Ruth Perry Inquest

[GrammarTeacher]

Anyone else following this. It's devastating. The awful way the inspection was handled is very believable to me. I've had good and bad experiences with OFSTED and the bad was dreadful. Some of the verbal feedback was hypocritical and contradictory. Fortunately I attended it remotely with camera off because I was one of the 'majority who cry' according to the lead inspector. The whole experience and aftermath led to me stepping down as a staff governor to protect my mental health.
The weight of knowing a result that you can't share with colleagues yet is a large one and difficult to bear.
I do believe we need accountability but there must be a better way! But what can we do?

Goodness, the coroner’s verdict is pretty damning; is anyone else following?

I hope Amanda Spielman who made the comment a few weeks ago about teachers ‘using’ Ruth’s death as a pivot to try to discredit Ofsted, now reflects carefully on those words.

Does the coroner make recommendations that should be followed as a part of the case?

Let's hope that something changes now. It's just so sad that someone has had to die for it to happen.

Very damning indeed. Errors that Ofsted accepted could be rectified within 30 days led to someone feeling as desperate as this. It's absolutely shameful.

I do worry that no noticeable changes will happen as a result though, but maybe that’s cynical.

It would be just if this report became the catalyst to a loss Ofsted and replace it with something meaningful and supportive. Those inspectors should be feeling thoroughly ashamed of their part and should no longer have jobs. Amanda Spielman should fall on her sword too.

So, Ofsted feel that delaying inspections by a whole day next week to train their inspectors in recognising stress (which they said they already had) is enough?

Awesome.

Their response is shocking

So Ofsted are pulling their inspectors into a training session they claimed in court they already deliver?

Imagine if a school claimed all their staff had received certain training but there was no paperwork to back that up? Disgraceful.

Ofsted should be replaced. Schools should be monitored for their compliance with health and safety and safeguarding standards by the LA. The outcome of any shortcomings should be a list of steps to be taken which should be checked again. This should happen on a yearly basis as part of ongoing monitoring and should be done in partnership with the school leadership team. Schools should work with their school improvement partner to develop and assess teaching, learning and behaviour. There is no need for these high stakes inspections that either ruin a school or leave it resting on its laurels with no oversight for years and years.

@AspenElderflowert
I have also asked for this post to be taken down.

So, all this appears to have achieved is pushing some schools’ Ofsted inspection one day closer to Christmas, ffs. I am so cross about this. What are they doing inspecting the week before Christmas anyway.

I thought the coroner was going to make recommendations-have they not been made? Or can they just be ignored anyway?

It’s all so predictable and depressing. ‘Lessons will be learnt’ and I’m guessing the lessons that Ofsted want us to learn is, not to mess with them. Rather than reducing stress surrounding inspection, they are focusing instead on training staff to recognise it. What are they going to do? Update the manual like this

1. see tears…pause for 10 minutes.
2. see tears from more than 2 people, pause for 15.

I despair.

Ofsted really is a completely flawed process of inspecting schools. They visit for two days and usually don't come back for five years or more. I have heard of inspections taking place over a couple of days, when half the school and various leaders were on a residential. They couldn't tick all the boxes, so the school was downgraded. Likewise Ofsted have inspected when half the staff were off as a virus was going around. They watched supply teachers teach and said the children weren't focussed. It's just ridiculous and sets up a culture of fear, where perfection has to be seen by the powers that be (and Ofsted on inspection day!), when actually we are dealing with human beings.

Each school should be properly supported to improve by a team of suitably qualified professionals, attached to a school, who get to know the school, the area, the children, the parents etc. These professionals should visit regularly, monitor teaching and learning over a longer period, support and place demands to be met if need be. They can advise on how to meet these demands, where to get help and the rest of it. This can all be done without the need to completely slate a school and it's staff in public.

If a school really is in chaos, and things don't improve, I understand the need to have a process in place to replace failing heads. But Ruth wasn't a failing Head. The parents were happy, the kids were happy, and Ofsted slammed and downgraded the school. She simply could have been advised of what needed changing, given a few weeks to do it, all away from the knowledge of the public and her life saved.

Completely agree. If the record-keeping shortcomings could have been resolved in 30 days, they could have easily been sorted by the time the inspection report was published. Why did Ofsted need to publically humiliate Ruth Perry and destroy her career? The process sounds brutal.

This school hadn’t been inspected for nearly 13 years, so presumably the safeguarding errors could have been picked up much sooner. Regular monitoring of schools by someone acting as a “critical friend”, ought to work much better than the current system.

