Polly Toynbee rightly highlights not only the impact of Ofsted’s “reign of fear” but also the many other negative legacies of Michael Gove and Nick Gibb (The Ruth Perry tragedy must mark the end of Ofsted’s reign of fear, 12 December). Teacher recruitment and retention have reached crisis proportions, and the answer is to not address this as a discrete issue but to recognise that it is the result of the pressures that schools have been placed under over the last 13 years, not least in their role as the last service standing for many families, given the cuts to children’s services.
If we accept Labour’s requirement that all policies must be funded, there is still much that could be done at virtually no cost, but that would indicate its understanding of the context and future intentions. Top of the list would be the abandonment of one-word Ofsted judgments. Others include saving the highly valued BTecs, scrapping the narrow Ebacc, reaccrediting the higher education institutions that have been blocked from training teachers, and pausing further academisation. I am sure readers could come up with more.
