Education leaders in Southampton are today (Mon 22 Jan) joining
together to sign up to a new initiative aimed at providing
support for schools and responsible bodies to help each other
through the ‘strains of Ofsted inspections.’
Named after Caversham Primary, the school that came tragically
into the media last year when its head, Ruth Perry, took her own
life following an Ofsted inspection, the ‘Caversham Covenant’ is
a public declaration of how all parties can all work together to
support each other.
Southampton City Council will meet school leaders from local
maintained schools, Trusts and unions, at an event today, to
physically sign the document, before it is shared with all
schools in the area.
This comes on the day Ofsted inspections resume nationally,
following a brief pause announced at the start of the year by the
new Chief Inspector to allow for improved training for inspectors
in dealing with mental health and wellbeing concerns in school
staff during inspection.
The Covenant consists of a series of promises and pacts,
including:
- A supervision and support offer for all heads, with a 'buddy'
arrangement in place for those who are in the Ofsted ‘window', so
that heads know there is someone they can talk to before, during
and after inspection,
- A directory of staff with Ofsted experience that can be
called on in the event of concerns about the conduct of an
inspection arising whilst the inspection team are still on site,
- Recognition that school improvement work is a 'broad church',
encompassing peer review, working with specialists, and
negotiation between Trusts and the Local Authority, not just a
dress rehearsal for Ofsted,
- And an understanding that for negative Ofsted inspections,
the default solution is to support the head and current
leadership team to address the issues causing concern.
NAHT Regional Head for South Central, Elizabeth Salisbury, said:
“This is an admirable and inspiring move by local education
leaders in Southampton, to come together and do what they can to
ease some of the damaging strain Ofsted inspection can put on a
school and school’s head teacher and leadership team. While we
have at the start of this year heard some encouraging words
promising change from the new Chief Inspector nationally, there
are still local schools in the Ofsted ‘window’ in Southampton who
are in need of support now. It is great to see education
leaders stepping up to help themselves and working with local
authorities and elected officials to improve the situation as
best they can.”
The parties involved in the scheme are: Aspire Community trust,
Bridge Education Trust, Reach Co-operative Trust, Southampton
Co-operative Learning Trust, Southampton Local Authority,
Southampton Council, school leaders’ union NAHT, Southampton NEU,
Southampton NASUWT, Primary Heads Conference, and SEF (the
Southampton secondary heads group).
