On Friday 21 April 2023, NAHT was asked to help share a statement from Prof Julia Waters with the media, on behalf of Ruth Perry's family, responding to a statement by Ofsted on calls for inspection reform.

That statement is as follows:

“I have heard many assurances from the Chief Inspector for Schools and the Secretary of State for Education that their thoughts are with Ruth’s family. But we have yet to be contacted by either. Not only that, but neither Ofsted nor the Department for Education has yet suggested anything like a meaningful response to the growing calls for reform. 

“My sister’s death demonstrates the tragically high stakes, and yet Ofsted has so far done nothing.

“This latest response from the Chief Inspector for Schools is yet again totally insensitive to the situation and deaf to the urgency of the calls for change.

“Ofsted has marked its own homework and is telling us that everything is under control. I think many people would score Ofsted’s current system as “requires improvement” and their response to calls for reform as “totally inadequate”.

“It is not acceptable to continue to defend the indefensible in this way. If Ofsted will not do it, we ask education Secretary Gillian Keegan immediately to order a pause in all upcoming Ofsted inspections. We ask her to commission a review into what went wrong with the Ofsted inspection at Caversham Primary School and to learn the lessons. And we ask for a thorough, independent review of the Ofsted framework, structures and culture, to ensure that the wellbeing of the staff in schools, as well as of children, is considered more carefully. 

“Children should always be the priority, as they were for Ruth. But children are made more vulnerable to harm, not less, when teachers are worried more about the threats of Ofsted than about what’s genuinely best for their pupils.”