Graded Ofsted inspections during the Covid pandemic are “toxic” to the wellbeing of headteachers and should be stopped, a support service for school leaders has warned.

The organisation Headrest has written to education secretary Nadhim Zahawi and Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman to demand that inspections be halted over concerns that they are causing health problems and driving heads out of the profession.

Ofsted began some graded inspections last term and returned to a full programme of inspection in September.

Controversy: Teachers’ leader says Ofsted is a ‘reign of terror’

Ofsted: Heads fear watchdog wants subject expertise that goes beyond the national curriculum

Heads: School leaders hold talks with Ofsted over pandemic inspection concerns

The Headrest group said it has received calls from school leaders who need medication to manage their anxiety and workplace stress and that an impending Ofsted inspection is “often a key contributory factor”.

Headrest provides a free and confidential wellbeing telephone support service for school leaders. 

In a letter to Mr Zahawi, it warns that some heads who ask for support are planning to leave the profession because “they do not want the emotional stress of an Ofsted inspection in the midst of Covid and its immediate aftermath”.

It adds: “Those planning their escape route are often, but not exclusively, experienced school leaders that a post-Covid education system cannot, in our view, afford to lose.”

The letter to Mr Zahawi says that, often, the heads that call the Headrest service have doctors wanting to sign them off - but invariably the caller resists because they do not want to let down their school community.

It adds: “Some callers are fearful that they will be branded failures by the inspectorate for being unable to deliver all the strategic tasks that in non-Covid times they would normally have completed by this stage of the academic year. To be blunt, they do not fully trust inspectors to comprehend and empathise with the pressure they have been under.

“Indeed we hear, from both additional inspectors and headteachers, that the practice of lead inspectors is hugely variable in this regard, and so this lack of trust is not without foundation. This fear is toxic to the maintenance of a healthy wellbeing.”

The letter adds that “a considerable number of callers are concerned that meeting the plethora of demands upon them, again including Ofsted pressures, is undermining their family relationships”.

The letter ends: “In conclusion, we demand that Ofsted’s graded school inspections should be stopped. We believe at this time school leaders and their staff teams need empathy, not inspectorial scrutiny; support, not Ofsted judgements; and, most of all, they need national policymakers to take decisions that reduce, rather than exacerbate, stress levels.

“In your role as secretary of state for education, we feel it imperative that you are fully aware of the concerns we are receiving.”

Ofsted has been approached for a comment.

Headrest has offered support to headteachers, executive headteachers and multi-academy trust chief executives for the last 12 months. Calls are responded to by four experienced former headteachers.