It’s Becoming ‘Impossible’ to Give Tough Messages, Says Former Ofsted Chief

The interests of adults in schools should not come before those of children and sometimes “difficult conversations have to happen,” the former Ofsted chief has said.
“Are we in a world where it is impossible to give a tough message, or if at all, if somebody who gives a tough message is assumed to be bad by reason of giving the message?
“I think it’s a really a dangerous place to head. I think we’ve got to get to a place where people can discuss explicitly, how do we best handle these situations?” the former head of the schools inspectorate said.
Ms. Spielman, who stepped down as head of Ofsted at the end of last year, made the comments during a wide-ranging interview in which she also defended Ofsted’s downgrading of Caversham Primary in Reading from “outstanding” to “inadequate” following an inspection in November 2022.
“So the thing it’s looking at is, are these people, is this institution getting it right for children? That’s what it has to report on,” she said.
Ms. Spielman said: “There are times when they have to give people really tough messages. And yet, unless the problems are made explicit and acknowledged, the right things can’t happen to move things on and … to get things to the place that they should be for children.”
“I absolutely did what I think was the right thing at a tremendously difficult time when it would have been very easy to say, ‘We got the inspection wrong.’ I couldn’t do that. I didn’t do that,” she said.
Berkshire Coroner Heidi Connor had noted in her report into Ms. Perry’s death that there had been “very little training” by Ofsted into school leader anxiety during inspections and raised concerns that there were no mechanisms to pause the inspection when Ms. Perry began to display anxiety.
Ms. Connor also found that Reading Borough Council, Ms. Perry’s employer, “clearly felt that Ofsted’s decision was wrong and unfair, but did not provide any comment on the draft report, despite asking for the opportunity to do so.”
The survey of more than 4,500 National Education Union (NEU) teacher members found that 62 percent feel the inspection system causes them mental ill-health and 59 percent say it affects their home life.
Rating the inspectorate’s performance, only 3 percent responded that they thought Ofsted acts as a “reliable and trusted arbiter of standards.”
One respondent to the poll said that Ofsted had “created toxic environments, resulting in damaging pressure on staff and ending the careers of excellent staff.”
Another, who had cried after speaking to an inspector after one Ofsted visit, said they were “absolutely petrified” that they would “say something wrong and let the school and my colleagues down.”
“I felt so stressed and overwhelmed by the process,” they added.
The data was released on the first day of the NEU’s annual conference in Bournemouth, at which teachers would vote on whether the teaching union should lobby parties ahead of the next election to endorse its campaign to “replace Ofsted.”
An Ofsted spokesman said the inspectorate had “already made several changes to inspection over the last year, focused on school leaders’ and staff welfare. But we have promised to go further to strengthen confidence in our work.”
Some 12 percent of teachers reported last year using or increasing their reliance on antidepressants with 23 percent saying they had increased their alcohol intake.
More than four in five (86 percent) said they believed their job had negatively affected their mental health, and 68 percent said their job had adversely affected their physical health.