Re comment someone asked to be taken down. I agree it should have been deleted. Well done for highlighting that appalling post. Whoever posted it is grossly insensitive and is colluding with Ofsted re that woman's suicide.
Dreadfully insensitive comment.
Disgraceful!
Hope that person has no extended contact with adults or children.
Formal complaint to Mumsnet may be needed.
Or a petition?
I feel that strongly about it.
Am thinking about further action.

Do we know exactly what the safeguarding issues were? I’ll bet my last £ that it wasn’t missing DBS checks! It’ll have been something like not recording some detail on a spreadsheet (single central record). Unless you’re a school leader with experience of this then you really don’t know how nitpicky Ofsted are about this. A clerical error wouldn’t put children at risk.

shame on that poster with that appalling post.

You can find the inspection report here. https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/21/109778

A problem with OFSTED reports is also that they don’t cover everything that is mentioned in the feedback session, so more details of the safeguarding concerns would have been given in the feedback session. Chances are the employment checks may include lack of references for TAs/MTAs who have been employed for many years

This seems to suggest that there were staff who hadn't had full pre-employment checks and other issues that they say posed an actual risk to pupils? I've found this really difficult throughout this coverage - Ruth Perry's death is of course a tragedy, but a lot of the coverage makes it seem that it's a ridiculous thing that a school can fail on safeguarding alone and that a head is held so directly responsible for the safeguarding records- but both those things are in place because of previous cases that showed the real and awful consequences that could occur when schools weren't undertaking safeguarding work effectively.

@Hardbackwriter as stated in my above post, when reviewing the safeguarding register (SCR) and employment files one of the most common missing pieces of information relate to lack of references for TAs/MTAs who have been employed by the school for years, probably starting as parent volunteers at the time references weren't asked for volunteers. These people will have a current DBS.
Another common issue is when a member of staff has worked abroad for a period of time and a DBS won't cover that period of time.

Another issue is that Ofsted can no longer be trusted. There are inaccuracies on many reports and some accuse them of lying.

It looks as though, like so many before them, this school was earmarked for conversion to Academy status and the lead inspector went in with that specific goal in mind.
Nothing Ruth Perry could have done would have changed that. He was antagonistic from the start.

Some posts here (thankfully a minority) say things like 'Of course Ruth Perry's death was a tragedy- but...'
Cue Ofsted -type blame comments.
There should be no 'buts'.
That is so deeply inappropriate.
Why don't some people get that fundamental, really basic point?
These posts are beyond offensive and collude with Ofsted's role in that poor woman's suicide.
There will be many more cases like Ruth Perry's. Maybe not suicides (but maybe some will be) but much more evidence of devastating depression and anxiety as a direct result of the Ofsted regime.
Mark my words.
Those who post insensitive comments re Ruth Perry's suicide really ought to be blocked and/or deleted.
Am not usually in favour of deleting/ silencing debate - but in this case I think it's necessary.
Can only hope R.P's friends and family are not viewing afore- mentioned posts.
They show an appalling lack of sensitivity and awareness and only add insult to injury.

Surely it is never appropriate to have an inspection regime where even the inspectors themselves think it is common and perfectly normal for people to be in tears! In the inquest the inspectors say they had no specific concerns about Ruth Perry because it was common for people to be in tears. It should not be normal that monitoring causes people to breakdown. Monitoring can be effective without it causing harm to people's well being.

In terms of a safeguarding issue, I can't see why "a professional" who visits regularly, can't just point it out and place demands on the Head and the school to rectify it, then come back and check. There is no need for these one word labels of a school. Ofsted has to go. And my experience of inspectors is that they mostly think they are superior beings who have control over us all. They usually arn't pleasant in my experience.

We await to hear the manifestos of both Conservative and Labour, in the General Election which will happen in the very near future. This seems like a good time for a well needed shake up of education. Will Labour in particular, scrap Ofsted and replace it with a more multi - professional arrangement, where professionals are attached to schools and visit regularly? They ought to.

Maybe I’m being naive, but I’m imagining a new system with the key aim that no school should get to the stage where it could be graded as “Inadequate”. Because barring a sudden catastrophe, regular and supportive monitoring would pick up most issues early and ensure they are resolved.

The safeguarding errors in question could have been quickly rectified. Often this information is in place but not in the specific right place. Genuinely, a minor admin error that could be rectified in the minute after it was spotted can be enough to fail on safeguarding. And fail on that and you fail overall, even if everything else is Outstanding.
In reality, if safeguarding is important, which it is, then it should not be being checked every 4-5 years! Safeguarding should be audited every year as part of a separate process that has a narrative report not a rating.
The stakes got ridiculously high when they started targeting stand alone trusts and local authority schools for inspection over MAT schools and the number that have since been forced into MATs due to inspection is v high. And belies the idea that OFSTED isn't political.