The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
News Keegan: I would have punched rude Ofsted inspectors
Education Secretary tells head teachers she was shocked by inspectors’ behaviour in schools
GILLIAN KEEGAN has said she would have punched rude Ofsted inspectors who visited a school in her constituency if she had been a teacher there.
The Education Secretary told a head teachers’ conference yesterday that she had spoken to teachers at the school in Chichester, Sussex, after an inspection.
“They told me how their Ofsted experience had gone and I was shocked,” she told the Association of School and College Leaders conference in Lliverpool.
“I was actually shocked. I thought, God, if I had met these people, I would probably have punched them. They were really rude. I mean you expect people to be rude to you when you’re a politician, you kind of sign up for that.
“But when you are kind of trying to run a school and educate children and change lives, you don’t expect somebody to come in and not be respectful.”
Responding to her comments, Sir Martyn Oliver, Ofsted’s chief inspector, called for a “calming” of tensions.
He said: “I am much more interested in a fresh start and calming down tensions. That’s in far better interests for the children and the professionals in the country going forward. I think people should act with professionalism, courtesy, empathy and respect on both sides.” Sir Martyn has been seeking to reset the relationship between Ofsted and teachers after the death of Ruth Perry, a primary school head who took her own life last year after a poor Ofsted rating.
A Berkshire coroner found in December that an Ofsted inspection of Caversham Primary School in Reading in November 2022 contributed to Ms Perry’s suicide. Heidi Connor said the inspection was at times “rude and intimidating” and that this “likely had an effect on Ruth’s ability to deal fully with the inspection process”.
Mrs Keegan sought to charm school leaders yesterday, a year after she shunned their last conference amid threats of teacher strikes over pay. She credited head teachers for rising standards in schools and pitched herself as “more a businesswoman than a politician”, referring to her 30-year career in business, starting as an apprentice at a car factory in Liverpool.
She told the head teachers: “The most important thing is the people in your organisation, they are the only thing that really matters, getting good people and retaining good professionals, continuing developing good people, listening and respecting good people.”
Mike Short, head of education at Unison, said: “Clearly there’s much that can and should be improved in the way Ofsted inspections are carried out. But to suggest punching people is an appropriate reaction is not becoming of a government minister.”
The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.