it to her to make changes to this awful system. It is such an expensive system and it’s not helping anyone.

Ofsted and the DfE had a chance to make meaningful change, the only possible and right change to make as a response to this awful, tragic event: get rid of single grades. They refused. Their response to this has been appalling.

I cried as I read this. It was so well written and encapsulated so much about teaching in general. No other job has anything like this level of scrutiny and judgement. How many other people in other jobs churn over the things said to them/by them/by others about them in the middle of the night?! We’re ruled by fear.

Ruth’s story is many teachers biggest fear, the one tiny dropped ball that ruins it all. Your worst nightmare coming true. Your failure blindingly obvious to the world. Your worth is nothing.

As long as ofsted operate in the way in which they do, teaching is the worst profession for mental health and self esteem.

It doesn’t help anyone. I remember 25 years ago being watched by an HMI inspector as an NQT and he gave me helpful hints and pointers and things to think about to develop my teaching. He visited the school regularly and had a positive and productive relationship with staff and the head, as a school improvement partner

Exactly as it should be.
Nobody is against Quality Assurance. Professional, challenging questions, and support.

We need to fight for change for Ruth and all those other Ruths whose names are unknown. The Head I worked with could very, very easily have become one.

This. Ruth taking her own life was an unforgivable tragedy, but it really is just the tip of a huge iceberg.

It’s heartbreaking to read what she went through. I really hope her legacy- which clearly is already an impressive and positive one- can be that this NEVER ever happens again, but sadly I don’t hold much hope. ONE day of training? That’s actually insulting. Disgusting.

RIP Ruth Perry.
No one should be driven to this when giving their all to their job. I have been retired from teaching for 20 years now and I still regularly have nightmares about Ofsted. Always stressful dreams…no work in the children’s, no planning, no resources, no stationery. I wake up in a cold sweat. Ofsted surely can’t continue to perpetuate this level of stress on professional people who work their socks off.

As an ex-Governor who went through 2 inspections I found the entire process interrogatory rather than enquiring - like even the nicest inspectors were there to dig & pick rather than support or collaborate. Like they had been told to inspect in a manner they thought was rigorous but was actually like being investigated.

As a Governor - a volunteer who isn't in school all the time, I felt we were being expected to recall data & incidents from memory to prove we knew our school - rather than being asked how & what we did to support the school and then be given time to provide our evidence if required. We are volunteers who had had to rearrange our work at short notice to support the school but were also expected to swot up the night before rather than the inspection using our minutes & reports to back up our answers.

The use of one word to cover everything, when even the current reports break the judgement down into different areas is unnecessary & does not provide parents with a clear picture of a school. As the coroner pointed out there is a big difference between an improperly updated Single Central Register & some incomplete low level safeguarding paperwork whilst running a happy school where children receive an excellent education in a good learning environment (which is how I read the the original inspection report) and one rife with bullying, poor teaching & worse management that is failing its pupils - yet the headline judgement is the same.

The requirement that head teachers are currently (but this verdict looks like it will now go) bound by a confidentiality clause so that they cannot discuss the outcome of the inspection for weeks after, whilst they wait for Ofsted to publish is unnecessary and downright wicked to all the staff. All the staff were aware from the reaction of the leadership team and governors that the result at our school was not a good one but were left with suspicions, blame & guilt for the weeks between the inspection & publication as they were not allowed to know the details as to why. Meanwhile the head had to deal with their staff being unsettled and anxious on top of their own feelings about the process and result. Headteachers have enough solo responsibilities running their school without being forced to carry a nasty secret around with them for weeks which only they know the details of & therefore how it will impact the school, staff, parents & pupils. To carry that burden with no support from Ofsted and only a few other staff or family members to talk to is cruel & totally unnecessary whilst waiting for the "judgement to be finalised". If Ruth had been able to explain to staff & soon after parents Ofsted's reasons for the judgement, then she would have received support, feedback, alternative view points & perspective that may well have acted as a counter balance to the increasingly harsh judgement she was making on herself.
Ofsted's failure until today to acknowledge the unnecessary cruelties of its existing procedures makes my blood boil. They have received plenty of evidence in the past from teachers, unions, governors & parents that they needed to listen more - it should not have taken a coroner's verdict explicitly naming them as contributing to Ruth's death for them to do so.

Absolutely tragic and wrong. And the system doesn’t work for families and pupils either.

I work in a school that Alan Derry inspected. He was fucking awful. The staff felt horrendous afterwards despite a decent result. Head described feeling like she had ptsd. This was not our first inspection and felt so much worse than any previous ones.

@1stWorldProblems I have been involved in a few Ofsteds since this tragic event, and they have already relaxed the confidentiality rules. No longer is it restricted to those in the room when the inspector gives feedback on their judgement. They notably said you can tell all staff and your partners/loved ones but must ensure the school parents aren’t told. I assume they hope that this will ensure a headteacher won’t feel so isolated if there is an inadequate grading. But it is not enough.

I was actually quite hopeful this afternoon listening to the coroner’s verdict and statement that Ofsted must take heed of her report and not just pay ‘lip service’ but having read Ofsted’s response to it, I am so disheartened. One day of training on Monday and then they are back to business as normal…

Rather than acknowledging that their framework is causing staff huge levels of stress and they should change things, they have decided instead to focus on inspectors being trained to recognise the stress and heads being ‘allowed’ to discuss bad results with medical professionals! It feels like they have entirely missed the point.

They are an inconsistent, unfair, unaccountable danger to schools. When poor results can lead to academisation and job losses, it is going to be massively high stakes. When many of the inspectors are academy leaders who want to increase their academy empires, failing a school could bring another one into their fold-that is totally corrupt and a huge conflict of interest.

Does any other country have a system this abrasive and arbitrary?

RIP Ruth Perry, and others whose lives have been lost or damaged.

I genuinely think schools need to start refusing entry to Ofsted until they are radically overhauled.

I read the coroners report and it was horrific. Rarely are they so pointed at the conduct of one individual and an organization, utterly unusual in the matter of suicide, and I hope it prompts a lot of change in OFSTED who sound dysfunctional themselves.

Thank you for this thread

I truly hope some positive tangible outcome results from this appalling injustice. Ofsted is absolutely not fit for purpose. It hope a corporate manslaughter case is brought against Ofsted. As for Alan Derry; how does he sleep at night knowing it's now on record that his bullying, humiliating and utterly unprofessional behaviour contributed to a good woman's death?

Lulblakey1
As far as I'm aware from everything I've read, Ruth had had no mental health difficulties prior to this inspection. Have you read the transcript of the inquest? And reports from other schools who'd had the same Inspector?