Ruth Perry - OFSTED ‘contributed to death of Headteacher’

[JVJ24601]

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.

@Wherearemykeysagain

I personally am in favour of narrative reports which are more regular and read more like an ongoing improvement plan. I would scrap entirely ‘inspectors’ and instead have school improvement partners whose expertise is in supporting positive change (or shock horror… just sustaining being a good school!).

In some LA’s we still have that. Regular visits, support, next steps, development - dismantled mainly by government policy and budget cuts.

Academy trusts are not part of the above, unless they choose to be.
So little accountability.

Money for support to schools is def distributed ( to teaching schools, Academy trusts and other bodies)

LA’s budgets have been cut on cut year on year and school improvement teams are either tiny or none existent.

My LA has yet another £5.5 million to save this year in Children’s Services alone.
Think of the very vulnerable children that must support.vAlthough safeguarding is a statutory duty, school improvement isn't and therefore from a range of services, is cut.
The school improvement team in my large LA has reduced from 120 to 15 advisory staff!

I’ve been through it as a teacher and a governor. As a governor, I’m a volunteer, the inspection takes no account of the fact I’m a volunteer and have a job. They want to speak to governors who are available, but it was just lucky that I could re-arrange my diary on that day and my work was understanding.

Being a head is like being a football manager but without the salary. A bad result and you could be gone. It shouldn’t be like that. What should happen is a much more supportive improvement process but now with the current of academy trusts and LA it is impossible to maintain any sort of oversight of school improvement. What is really needed is a system of school improvement with that being monitored and quality assured and not the individual schools.

Ionacat -"What is really needed..." is a great sentence stem. Thank you.

I will reiterate my earlier point that "What is really needed..." is for parents to be fully in the picture, understanding that as long as statutory inspections progress according to current protocol, their children are paying the price -their learning experience could hold so much more, but instead, teachers and school leaders are painted into impossible corners trying to fulfil Ofsted's expectations.

"What is really needed..." is a recognition that, as schools face close scrutiny of both attendance and attainment, there is a very real incentive to encourage deregistration of learners with SEN -diagnosed and undiagnosed- pushing students who find it hard to manage in school for a myriad reasons out, often into unsuitable alternative provision, rather than removing barriers to learning and improving provision in school. So many children and young people are currently out of school, unable to attend due to anxiety arising from unmet special education needs.

@waytooearlyforthis

I'm all for safeguarding kids but not at the expense of pushing people to take their own lives. The process is brutal and can break even the most resilient of Heads.

Reading Ruth's story and that of others on the BBC website makes me feel physically sick. The process is beyond cruel. Nobody deserves to be humiliated in the way that INADEQUATE heads are. Humiliated in their school, their local community, the local press etc. Their whole career meaningless. It all brings back some dreadful, dreadful memories for me that I was witness to. Head, Deputy and Chair of Governors (a volunteer!!) completely destroyed. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

The legal action will I'm sure be pursued by English teaching unions. They won't drop the ball. Shocking system, ridiculous organisation, terrible outdated education system and curriculum stuck in the early 90's.Time to draft in experts who support, even the words on the grading system are abusive, 'inadequate' I mean, seriously. I feel for England's teaching staff and pupils, the system is a mess. If you haven't had classroom experience for more than 3 years you have no business being an inspector. This poor woman was giving everything to her job then lost her life. Teachers need to remember they have T&C's (like every other employee on contracts) and should fulfill that to the minute. EVERYTHING ELSE can fuck off. The sooner parents get on board the better. RIP Ruth Perry.

I'm so angry about all of this. So very angry.

This is so sad. Things must change for Ruth & for all teachers.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/652057?fbclid=IwAR2aO1OTudbv3YOLLQDRKMSXtHzb3lh5RCxYVzL-y3L7n3c2u251ZuqoHL8

Sorry too late to edit my first post now - edit time limit is up.

The other thing is that in Speilman's statement after the coroner's verdict, she said "all of our inspectors are current or former school leaders". This is highly disingenuous as most people would take this to mean HTs or at least SLT. But I know of lead inspectors who were heads of department and are making judgements having never led a school themselves.

I also know of lead inspectors who have only ever worked in secondary, teaching mainly ks4 and 5, who are inspecting primary schools.

Yes-I know numerous infant and first schools who were inspected by secondary heads of department.

I was a school leader and I just used the school inspection handbook for what documents I would need to show. You can look these up and have them ready. They are things you would be doing anyway and any school would just have them to hand. Ofsted don’t look at internal data so was never asked to show this. I wasn’t asked for anything that wasn’t in the handbook so I don’t really understand what you are doing ‘for Ofsted’?
Having curriculum plans in place is what schools should have, helping children to learn things should be happening, trips and visits should be happening, behaviour should be being managed, children should be safeguarded. You’re doing these things anyway. As a PP has said, take down the Ofsted banners proclaiming your judgement and as long as you’re ensuring children are happy and reaching their potential have confidence and carry on. There’s always going to be some kind of inspection system and it is naive to think that schools can assess themselves accurately, external scrutiny is needed. Schools near me who got RI were schools where improvement was needed. As one PP has said she sent her child to an inadequate school and it no longer is, someone needed to come in, assess and make sure it got better. I always accepted Ofsted as part of the system, creating a ‘hatred’ of them is clearly making you very stressed. Ruth Perry should not have been subject to the way her inspection was carried out but I still ask where were the governors and local authority who had also failed to carry out their safeguarding role. She was let down by people who should have been helping her as well as Ofsted.

There are an already a lot of accountability measures for secondaries though, progress 8, attainment 8, EBACC numbers, attendance and exclusion data. It's not as if there is no other accountability without ofsted.

so I don’t really understand what you are doing ‘for Ofsted’?

The new framework has created massive amounts of additional paperwork for subject ‘leaders’-especially in small primaries.

Me too. The last inspection I attended, the judgement was more positive than expected.
The Lead Inspector, secondary department lead, had very little understanding of learning. Her positivity was to do with ‘polite, well mannered children, who listen’, where the HT, CoG ( ex primary HT) and I had recognised ‘passive learning’ and were working to improve learning, with much higher aspiration for these children.

I think the thing that most demonstrated the utter callousness of Ofsted regarding the death of Ruth Perry was when they released the Caversham Ofsted report and referred casually to her death in a line above something about breakfast club.

It was so shockingly unbelievable that they just didn't care that it was that report that we have now had confirmed contributed to her death.

Is this the same Alan Derry? From Bicester?

www.bicesteradvertiser.net/news/17748984.headteacher-gagle-brook-school-bicester-bullied-job/

This is spot on.

The ridiculous waste of everyone's time and energy that OFSTED takes from every member of school staff (and Nurseries, Childminders, LAs and post 16 provision) is just so life sapping.
I like the phrase about being 'tax on time'

Exactly @EveSix

This is such a good post.
Sad, but so, so true

There are very few inspectors who have Special schools expertise.

What does a inspector who has a Secondary school background know about small rural Primary schools with fewer than 50 pupils and possibly only 2 classes?

"There has been a change of leadership..."

Well, I suppose that's one way to describe contributing to a woman's death.

Fucking hell.

If you were a school leader you should be aware of the difference between formative and summative assessment.

In what way does a one-word judgement help a school improve?

Especially if the reasons for the school's difficulties are - as is so often the case - the result of complex socioeconomic issues related to the catchment it serves?

Careful - don’t mention complex socioeconomic factors - that just means you have low expectations. Inadequate. Plus there isn’t a box about that for them on the tick list.

Because the reason 80% of grammars get an outstanding grade and the reason most “failing” schools (now academies) are in areas that serve catchment areas that suffer a range of complex social, financial etc etc issues is completely irrelevant.

To the moron up post who said what extra are you doing for OFSTED:

16 intent, implementation and impact statements - one for each subject - no help
or guidance for children or impact on them - just a slew of document for OFSTED

a reading journey

a British values map

skills ladders - again for every year in every subject

reading journey

writing journey

numeracy plan
mastery approach

knowledge plans - for when children learn and when they don’t learn the core content

Endless written case studies about SEND, EAL, PP- all that knowledge is in my head and my
teachers heads but it must be written down - school of 60 kids

internal moderations / external moderations

IEPs / IEP review notes

all must be recorded for OFSTED - not shared but written down

paper
paper
paper

if anyone doubts my list just google your
local 5 schools and they will all have those docs ready and waiting on their website.

who for - eager parents - confused children - no - just OFSTED.

I was about to correct myself but to be fair - 2 reading journeys is actually true.

one from phonics to a reader and
the second is from a reader to being a free reader.

I will add @JVJ24601 …

Logs of logs, to show that the logs are accurate (safeguarding)… it would be laughable if it wasn't so stressful.

I work in a tiny primary school.
We are reducing to three classes next year, due to lack of money. I'll be teaching three year groups combined next year. Probably no full time TA and many behavioural issues and SEND.

Because we will only have four teachers (three being part time), every curriculum subject has to be shared out.
I work two days a week, and I'll have three to four subjects to lead, including English. Writing is our main target on our school development plan.

Who will Ofsted want to speak to? Me, probably.

I get no time out of class to produce all the curriculum paperwork. I get no time out of class to get any CPD to help improve writing across school.

I'm trying not to think about it to be honest, but I know I'll be ripped apart because I haven't got a good enough handle on my subjects, and I haven't had time to update my policy or action plans this year for any of my subjects. There's no money to pay a supply teacher so I can get it all done.

A reminder that I only work two days a week.

I'm shitting myself, quite honestly.

Ofsted don't seem to have much understanding about the workload implications on tiny schools. Absolutely none.