Pressure mounts on Ofsted amid outcry after death of headteacher
"Ruth Perry’s death a ‘direct result of pressure’ from report by England’s education watchdog, says family" [Guardian]

Ofsted started as a Tory confection for judging schools. Teams of "inspectors," many of whom had never been in a classroom and/or who had been given just a couple of days' training, descended at short notice on schools to interrogate staff and children, "observe" lessons, look at box-ticking test and exam results (taking no account whatsoever of the social background of the school) and produce a report that was highly-judgemental and completely unsupportive. Anyone could read the reports but most people would rely on headline single-word summaries such as "satisfactory" or "inadequate." The Ofsted teams neither gave any support to teachers nor were in any way qualified to do so. Ofsted has evolved in in its methods and policies since those beginnings but remains highly arbitrary and judgemental.

A proper inspection regime would identify weaknesses and have teams of experienced and supportive educationists to help schools to improve. When I worked in London, and, to begin with, in Devon, we had teams of experienced, successful senior teachers, trained in specific subject areas, who would come into schools, see what we were up to and show us how to do it better. It wasn't perfect and there wasn't enough of it but it was at least the basis of what a good supporting inspectorate should be.

Instead of that we have teams of highly-paid people whose only aim is to put the screws on teachers. The upshot is headteachers, worried about their reputation, putting more and more pressure on their classroom teachers, who are compelled to use up tons of energy to produce mountains of paperwork and spend hours every night and at weekends close-marking work and producing highly-detailed lesson plans and worksheets, following a content-stuffed curriculum which goes a long way towards turning both the teachers and the pupils into automatons. No wonder the best teachers leave in droves and that mental ill-health is rife. I can only hope that this latest tragic case will be a turning point. Ofsted is not fit for purpose, never has been, has been found not to be so more than once and needs to be scrapped.

End of rant by bloke who has both experienced Ofsted and who knows several inspectors who know that they will always get a piece of my mind, as much as I love them dearly!