To: Nicky Morgan Education Secretary
Keep Ofsted About Supporting Children's Care and Education!
Listen to the concerns of your Educational Select Committee regarding the Appointment of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills, and keep the role about all the aspects of children's education and care and not appoint a secondary academies specialist.
Why is this important?
I'm concerned about the candidate Amanda Speilmans experience and business interests in Academies and Qualifications is not wide enough to support, care or protect all the different aspects of Ofsteds remit.
The Education Select Comittee had this to say amongst other concerns :
"While Ms Spielman, through her work at ARK and Ofqual, has gained experience of secondary education, she did not convince us that she had a clear understanding of the other aspects of this complex role, such as:
early years;
primary education;
children’s services;
child protection;
looked-after children;
special educational needs;
further education; and
the educational support role for which local authorities are inspected.
We did not leave the session feeling that she was prepared for the vast scope and complexity of this important role.
Notwithstanding our views on the candidate, we have been concerned for some time about the lack of expertise on children’s services amongst Ofsted’s senior management, particularly as Ofsted does not currently have a permanent director of children’s social care. Ofsted’s social care work is currently overshadowed by that on education. In context of recent high profile failures in children’s services over recent years, it deserves a higher profile and is an issue on which strong leadership from Ofsted is needed."
These are important recommendations and should not be discounted!!!
