On Sunday, the head of Ofsted admitted there was a “culture of fear” around school inspections in England. But in her first interview since the tragic death of Ruth Perry, who was the headteacher of Caversham Primary School in Berkshire, Amanda Spielman, chief inspector of schools, told BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg only a “tiny proportion of schools” were rated inadequate and most schools find inspections to be a “positive and affirming” experience.
It is clear from the national conversation in recent weeks that this rosy picture is not one that the majority of headteachers, teaching staff, parents and unions would recognise.
And what the majority of parents do not seem to know is that this is not just about a school being branded with a label of inadequate when it is doing well in most areas, but if the school is not already an academy, that inadequate judgement will trigger a process of forced academisation.
Parents and carers of students at the iconic and popular King Edward VII School (KES) in Sheffield, the last local authority run secondary in the city, learnt this to our cost in January 2023 when Ofsted downgraded the school from good to inadequate on the basis of one area – safeguarding and leadership.
The school had already tried to appeal, telling parents in a letter they were unclear how the judgement had been reached. They asked for reinspection but were refused. The Ofsted report went through several drafts before we saw the final one, four months after the original one-and-a-half-day inspection in September 2022.
Read the full piece in Yorkshire Bylines here.
Stop the academisation of King Edward VII School 