As a former Headteacher of an outstanding secondary school I am extremely dismayed by the way Ofsted is being used to drive through Government Dogma.
The Government make the decisions on how schools will be judged. The result is a contracting of the curriculum, loss of creative subjects, originality and a tick-box culture. It seems that the only criteria to be judged are the academic results. It has become teaching by numbers to a limited agenda. Each lesson has to follow a moribund format. There is the move to greater pass and failure. Who needs failure? What do we do with all our psychologically damaged failures? Surely we want all students to achieve – to reach their potential.
Good grief – education is so much more that that limited agenda. We are not just producing fodder for the economy. We were in the business of turning on brains, opening minds, creating awe and wonder, unleashing imagination, unleashing lateral thinking, teamwork and creativity. It is not about statistics.
Amanda Speilman has just been appointed. She is good with statistics. She has never taught in a school. She ran academies. She is a very clever businesswoman.
I can already sense the agenda. Does the woman have a compassionate heart? Does she care about qualities and skills? Creativity? Lateral thinking? Or is she in the business of pushing a narrow statistical analysis?
Looks to me like their putting a wolf in charge of the lambs.