‘Unfit for purpose’: Ofsted could face legal challenge from school leaders

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As anger mounts over headteacher’s suicide, group bids for judicial review into inconsistencies of rulings by watchdog

A school leader from a primary in north-west England, who used to be a lawyer and is currently leading the campaign, told theThe leader, who is keen to protect her school by remaining anonymous at this stage, added: “Schools are left for years and years, downgraded within a few hours, and then left to pick up the pieces with no advice or support. Ofsted is simply no longer fit for purpose.”

Julie Price Grimshaw, a former Ofsted inspector who now advises schools on how to improve and has done extensive research looking at past Ofsted reports, said that “the vast majority” of complaints about unfair inspections and judgments are not upheld, and Ofsted refuses most requests for a reinspection.Schools often tell her consultancy about inspectors who were “just nasty”, she says. “One inspector has been known to put their hand in front of a teacher’s face and ask them to stop talking.

Many children are nervous when talking to adults they don’t know, according to former Ofsted inspector Julie Price Grimshaw.“She said: ‘So girls, tell me five things about the Romans,’” Price Grimshaw recalled. “One girl started shaking and the other couldn’t say anything. She claimed this was evidence that the teaching in the lesson wasn’t working.”

The inspectors were the first outsiders to come into the school since Covid had broken out, and the children were “really twitchy”. The Covid, staff and pupil absence was high, and families were “really struggling”. Many younger children had been left to their own devices by submerged parents during the lockdowns.

“She was astounded that he didn’t know what she meant. She flagged it as a big issue. I looked at her thinking: ‘He’s four – what planet are you on?’”

 

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