Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s chief inspector when headteacher Ruth Perry took her own life after a bruising inspection, is poised to join the House of Lords after being nominated by the Conservatives, the Observer can reveal.
Spielman, who earlier this month launched what was widely seen as an overtly political attack on Labour’s schools bill, is one of several names on former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s list, due to be put forward for King Charles’s approval as part of the annual birthday honours. Her nomination was met with outrage by Perry’s family, while school leaders described it as “obscene” and “an insult to every teacher in the country”.
Perry took her own life in January 2023, after an Ofsted inspection that downgraded her school, Caversham primary in Reading, to the lowest rating of inadequate.
After news of Perry’s death first broke, Spielman angered schools by taking a week to say publicly that she was “deeply sorry” for the family’s loss and resisting calls to pause inspections. A coroner ruled that the inspection, at times “rude and intimidating”, contributed to the headteacher’s death, and issued an extraordinary prevention of future deaths report calling for urgent changes to inspections, including training for inspectors on responding to distress. Spielman, however, said in interviews last year that her organisation made no errors during the inspection.
Prof Julia Waters, Perry’s sister, said this weekend: “Amanda Spielman’s legacy is indelibly associated with my sister’s terrible, preventable death – and with defending the unaccountable, inhumane system that led to her death.”
She added: “That is not the kind of record that should be rewarded with a place in the House of Lords.”
Andrew Morrish – a former headteacher and Ofsted inspector whose mental health helpline for headteachers, Headrest, has taken “numerous” calls from school leaders who say they have been pushed to the brink by inspections – said it was “obscene” for the Conservatives to give Spielman a peerage.
“It shows pure contempt for the sector and for Ruth Perry’s family,” he said. Headrest intends to launch a public petition against the nomination.
Spielman angered the government by declaring recently that Labour’s children’s wellbeing and schools bill was “very likely” to make education in England worse, and accused Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, of being in thrall to the unions.
No 10 issued a stinging rebuke criticising Spielman’s record at Ofsted. A spokesperson for the prime minister said: “Amanda Spielman should spend less time criticising the reforms this government is bringing and more time reflecting on her failure at Ofsted and on a teaching profession that entirely lost confidence in her as chief inspector.”
But Spielman, who led Ofsted from 2017 to 2023, was admired by a succession of Conservative education secretaries including Gillian Keegan, who praised her for “championing” the curriculum. The new framework she brought in for inspections focused more on drilling down into the “substance” of what was being taught – a narrative that chimed with Michael Gove’s frequent references to academic “rigour”.
However, small primary schools in particular struggled to cope with inspectors’ “deep dives” into four or five different subjects, and teachers complained that judging a school by asking randomly chosen groups of children “pop quiz” questions about what they had learned was subjective and often unfair.
Spielman commissioned a high profile review into sexual harassment and abuse in schools after thousands of young people posted their stories on the Everyone’s Invited website in 2021. Ofsted found children no longer bothered reporting incidents because they had become so common. But Conservative MP Maria Miller condemned Ofsted for failing to act to safeguard children years before.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “Amanda Spielman’s appointment to the House of Lords cannot be on the basis of having made any positive contribution to education. Her impact was entirely negative.”
He added: “She was blind to the failings of Ofsted, the organisation she headed, which was deemed by a coroner to have contributed to Ruth Perry’s death, and which has certainly driven the retention crisis we have in schools.”
Sean Lang, a historian and the chair of governors at Queen Emma primary school in Cambridge, which successfully challenged what they described as a “brutal” inspection during Spielman’s tenure, said: “To give an honour to that woman is a deliberate insult to every teacher in the country.”
A Conservative party spokesperson said: “It would be unfair to comment on whether specific individuals have or have not been nominated or vetted for any honour or dignity. We do not comment on speculation or purported leaks.”
