Teachers will celebrate Mr Woodhead's departure. But they are wrong to do so

The news that Chris Woodhead, the chief inspector of schools, has decided to resign to become a journalist will make an awful lot of teachers happy.

The news that Chris Woodhead, the chief inspector of schools, has decided to resign to become a journalist will make an awful lot of teachers happy.

It must be admitted from the outset that Mr Woodhead's robust and, at times, over-abrasive style did not endear him to many in his profession. For most of his stint at Ofsted he was a convenient target for the unions to throw their blackboard rubbers at. He could be intemperate, as in his unprovoked and wrong attack on the subject matter offered by certain degree courses (golf-course management and pig farming were his chosen subjects). On his first day he wrote a tabloid newspaper article that carried the headline "Sack the useless teachers". His remarks about relationships between teachers and pupils were ill-judged and a distraction. He may well have gone too far and dented teachers' morale, always a fragile commodity. But, we would hope, the more thoughtful members of the profession would reflect on Mr Woodhead's work and recognise the good that he did.

Mr Woodhead's achievements certainly go some way beyond the judgement offered by David Blunkett, the Secretary of State for Education, who said: "Chris Woodhead has made a significant contribution to the Government's drive to raise school standards." That rather uncharitably understates what Mr Woodhead has managed to do over the past few years and fails to recognise how right he was on so many issues.

Fundamental to Mr Woodhead's work was the emphasis on standards. He and his teams of inspectors worked tirelessly through the school system to identify failure in unequivocal terms. It was uncomfortable for those involved. "Naming and shaming" bad schools and poor teachers was a rather brutal approach. True, some inspectors showed too little sensitivity. But before the arrival of Mr Woodhead few in education took seriously enough the need for accountability to parents and taxpayers. The improvements in exam performance over the last few years cannot be understood without appreciating the difference that Mr Woodhead and his inspectors made to competence, efficiency and effectiveness. As he himself put it, with typical toughness: "An element of threat is not necessarily a bad thing."

But it would be wrong to portray Mr Woodhead as some sort of single-minded scourge of the teachers. Where praise was justified, Ofsted could be lavish. Mr Woodhead was happy to make the case for higher pay for teachers whose performance justified it. Without paying good teachers well and encouraging them to stay in the classroom, few of the Government's reforms will be ultimately successful. Above all, Mr Woodhead began to change the whole ethos of our schools - refusing to accept failure or mediocrity, challenging teachers and pupils alike and opening up the whole debate about the quality and standard of Britain's schools, upon which our prosperity, the health of our civic society and our cultural vitality depends.

Of course, the Woodhead agenda didn't cover all that was wrong in education - the big issue of funding, for example, was ignored. And he was only part of the answer, alongside the policies of this Government and its predecessor. But Woodhead's name was synonymous with "standards". His replacement, Mike Tomlinson, will find him a tough act to follow.