When I think about OFSTED I sometimes wonder whether I’m suffering from Stockholm Syndrome…

“You’re quite good at this aren’t you? Keep going.”

That line from the besuited inspector to a skittish NQT in 1998 made all the difference.

I’d not been a stellar student and this was perhaps the first time that someone, someone in authority, had said I was good at something.

It motivated me to work hard for the next twenty years, marking books in the dark nursery as my baby daughter slept in her cot.

In 2007 I became the youngest Headteacher in the county.

In 2009, having conjured my struggling school’s first ever ‘Good’ OFSTED grade, I was asked to speak to new Headteachers at some LA training event. I still remember the worried glances between LA Officers when I offered my first piece of advice: ‘Remember – you are expendable’. I wasn’t being sensationalist. This is how it was/ is. I wasn’t feeling the least bit bitter about the system. I knew what it was and how it worked.

Having bet the farm once on my school getting out of dodge by the time the inspectors turned up, I did it again in 2011. Although this time the inspectors beat me to it and arrived before I started – with my great friend Phil (acting HT at the time) pulling off an incredible turn around for a school which only months earlier was at risk of Special Measures.

And that has been the pattern for the last 16 years: a spectre which arrives unannounced with the power to make you a superhero… or end your career in the space of 48 hours.

During my last Section 8 inspection in 2018, the inspector went rogue and started making all sorts of negative judgements based on the fact that we didn’t have a risk assessment on the wall in EYFS next to the water play. I asked her why (when we had this in a folder) having it on the wall would make the children any safer, and asked her to show me where in OFSTED guidance it stipulated that this was a ‘thing’.

When she kept pushing I remembered that Sean Hartford, OFSTED’s Deputy Director at the time, had told Headteachers’ to tweet him if an inspector did something odd.

I tweeted him asking about risk assessments for water play. 10 minutes later he DM’d me and asked for details.

20 minutes later the phone rang in the school office and an unnamed HMI asked to speak to the lead inspector.

30 minutes after the tweet, the lead inspector knocked on my office door and explained that they had ‘simply been expressing a personal opinion, not OFSTED policy…’

Like an awkward blind date which was going badly, the rest of the inspection was a tetchy affair. The school was comfortably ‘Good’ but we never got back on friendly terms (something inspectors and I had always been able to establish).

Both the schools I lead are currently due an inspection. With ropey reading progress in KS2, I’m twitchy about Blackhorse’s inspection. I’ve had countless external bods (some acting inspectors) crawl all over reading in particular and the school in general. All have said nice things. Neither school should fear an inspection.

But there is always that niggle in the back of your head. A niggle which worries about a rogue inspector who makes a snap judgement on some random mishap (a misinterpreted comment from a child, a snippet of a lesson…) and then looks for evidence to justify the Evidence Form’s initially negative slant.

‘Butter side up. Butter side down’ was how a fellow trainee inspector described the process. Once a narrative is established it can be hard to switch its course.

And yet, if you’d asked me a month or so ago whether OFSTED are a necessary evil, I would have agreed. I do believe they drive up standards.

For example, we as a profession asked for the wider curriculum to be more important – and now every school is running about sequencing learning in Art, DT, History… in a way which was largely absent in my first twenty years as a teacher.

Then a Headteacher died.

If you’re an inspector reading this, let that sit with you for a moment.

A Headteacher was so distraught by the inspection outcome that they decided to kill themselves. Moreover, as snippets of the inspection slip out, it appears that this wasn’t because the school was dreadful, but was possibly because some safeguarding paperwork wasn’t completed – resulting in an automatic fail.

This was a tragedy which should have had OFSTED’s leaders reeling – and maybe it did. I don’t blame the Lead Inspector – they must be dealing with the consequences at a personal level which will have surely impacted them greatly.

But in the wake of this tragedy, someone in OFSTED HQ had a draft report placed on their desk. They read this draft report, signed it off and published it (albeit fleetingly).

In the ‘School Context’ section, just above a statement about breakfast club, was a comment about school leadership having changed since the inspection as a result of ‘the death of the headteacher’.

Now I, like many, saw this section splashed across social media. The report then promptly disappeared from the OFSTED website. I confess that I haven’t read the full report so don’t know whether a more compassionate narrative was elsewhere.

But I’m led to believe that this was the only reference to the suicide of the headteacher.

And if, if that is true, then OFSTED, I cannot forgive you for that.

For a Headteacher to take their own life is a tragedy which should have made any organisation pause and reflect. Any organisation to search its soul and look deep into its values. Even if they eventually concluded that this was an isolated incident which wasn’t the ‘fault’ of the system, basic humanity would be the default expectation.

But… nothing.

The report vanished and all social media posts from OFSTED stopped. Before a pithy statement was issued.

Since then more empathetic statements have been made.

But the gap.

The time it took for his to happen let’s me tell myself a story (which may or may not be true) of an army of PR bods scrambling around to come up with a way to limit the self-inflicted damage which OFSTED has done to itself. And the real and tragic damage it did to Ruth. The response should have been immediate and authentic, not clinical and delayed.

In recent days OFSTED have offered to re-inspect schools which have failed as a result of a technical safeguarding breach (ie when systems are working but the paperwork is not). This makes complete sense.

Labour is apparently drawing up plans to do away with the single word judgement, with plans to replace it with a multi-judgement report card (similar to those used in some US states). OFSTED themselves have said they are happy to engage in a debate about this.

A serious examination of the inconsistencies between inspectors’ approaches also needs to be considered. My tale about the inspector and the reception water tray is entertaining, until you consider the real world consequences which could have unfolded had I not been experienced and bolshy enough to push back.

I hear tales of such inconsistencies all the time. From the inspector who allows a school to choose their deep dives and the children who are interviewed, to the inspector who insists on a particular subject being focused on. Who insists on 6 year olds being asked to explain ‘Fundamental British Values’ to a complete stranger in a suit, more used to interviewing 14 year olds.

This is where the high stakes come undone.

You see, I can accept the need for inspection. I can accept the scrutiny and the testing. I believe these are needed.

I think acting Headteachers should be inspectors. The alternative is a group of people who have no understanding of the practical pressures on schools. I will maybe consider re-training to be an inspector one day myself – I understand it’s purpose.

What I don’t understand is the need to destroy a career in the space of 48 hours. On some days you’ll visit my schools and conclude that they are outstanding. But schools are complex institutions and I genuinely fear that rogue inspector who is looking for a simple narrative which may be based on tenuous evidence. I know most inspectors are thorough and fair. But some aren’t.

And, Amanda, that is the problem you must solve.

And you must solve it quickly if OFSTED is to survive.