Responding to the changes to school inspections and details of additional support for staff wellbeing announced by Ofsted and the government, Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“While these individual measures are sensible and somewhat helpful, they go nowhere near far enough in addressing the profession’s concerns. But for the ongoing campaigning by NAHT, our threat of legal action, and the bravery of Ruth Perry’s sister Julia Waters in speaking out, even these changes would not have happened.

“It has taken far too long for the government and Ofsted to announce this relatively modest set of measures and school leaders remain immensely frustrated at the lack of urgency and ambition being shown. NAHT continues to call for more fundamental reform of the inspection process.

“While the government insists on consigning schools to simplistic single word judgements, the system will remain fundamentally flawed and put unnecessary pressure on school leaders.

“The Department for Education has just announced record numbers of teachers leaving the profession, along with record numbers of unfilled vacancies. We are in the middle of a recruitment and retention crisis. We are seeing the consequences of what happens when you over-work, over-regulate and under-pay a profession. Neither the government or Ofsted are showing sufficient understanding of the problem or enough ambition to solve it.”