A legal campaign to launch a judicial review into Ofsted’s inspection framework for schools following the death of headteacher Ruth Perry has reached its first landmark.
The Fair Judgement campaign has crowdfunded more than £45,000 and has now engaged Catherine Callaghan KC, a leading barrister who specialises in employment and regulatory law, civil liberties and human rights, to prepare a challenge of Ofsted’s inspection system.
The campaign, led by a former Ofsted inspector, says its goal is to bring about a judicial review of the current Ofsted framework, which it says “generates unbalanced, unfair and seriously misleading reports”.
It is also in discussion with two other groups that are considering judicial reviews against Ofsted, including the NAHT school leaders’ union.
The campaign has been launched in response to the death of the Berkshire primary headteacher Ruth Perry.
Her family has said she took her own life in January while awaiting an inspection report that downgraded her school Caversham Primary, in Reading, from “outstanding” to “inadequate”.
The Fair Judgement campaign is being coordinated by John Bald, a former language teacher and the vice-president of the Conservative Education Society, who worked for Ofsted until 2006.
He said the campaign is actively cooperating with other groups and organisations including the NAHT - which is considering launching its own judicial review against Ofsted - and a separate campaign seeking a review to overturn a judgement of a primary school in Cambridge.
The Fair Judgement campaign has been launched following concerns over Ofsted’s use of limiting judgements on safeguarding.
Ofsted inspectors check whether safeguarding is effective at a school. If it is found to be ineffective, the watchdog is likely to rate the school’s leadership and management and its overall inspection grade as “inadequate”.
However, there are concerns about the reliability of downgrading a school on this basis when other aspects of the school have been found to be “good”.
Mr Bald has said inspectors spend too little time in a school to be able to corroborate whether an incident was an isolated event or part of a pattern.
He said the campaign was “hopeful” for changes to the inspection process following the recent meeting between Ms Perry’s sister, Professor Julia Waters, and education secretary Gillian Keegan.
He said: “We do need to hear exactly what secretary of state will say. But we are determined not to give up until we are sure that headteachers and their colleagues and families will no longer have to live in fear.”
The Fair Judgement case is being launched on the basis that where schools believe that Ofsted has acted “unlawfully, irrationally or with procedural impropriety”, they can consider bringing court proceedings for judicial review of the inspection process, report and judgement.
Permission must first be obtained from the court in order to bring judicial review proceedings, and the time limit for issuing a claim is promptly and in any event within three months.
Parents, staff and friends have launched a campaign to raise £120,000 to challenge Ofsted’s “inadequate” rating of the Queen Emma Primary School in Cambridge, which they say will force the school to leave the Queens’ Federation, which also runs another school in the area, to become an academy.
In a statement on a JustGiving page launching a judicial review fundraiser, Queen Emma PSFA (Parents, Staff & Friends Association) says: “For the families and staff in our community, Ofsted’s recent ‘inadequate’ judgement does not represent the happy, safe environment that we know and love at Queen Emma. We are also aware of the alleged flaws in Ofsted’s visit to the school.
“The ruling threatens the founding principles of the school, as by law it will force Queen Emma to leave the Queens’ Federation and become an academy under new management. The school or parents will have no say over which academy takes control of the school.
“We are fully backing Queen Emma Primary School as they challenge Ofsted through judicial review.”
An NAHT spokesperson said: “Our legal teams are discussing how best to pursue the various legal claims in which there is common interest.”
Ofsted declined to comment.
