Primary school headteacher took own life after learning of Ofsted downgrade from ‘Outstanding’ to ‘Inadequate’

Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now
Ruth Perry, 53, took her own life after learning Ofsted would downgrade her school, Caversham Primary School, from the highest to the lowest.

A primary school headteacher took her own life after learning Ofsted planned to downgrade her school from Outstanding to Inadequate. Ruth Perry, 53, was principal at Caversham Primary School in Reading for 13 years, BBC South reported.

In an interview with the BBC, her family said she was left a “shadow of her former self” after an inspection last November. The inspection reportedly took place on November 15 and 16 last year - the first since Perry took office, after rules around monitoring of Outstanding schools were changed.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

On the first day, she was told her school would be dropped from the highest grade to the lowest, her family said, in what she had described as “the worst day of her life.” The report, according to The Telegraph, found the school to be Good in every category except leadership and management.

The education watchdog accused the school of poor record keeping and failings in employment checks, which could have put children at risk. This resulted in the rating for the whole school being downgraded to Inadequate.

According to the BBC, Ofsted told staff they had seen a boy doing a dance popular on social media and viewed this as evidence of the sexualisation of pupils. The inspectors also allegedly told staff they had seen child-on-child abuse, but Perry believed this was merely a playground scuffle.

Describing the whole process a “complete injustice’, Perry’s sister Julia said the headteacher had a “weight hanging over her” while waiting for the report to be published. Perry then took her own life on January 8.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad