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’ve seen the HT unions today are also calling for Ofsted to be paused whilst they respond to the 7 points in the Regulation 28 report from the coroner. I presume this has now been published but I can’t find it-has anyone else seen a link to it?

OFSTED finished their 90 minute video training today (before the Coroners s28 report is out).

Presumably because (as with schools) they have made their mind up without even having to look at the evidence or the report - they just know how to fix themselves without a coroners recommendations.

So at present they and more importantly a Coroner have said they have faults - but they aren’t waiting to find out what they are and take stock - instead they are continuing with an inspection regime that contributed to the death of a headteacher - and therefore continue to conduct inspections which are flawed - but because they are a unaccountable quango who don’t need to
reflect on a coroners verdict and recommendations - they can just do that as they know best?

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/pause-ofsted-inspections-unions-say-following-ruth-perry-inquest/

Ah, I see-they haven’t published it yet but they’ve said what the 7 areas are:-

1. How safeguarding is inspected, and the impact of this on overall effectiveness.
2. An ‘almost complete lack of Ofsted training or published policy’ in four key areas.
3. How to raise concerns about an inspection, that have not been resolved with the lead inspector.
4. Whether draft reports must be kept confidential, and a lack of revised policy on this.
5. Timescales for report publication.
6. The absence of a full learning review by Ofsted, and the absence of requiring one by government.
7. A lack of additional support for schools and colleges graded ‘inadequate’.

To be honest, unless they get rid of the one-word judgements and the link of poor inspections to academisation, it just feels like tinkering around the edges.

Telling heads that HMI are now fully trained to spot stress and that heads can share awful news with colleagues/family or can phone a special number if they are stressed, doesn’t remove the stress! If you’re deemed crap, you’re still turned into an academy, you still lose your job and house prices in the community are still affected-none of that will change.

@Appuskidu I often think about the HT at my son's primary. He was there one day and gone the next after an inspection. He was a nice man. Perhaps his colleagues didn't share that view and there were issues but I can't say as a parent I thought the school improved after the academy took over.

I'm a good teacher but I've no interest in being a head. It seems far too risky when you can be pushed out after a bad result.

To me, the biggest thing about Ofsted is that what you do day to day seems largely irrelevant. Our SATS scores were near perfect, kids happy, parents happy, SEND good, and we got RI. All because children couldn't talk about learning in a specific lesson 6 months ago and because our curriculum plans weren't deemed detailed enough. The fact all teaching they saw was good, all work they saw was good and all results they saw were good counted for nothing.

Edit: spelling

Word is that the 90 minute training has been pulled as have inspections this week.

We will see.

I hadn’t seen that the training was pulled, that’s interesting. I did see that heads will be given the choice to postpone their inspection if they are phoned in the next two weeks though.

Does the head of Ofsted actually have the power to make changes, eg removing one-word judgments? Or is that down to Gillian Keegan? Can she single-handedly decide to agree/not agree to that? Or is it a team at the DfE? I was just wondering how it all worked. Does the incoming new chap whose name I can’t remember have any power to make things better?!

Ofsted have said that they will automatically approve any deferral requests this week, not that they'd cancel inspections.

All heads should defer and enjoy the last two weeks of term doing Christmassy things.

My DD's school was inspected this time last year and it was awful. All the Christmas stuff they'd been looking forward to pulled at the last minute.

I do know of a HMI who has had her planned inspection pulled this week, by OFSTED.

Of course, a school would never know that that could have been them.

If OFSTED knew anything about Primary Schools, of course, then they wouldn't even consider trying to do inspections in the 2 weeks at the end of the Christmas Term in the first place.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ruth-perry-schools-can-defer-ofsted-inspections-until-2024/

My next question is - what is the difference between a school automatically being able to defer this week and a school
after Xmas? If the coroners detailed recommendations are out over the Xmas period then can OFSTED guarantee they have answered all
of these satisfactorily by the time inspections start again after Xmas?

How long will they need to fix what’s broken?

I think OFStED will say about a week or some other ridiculously short time frame?

surely they can’t inspect any school until a third party is satisfied that they have implemented things to ensure they have met all the coroners recommendations- only then should they be allowed to inspect schools.

I wonder how they will fit in any deferred inspections, I assume they gave a tightly planned schedule

I don’t think there is a third party, is there? They can probably just ignore the coroner’s report completely if they want-though I think public opinion might not support that and there is an election looming…

I expect Gillian Keegan will try to say it’s business as normal, but perhaps the new head of Oftsed will want to make his mark??

I don’t think ofsted are able to get rid of one word judgements themselves - it would have to be done higher up. Laws would need to be changed, I’m sure I heard somewhere

From the regs:
Response to a report on action to prevent other deaths 29.—(1) This regulation applies where a person is under a duty to give a response to a report to prevent other deaths made in accordance with paragraph 7(1) of Schedule 5. (2) In this regulation, a reference to “a report” means a report to prevent other deaths made by the coroner. (3) The response to a report must contain—
(a)details of any action that has been taken or which it is proposed will be taken by the person giving the response or any other person whether in response to the report or otherwise and set out a timetable of the action taken or proposed to be taken; or

(b)an explanation as to why no action is proposed.
(4) The response must be provided to the coroner who made the report within 56 days of the date on which the report is sent. (5) The coroner who made the report may extend the period referred to in paragraph (4) (even if an application for extension is made after the time for compliance has expired). (6) On receipt of a response to a report the coroner—
(a)must send a copy of the response to the report to the Chief Coroner;

(b)must send a copy to any interested persons who in the coroner’s opinion should receive it; and

(c)may send a copy of the response to any other person who the coroner believes may find it useful or of interest.
(7) On receipt of a copy under paragraph (6)(a) the Chief Coroner may—
(a)publish a copy of the response, or a summary of it, in such manner as the Chief Coroner thinks fit; and

(b)send a copy of the response to any person who the Chief Coroner believes may find it useful or of interest (other than a person who has been sent a copy of the response under paragraph (6)(b) or (c)).

Again the silence from the Secretary of State Gillian Keegan is deafening- why?

Weak? Or simply being told what (not) to say from higher up?

From having listened to her previously it simply seems she doesn’t have the confidence of her department to be able to act decisively.

Interesting. The coroner made a reference to previous SoS having ignored regulation 28 recommendations-let’s hope Gillian’s response isn’t a whitewash.

She wrote some sort of statement straight after the coroner’s verdict on Thursday, but it was very much an, ‘I’m sorry if people felt upset’ kind of non-apology.

Well as it happens my dcs’ school is being inspected as we speak. When I mentioned this to my Ukrainian friend he said, ‘Why? Has there been some accident?’ 😂

Seriously though: when I filled in the parent survey it occurred to me that I did not feel safe to give a fully nuanced view because I don’t trust Ofsted not to take small negatives and use them to destroy the school. Trust is important and there is less trust between parents and Ofsted than between parents and the school: schools fuck up from time to time but mostly I think they are a bunch of dedicated people doing their best in an increasingly tricky and under resourced environment. I do not have the same view of Ofsted.

Ofsted have to be wary of parent questionnaires, as they can be sabotaged by parent groups who may have a grudge about the school/headteacher/Trust leader. They then get a group of non-parents to complete negative questionnaires. Ofsted sometimes run IT checks (not sure how the tech side works) and they find many of the responses are not based locally

Wow. They’re not going to make that any less of a problem by providing Facebook and Twitter share buttons at the end of the survey (seriously what on earth is the point of that?)

I’m horrified by what I’m reading. I have signed the petition

Interesting, we have had none (unusually), thus week, in my LA.

Usually 2-4 a day, announced Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

I had an interesting conversation with my mum this evening. (As I mentioned upthread she trained as an inspector but never practiced.) She said when she began teaching the HMIs were helpful. They were employed by the local authority so you built up a relationship with them. One said he had been told by his boss when he started, ‘Your job is to leave every school a little bit better than you found it.’

It’s sobering when you think of the situation now, where every school that is downgraded is going to deteriorate as a result as it will become harder to attract staff and students.

That was my experience too @TheCountessofFitzdotterel

Inspections that were there to help the HT improve the school, not destroy all the Managers and leave the rest of the staff reeling or resigning.

OFSTED never grasped that concept.