Sir Martyn Oliver has replaced Amanda Spielman as the chief inspector of Ofsted after seven years leading one of the country’s most high-profile multi-academy trusts.
The chief executive of Outwood Grange Academies Trust (OGAT) received the backing of the Commons Education Select Committee in September and will take over at the inspectorate, beginning a five-year term.
Who is Sir Martyn Oliver?
Oliver had been OGAT’s chief executive since 2016, during which time the trust has more than doubled in size and been praised by ministers for raising standards in previously struggling schools.
Under Sir Martyn’s leadership, OGAT has been seen as a leading example of a trust whose schools are centrally run, and its approach to curriculum-led financial planning has been rolled out by the government nationally.
But OGAT has also faced controversy over the rate of suspensions in some of its schools and over allegations made by staff about how behaviour policies were enforced in schools joining the trust.
Tes revealed earlier this year that Sir Martyn, who was knighted for services to education last year, was one of three MAT chief executives being considered by the Department for Education for the role of chief inspector.
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A critic of past Ofsted inspections
Sir Martyn was among a number of high-profile academy trust chief executives who in 2019-20 criticised Ofsted over its newly launched inspection framework amid concerns that its new focus was penalising schools in disadvantaged circumstances that were focused on academic results.
Under Ms Spielman’s leadership, Ofsted placed a greater emphasis on the school curriculum and gave less weight to exam and test results through its Education Inspection Framework. But Sir Martyn was among a number of high-profile voices who raised concerns about how the framework was being implemented when inspections first started.
In a joint statement with Harris Federation chief executive Sir Dan Moynihan and Dame Rachel de Souza, who is now the children’s commissioner, he said he believed “that the framework disadvantages poorer pupils”.
Sir Martyn also raised concern that schools were being marked down by Ofsted for running GCSEs over three years from Year 9, rather than two.
This could indicate that as chief inspector he will change the focus of school inspection. But it is possible that future changes to the inspectorate will be driven more by government than from within.
Sir Martyn begins his Ofsted role at a time when there have been widespread calls for inspection reform following the death of headteacher Ruth Perry. And he could also face a change of government when he is less than a year into the job, following next year’s general election.
Labour has made reforming the inspectorate one of its key education policies. It has said that if elected it will consult on scrapping single-word inspection judgements and introducing school report cards. It also plans to introduce MAT inspections.
Sir Martyn Oliver’s background
Sir Martyn became chief executive of OGAT in September 2016, having previously been an executive headteacher and regional lead within the trust.
In a 2018 interview with Tes, talking about the trust’s schools being run centrally, he said OGAT’s approach was not about “prescription or restriction” but “efficacy”, adding: “If you’re doing something really well in one school, it’s perverse to withhold it.”
In the same year, OGAT was singled out for praise by schools minister Nick Gibb, who described it as a leading academy trust and highlighted how it had “developed distinct career paths for teachers to choose from, including curriculum experts working across trusts, teacher-development mentors and traditional leadership routes”.
Sir Martyn was knighted for services to education last year. The citation for the honour said: “His unwavering determination to rapidly improve underperforming schools has made a significant, lasting impact on the lives of children in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the country.”
It added that “under his tenure, underperforming schools joining the trust quickly became schools that offer a ‘good’ or better education to their pupils”.
However, OGAT has also been at the centre of controversy.
A controversial track record
In 2019 several staff at OGAT schools gave anonymous accounts to Tes of how the trust took an uncompromising approach to behaviour for weeks at a time when it took over a new school as part of a process known as “flattening the grass”.
At the time, the trust denied having a policy of “humiliating children or deliberately causing them upset”.
This was in response to allegations from staff at schools joining OGAT that the trust would flood schools with executives during a series of “rolling assemblies” and that there was “intense shouting” at pupils for minor transgressions.
In 2019 Ofsted produced a summary evaluation report on the trust after a batch inspections of OGAT schools. The inspectorate’s report on OGAT praised its work in raising standards and supporting staff, the leadership of its schools and the development of its curriculum and financial planning.
However, one of Ofsted’s recommendations was that OGAT “continue to improve pupils’ behaviour so that the proportion of fixed-term exclusions further reduces across the trust’s secondary schools”.
Before being announced as Ofsted’s next chief inspector, Sir Martyn had to face questions from MPs on the Commons Education Select Committee in a hearing that took place after the summer recess.
His predecessor, Ms Spielman, had found this process far from straightforward. The committee at the time took the unusual step of saying that it could not approve Ms Spielman and warned that she “failed to demonstrate to us the vision and passion we would expect from a prospective HMCI”. She was appointed by ministers nonetheless.
The select committee hearing gave an insight into what Sir Martyn’s priorities are for the role and indicate how he might adapt to what could be rapidly changing political priorities in terms of school inspection.
This article was originally published on 8 September 2023
