England’s schools have reached crisis point, with DfE policies and Ofsted’s inspection methods the culprit

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'We urgently need a new inspectorate that trusts schools and teachers' (Getty/iStock)

With reference to your report on four in five schools losing their “outstanding” grade on re-inspection, Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman predictably responds that Ofsted must inspect more frequently, rather than critically interrogating the inspection regime itself. Far from being an objective observer, Ofsted’s very existence and ideology actively create much of what it then has the gall to criticise.

Under its low-trust surveillance regime and the fear-driven survival mentality that it generates, Ofsted drives schools into outcomes-driven “teaching to the test” and ticking all the unspeakably time and resources-consuming institutional boxes beloved of bean-counter bureaucrats, in order to meet its insultingly simplistic grading system – only then for schools to be criticised by Ofsted for doing just this!

Ofsted’s factory-farm grading system depends on endless paperwork, and on a Gradgrind ideology privileging data and record-keeping over true educational quality and children’s well-being – and it has to go. Over 50 professional academic educators and influential spokespersons, including Dr Rowan Williams, Sir Tim Brighouse and 15 university professors of education, have recently sent an open letter to Amanda Spielman expressing dismay at current practices, and proposing fundamental changes to how our schools are supported.

England’s schools have reached crisis point, with DfE policies and Ofsted’s inspection methods the culprit. We urgently need a new inspectorate that trusts schools and teachers, drops the obsession with scores, and works cooperatively and constructively with schools to promote creativity and inspiration in our young people, instead of a draconian grading system that, at worst, creates a “world class” pedagogical desert strewn with stressed-out victims of its inhuman practices.

Dr Richard House and Richard Brinton​
Stroud, Gloucestershire

Peace with North Korea?

Let's admit that despite all that has and is being said about the two leaders personally by the international media, the turn of events at the meeting between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un at the Demilitarised Zone is definitely a godsend. While both leaders crossing the border on each side and having a warm and cordial chat during this historic encounter might seem like nothing much at face value, the symbolism alone sees the seeds of one persisting international conflict uprooted, one big dumb war probably now avoided altogether, one potential major nuclear flashpoint defused off the face of the Earth.

Hussein Lumumba Amin​
Address supplied

In support of Prince Charles

Homeopathy is and has been practised worldwide from Europe to deepest India. Travel to those countries: you will see evidence wherever you go. Are all those people who have used and benefitted from homeopathy gullible and misled?

Homeopathic remedies do not have side effects; the same cannot be said of allopathic drugs. Take hormone replacement therapy (HRT). What would you prefer: to be one in a thousand who may have a stroke or heart attack, or try alternative or complimentary therapies? Or would you prefer the plethora of drugs for mental health problems which do have side effects and even more dangerous side effects when discontinued too quickly – when there is an alternative approach that includes lifestyle choices such as diet and exercise, homeopathic remedies, talking therapy and more.

Fact – scientists’ opinions change with time. Take the example of sugar. Professor John Yudkin’s career was trashed as other scientists declared him mistaken and declared fats the problem; sadly Professor Yudkin died before his approach was declared correct.

I would ask Rivkah Brown – do you really think that the royal family would have used homeopathy for so many years if it was not effective?

So, let us celebrate a brave intelligent man who can think outside of the box. Who can open his mind to new and different ways of thinking and be grateful that such a man will one day be our king.

Alison de Ledesma​
Address supplied

Stalemate

There's another reason Westminster won't believe the EU's refusal to reopen negotiations. Parliament has rejected the deal several times. The EU must bear some responsibility for its tough negotiating stance that has produced an unworkable solution. It beggars belief that, in the face of the obvious failure of the agreement, they would really refuse to move. So, naturally people don't believe it.

David Maynes​
London

A new kind of ruler

Michael Clarke (Letters) may have a point about previous changes of prime minister without a personal mandate.

However, until Gordon Brown and Theresa May, the examples he cites, came before the days of the presidential prime minister. When the prime ministerial role came to be presented as equivalent to that of an elected president, whose personal values and policies were deemed to be supreme and imposed on cabinet, parliament and country. In recent decades occupants of the post manifestly felt this was the natural order of things, as statements and actions by Thatcher, Blair and May clearly demonstrated.

The rules of the game have been changed. What happened to the notion of 'primus inter pares' in recent decades?

I wonder why the press went along with this, even to the extent of referring to the spouse of the prime minister as 'first lady' or 'first gentleman'. Should not all contenders for head of government remember that they obtain their position through a very indirect democratic route?

Dr Ronald Hill
Ashbourne