Teach Secondary - Issue 13.2

At the start of January 2024, it was announced that Ofsted would be suspending its inspections (although not in early years settings, for reasons unclear), pending completion of mental health training for its inspectors. This move followed the high profile and tragic death last year of Ruth Perry – a headteacher whose suicide was deemed by senior coroner Heidi Connor to be at least in part the result of a negative Ofsted ruling her primary school had received. Systemic issues Inspectors attended a half day online mental health seminar later that month, which included awareness training provided by Mental Health First Aid England. Inspections then resumed before the month was out, alongside what was – rather condescendingly – dubbed the ‘Big Listen’, whereby Ofsted sought feedback from educators and parents on how it could improve. Look, I’m all for more people receiving mental health first aid training. Indeed, I’m the co-founder of a campaign called Where’s Your Head At (wheresyourheadat.org ), which calls for parity between mental health and physical first aid provision within all workplaces. Where correctly applied, I have no doubt that the skills delegates learn on such courses have the power to save lives. And yet, I can’t help but feel that there’s been more than a hint of gimmickry surrounding this exercise, coinciding as it did with the arrival of new HMCI, Sir Martyn Oliver. And it’s not just me – NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede told The Guardian , “ Ofsted is prioritising fanfare for the new chief inspector over the wellbeing of school staff. ” It’s all infuriatingly symptomatic of the ‘ firefight the symptom, rather than address the cause ’ strategy I’ve often observed when organisations attempt to tackle mental health concerns. In her report, Heidi Connor noted that Ofsted’s role in Perry’s death couldn’t be attributed to the actions of any one individual inspector – which would suggest that the issues involved were systemic, rather than interpersonal. The real problem is the way in which Ofsted operates. No amount of training inspectors in spotting symptoms of mental ill health among staff during visits (however sensible this is, generally) will manage to address that. Punitive ineffectuality To anyone working in education, this will come as no surprise. Since Michael Gove’s sweeping reforms starting in 2010, Ofsted has become ever more punitive, yet less effective in fulfilling the role for which it was ostensibly created – namely holding schools to account in a transparent way. Instead, it’s helped contribute to a worsening of staff morale and wellbeing across the teaching profession. Whilst researching this column, I invited school staff to contact me anonymously if Ofsted had ever negatively impacted their mental health. I was inundated with responses. Staff consistently cited the same concerns, namely: • The length of time leading up to possible inspections, causing them to hang over schools like a dark cloud, sometimes for up to months on end • SLTs making unreasonable demands in the run-up to inspections, amid insistences that ‘ Ofsted will be looking for this ’ • No one knowing if such demands are legitimate, given the inspection framework’s lack of consistency. The same actions earning praise in one school can be overlooked or even criticised in another. • A persistent sense that that inspectors are there to ‘catch teachers out’, rather than help them improve. • A teacher’s entire job being summed up in a one-word grading, with all the high stakes that accompany that (Ruth Perry was reportedly worried about the impact of her school’s Ofsted rating on house prices in the local area). One school governor additionally told me that inspectors had failed to take into account the extra pressures schools faced as a result of the near total decimation of external social and health services in some local areas, as well as COVID. In light of all this, as former Ofsted Inspector Julie Price-Grimshaw told me on my LBC show, “ Having a smiling assassin isn’t going to make a difference. ” In the wake of Ruth Perry’s death, Ofsted has publicly declared its intention to carry out school inspections differently – yet it seems far from clear whether the regulator has actually learned the right lessons… Natasha Devon Natasha Devon is a writer, broadcaster and campaigner on issues relating to education and mental health; to find out more, visit natashadevon.com or follow @_NatashaDevon 25 teachwire.net/secondary S C H O O L O F T H O U G H T