It was a tough read last night on Twitter (it will always be that!) if you check out @Edmund_B_W / @amyrwalker / @@AnnaFazack1
reading through the updates from Ruth Perry's inquest, it is just so very, very sad.
Ruth Perry submitted a challenge but her LA withdrew it?!?!?! Read 'Edmund_B_W account of this, The problem is that resolving the issues, it is truly unbelievable.
Read through Amy's account of the evidence that Ofsted's National Director of Education was giving Morning, I'm at Berkshire Coroners' Court
It is time for change, Ruth Perry's sad death isn't the only one linked to Ofsted, if you Google there are others.
Head teacher killed himself before inspection — http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/7135924.stm
Headteacher killed herself after Ofsted downgrade, inquest hears - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/20/headteacher-killed-herself-after-ofsted-downgrade-inquest
On 16 June 2011 Channel 4 news ran a story 'Teacher Suicide Rates Rise by 80 Percent' https://www.channel4.com/news/teachers-suicide-rates-double-in-a-year
That was in 2011, if you access the information that is available from the Office of National Statistics, do a search on Suicide by Occupation - Suicide by Occupation England and Wales - 2011-2021, if you filter down table 2 to Teaching and educational professionals - you can see the data across the page in 2021 there were 36 Males and 29 Females that committed suicide. It is just so sad, now we can't link those directly to Ofsted, because the data doesn't tell us that but what the data does tell us is that these people who worked in education for whatever reason decided that they had no other way, and that is too sad.
There has to be another way! Change has to come, make the whole system better.
We need to make sure that lessons are learned from this, that change is driven by those lessons, that there is a real shake up. Currently the system is very flawed, it isn't fit for purpose, it doesn't do what it should do. The system that allows schools to go 5/10/15 years between inspections isn't ensuring that safeguarding practices in school are robust and do what they should do, it isn't ensuring that standards are maintained, there has to be a better way. Something that does ensure that robust safeguarding is in place, that standards are in place but that doesn't put the kind of pressure that heads, leadership and staff in general are under, in this current system. It has to change #ForRuthPerry.