I recently attended the launch event for a book written by Peter Hughes, the chief executive of the Mossbourne Federation.

The title, Outstanding School Leadership, struck me as particularly relevant in the current climate, in which school leaders are doing everything they can to lead their schools as best as possible and yet are battling issues on numerous fronts.

The rise in mental health issues, behaviour problems and attendance issues in schools as a result of the pandemic has been well documented - and coincided with stagnant funding and the decimation of external support that schools can access.

All of this has made life harder and I feel lucky it was never an environment I experienced as a headteacher.

Call to action

Yet external pressures from Ofsted have only continued to increase and, as tragic events have made clear with the death of Ruth Perry, have now gone far beyond what constitutes healthy and necessary accountability.

I resigned from Ofsted some time ago as I felt that the organisation had lost direction.

I’d joined when there was a drive for recruitment among headteachers who understood the challenges of running schools. This was to bring empathy and understanding to the inspection process.

However, changes to the framework meant that suddenly the organisation was recruiting many teachers with scant leadership experience and limited emotional intelligence.

Strong and experienced HMI whom I had admired had left the organisation and the leadership from the top was weak.

Let us hope the coroner’s report is a spur for real, meaningful and substantive change in how our inspectorate operates.

In the meantime, leaders will have to continue leading their schools and aiming to be outstanding as they do so - not in the way Ofsted means it, but as they see it for themselves, their staff and, most importantly, their pupils.

How to lead a school

So how can leaders do this in such trying times?

Well, returning to the book launch I mentioned, I was struck by what seemed to be a universal theme that Peter and his various co-authors touched on throughout - the importance of empathy and honest communication.

While there was lots of useful, practical and sensible guidance about leadership development, it was the focus on the importance of leaders being authentic and honest, of being consistent, clear, respectful and having high emotional intelligence, that shone through as what truly matters.

Tes doesn’t really do book reviews any more (and the last time I wrote about an education book, I recommended that teachers save their money and buy new pencils instead).

This time, though, in an era where school leadership has never been so tough, I would be more than happy to recommend Peter’s book.

What’s more, perhaps someone could lend Ofsted a copy when they’ve finished it. The organisation might learn something.

Dame Joan McVittie was a former headteacher at a school in London, is past president of the Association of School and College Leaders, a trustee of The National College and a retired inspector