Opinion: Head of Ofsted Interview

Sir Martyn Oliver, head of Ofsted is interviewed in The Sunday Times today in an article entitled “WFH parents ‘make children think school is optional’”. To use the modern parlance this could well be described as “ragebait” for the Voice For Learners parents. His core thesis is that the rise of work from home has driven a rise in absence from school and that this is a very bad thing which must be stamped out. Our view is that increasingly strict behavioural and attendance policies have made school intolerable for many children.

In practical terms this means that the new Ofsted inspection reports will include an evaluation on attendance. As it stands schools are under pressure on attendance already from the DfE and local authorities. So much so that in our experience schools will prioritise attendance over a child’s wellbeing and education. They will actively not provide work to do at home to try to force a child into school and they will actively encourage parents to bring clearly very distressed children into school.

Attendance is beguiling because it can be measured very easily, twice a day. This does not mean it is a good evaluation metric.

Oliver says “but you can’t deny that a child accessing other children, other adults and learning to socialise, is a clear benefit of schooling.” Yes, we can deny that! As Sartre said “Hell is other people”. For our children the sheer quantity of other children is often overwhelming, some of them have brilliant relationships with teachers as they seek to please but this can be at the cost of their social relationships with other children. Many experience bullying. Outside school they will never experience social systems like school again.

The article also talks about how DfE guidance says that children should go into school with “minor illnesses or mild anxiety”. The problem here is that schools define what “minor” and “mild” is, not the parents who know their children best.

Towards the end of the article Oliver says that schools will now be graded on inclusion, seemingly oblivious to the fact that all he has said previously goes directly against inclusion. Incidentally the Sunday Times links here to an article by professional contrarian Melanie Philips entitled “Let schools pursue excellence, not ‘equality’”.

In summary this article is enraging and disappointing. It shows that a key figure in the education system is utterly wedded to ideas that have been failing children for years and their aim is to double down on those ideas. There is little prospect for improvement unless they change.