Ofsted’s zealous overreach

Obviously it is not the fault of Ofsted that a headteacher, Ruth Perry, killed herself after her school, formerly rated ‘outstanding’, was downgraded to ‘inadequate’ by its inspectors. Suicide is, by definition, the decision of the person committing it. It is also true that second-rate schools and teaching unions detest inspections precisely because they keep them up to the mark. Nevertheless, Ofsted does need to think carefully about the impact of that word ‘inadequate’ when linked, as it was in the case of Ms Perry’s school, with another word, ‘safeguarding’. I saw what happened when the same charge was laid against Ampleforth College. ‘Safeguarding’ is a word that contains many things. In the Ampleforth case, for example, one of its alleged safeguarding failures was that the taps in one block were too hot. In Ms Perry’s school, the failure seems to have been about poor record-keeping. The trouble is that in the public and journalistic mind, a failure in safeguarding is seen as tantamount to saying that a school harbours child abusers. It is therefore devastating for a school and overrides in people’s minds all the good things that Ofsted might say about the school in question. In the case of Ampleforth, a fee-paying school, the ‘inadequate’ designation also meant that the Home Office could not issue visas to the foreign pupils who make up about a quarter of the school. In the case of both schools, some Ofsted accusations about sexualised behaviour were factually inaccurate and luridly expressed. Ofsted’s rigour is good, but its zealous overreach is bad. I am happy Ampleforth eventually got out of the valley of the shadow of death, but Ms Perry’s fate is a reminder of how accidental evil can befall.