Powell wants ‘more supportive and understanding’ school accountability system

The education secretary wants the school accountability system to be “much more supportive and understanding” of the job headteachers do, amid concerns about the pressure of Ofsted inspections.

The schools watchdog overhauled its inspection framework last year after a coroner ruled in 2023 that an inspection contributed to the suicide of Caversham Primary School headteacher Ruth Perry.

But, despite revisions including mental health training for inspectors, the removal of single-phrase headline grades and the introduction of school “report cards”, concerns about the pressure that inspections place on school leaders remain.

Perry’s sister Julia Waters said she had heard from 12 headteachers inspected under the new framework who had been left feeling suicidal by the experience.

Inspections ‘should support heads’

Responding on Wednesday, Lucy Powell told LBC that she took teacher and leader wellbeing “incredibly seriously”.

“There’s nothing that is more concerning to me as education secretary than the idea that our accountability regime in this country would lead to a headteacher to taking their own life. It’s just absolutely awful and that is not at all what we should be about, the kind of culture and atmosphere that that that is created here.

“So, I take incredibly seriously teacher, headteacher wellbeing and yes, of course we need an accountability structure and regime to continue school improvement.

“But I want to see one that that is much more kind of supportive and understanding of the great jobs that the majority, in fact, you know, almost all headteachers are doing around the country and support them with that.”

Powell is due to meet Perry’s family next week. She said she would continue to work with headteachers and others “to make sure that we get this Ofsted framework, but also the culture, and the whole regime, right”.

The Department for Education declined to expand on Powell’s comments, and what they might mean for the inspectorate.

Wellbeing ‘matters enormously’

Ofsted’s chief inspector Martyn Oliver said headteacher wellbeing “matters enormously” to him, and that Ofsted “take[s] all feedback seriously”.

Oliver added: “Our first responsibility is to the education and welfare of children, and that sometimes means we have to deliver difficult judgments when standards fall short. We inspect against the standards that the government – and parents – expect schools to deliver to.

“But, as a former headteacher myself, the wellbeing of school leaders matters enormously to me.”

Oliver said that since joining Ofsted, he had made “significant changes to the inspection framework specifically to address concerns about wellbeing”.

Every inspector now completes mental health training “so they can recognise and respond sensitively to signs of distress”.

“Many school leaders have told us that inspections now feel more collaborative and constructive as a result of these reforms, and that’s encouraging,” he said. “But we take all feedback seriously and we will continue to listen.”

Interim review due soon

Ofsted has commissioned an independent review of its new framework, which is being carried out by IFF Research. Full findings are due to be published next year, but preliminary findings are due to be available this autumn.

An independent wellbeing review published at the same time as the draft inspection framework warned the new regime would create more anxiety for leaders, whose stress levels were already “concerningly high”.

Meanwhile an independent survey of 100 leaders who have been inspected under the revamped framework recently found they were “overwhelmingly negative” about Ofsted checks.

Leaders have told Schools Week that the framework feels “more collaborative” than it did previously but have described inspections as “brutal” and “gruelling”.

One head revealed how Ofsted failed to defer an inspection of her small school during her cancer treatment, while another spoke in May about how a visit to his school reduced him to tears.

The IFF research is expected to provide the broadest look so far at how new inspections are going.

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