One teacher's suicide should not lead to a loss of standards in education
Julia Waters, the sister of
His main offence? Pointing out that 'there was no suggestion' that the inspectors who assessed and downgraded Perry's school (
To Waters, this demonstrates merely that Ofsted is not 'making all the changes that are needed to prevent future deaths'. To her, the fact of her sister's suicide is proof that Ofsted needs to change. The Government agrees; it has acted on demands by
At first glance, this might seem reasonable. Modern society tends always, in response to any tragic event, to demand steps to ensure that it never happens again. But when you actually interrogate the underlying logic, it is absurd.
Samaritans strongly advise against blaming particular causes for a suicide. But the weaponisation of Perry's case by campaigners has totally ignored that principle, and any interrogation of it must do likewise.
Perry's response was deeply tragic. But it was not a rational one. It was certainly not predictable by Ofsted, nor is it the inspectorate's job to try and predict it. To blame Ofsted for a suicide is to grade it on an explicitly irrational curve.
Maybe this seems a callous line of argument, so let's boil it down to the fundamental question: should we downplay or even cover up for a poorly-performing school, in case one or more school leaders cannot cope with the shame of having their homework marked in public?
If your answer is yes, just abolish Ofsted – and along with it league tables, our participation in PISA, and any other visible yardstick by which schools can be measured against an independent standard.
This is the clear preference of the
But it would have dire consequences for school performance, as the
How many children being placed on a worse life path is it worth to mitigate against one possible suicide? If that calculation makes you squeamish, tough; that's the trade-off at the heart of this policy question.
The reflex to make sure any bad thing, however unique, never happens again creates a lot of bad policy. A sensible system is drawn up with an holistic understanding of trade-offs, takes reasonable precautions, and has a tolerance for black swans.
Yet if your policy is to respond to every tragic event with reform, the system's actual tolerance is zero, and it ends up lurching piecemeal towards measures which are wildly cost-inefficient at best and actively counter-productive to the system's core purpose at worse.
Sir Martyn is right. Beyond the personal tragedy of the Perry case, the critical questions about Ofsted are whether it did its job properly. If the inspectors conducted themselves professionally, and their assessment of Caversham Primary was accurate, then Ofsted did nothing wrong.
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