Ofsted boss rejects calls to pause school inspections

Stopping or preventing school inspections in England would be against “children’s best interests”, the chief inspector of Ofsted has said.

Amanda Spielman said they played an important role for schools and parents.

Unions have called for them to be paused, after head teacher Ruth Perry took her own life while waiting for a report that downgraded her school.

The government said Ofsted has a crucial role to play in upholding education standards.

Ms Spielman said the debate about reforming inspections to remove grades is a “legitimate one”, but added that “any changes to the current system would have to meet the needs both of parents and of government”.

Under the current system, schools are rated outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate after an inspection in England.

The gradings “give parents a simple and accessible summary of a school’s strengths and weaknesses” and are used to guide government decisions about when to intervene, Ms Spielman said.

But president of the National Association of Head Teachers Paul Gosling called for the “cliff-edge” grades to be scrapped, suggesting they are replaced with a list of what a school does well and what needs improving.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the one-word assessments do not give parents much information because schools are so complex.

He stopped short of calling on Ofsted to pause inspections but asked for an immediate review of its

“one-size-fits-all” strategy. He also pointed to recruitment struggles, funding pressures and pandemic legacy issues as factors putting school leaders under extra strain.

Lisa Telling, a head teacher in Reading who knew Ms Perry well, said she had been under “enormous stress” before her death as Ofsted’s rules restricted her from sharing the school’s new “inadequate” rating with colleagues.

She told BBC Breakfast that Ms Perry had to bear the “worlddestroying” verdict by herself for 54 days, saying head teachers live in fear of inspections as they can be “personally damaging”.

She added: “I know that when I had an inspection two-and-a-half weeks ago, I said to my daughter ‘if this inspection doesn’t go well, our lives might change, I might lose my job’”.

Ms Spielman said it would be wrong to say too much ahead of the coroner’s inquest but added that Ms Perry’s suicide “was met with great sadness at Ofsted”.

“Our school inspectors are all former or serving school leaders,” Ms Spielman said. “They understand the vital work head teachers do and the pressures they are under.”

Ms Spielman acknowledged inspections “can be challenging” but said inspectors always aimed to conduct them “with sensitivity as well as professionalism”.

But school improvement adviser Julie Price-Grimshaw said that was “definitely not the case”.

Speaking to 5Live Breakfast, she said many head teachers are getting “very ill, stressed and having breakdowns” as a result of inspections and “that’s not acceptable under any framework”.

Ms Price-Grimshaw, who used to be an Ofsted inspector herself, said it was “impossible for teachers and head teachers to raise standards if they’re feeling broken, demoralised, stressed and anxious”.

“I’m sure people don’t want their children taught by stressed and demoralised teachers,” she added.

Ms Spielman said Ofsted aimed “to make inspections as collaborative and constructive as we can” and would remain focused on improving how it worked with schools and “how inspections feel for school staff”.

She admitted it was a difficult time to be a head teacher, particularly since the pandemic, as absence was high, mental-health problems had increased, and “external support services are unable to meet increased demand”.

Source: BBC

Police officers missing as boat sinks in Lake Victoria

Three people including two police officers are missing after a boat capsized in Lake Victoria in Kenya.

The two and a revenue authority officer are said to have been part of a team of eight officers conducting a joint operation in the lake.

Their boat capsized at around midnight about 200m (660ft) from Mugabo beach in western Kenya, police are quoted as saying by local media.

Five were rescued and a search is under way for the missing officers.

Three firearms and ammunition that the missing officers had in possession are yet to be recovered, police said.

Rwanda warns of imminent ‘genocide’ in east DR Congo

Rwanda’s Foreign Affairs Minister Vincent Biruta has said that the country is concerned about an imminent “genocide” against Kinyarwandaspeaking civilians in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Addressing the National Consultative Forum of Political Organisations on Thursday, Mr Biruta blamed the international community for failing to act on escalating violence in eastern DR Congo, despite several reports and “evidence highlighting facts of possible genocide”.

“Recognising genocide goes hand in hand with the responsibility to prevent it from happening. The reason some international actors are hesitant about recognising a genocide being planned in DR Congo is because it comes with a responsibility to intervene and stop it,” Mr Biruta said.

“They are dodging that responsibility but we keep reminding them,” he added.

This comes as DR Congo continues to accuse Rwanda of supporting M23 rebels - in the decade-long conflict in the east DR Congo. Rwanda has repeatedly denied the claim.

Kigali also accuses DR Congo of backing the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, which includes alleged perpetrators of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

In December last year, Rwanda’s pro-government New Times website said that alleged hate speech and targeted killings of Tutsi and Kinyarwanda-speaking civilians in DR Congo could be the first pointer of likely genocide

.Quoting UN Special Adviser on Genocide Prevention Alice