I do not find it surprising that the school attended by
Daniel Pelka - at which teachers and other staff did not suspect neglect as Daniel
starved to death - had been described in a recent Ofsted inspection as
having ‘robust’ arrangements for child safeguarding and protection. http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/ofsted-criticised-describing-safeguarding-daniel-6160992
The problem is not with the school so much as with Ofsted.
The spot-check inspection approach
favoured by Ofsted is unlikely to be reliable (or ‘robust’ for that matter). A
few questions will have been asked and a few boxes will have been ticked and, hey presto, we don’t have to worry too
much until the next formulaic inspection. What a relief!
The inspection judgement sends the wrong message, to staff
and to parents, and it lets down children because a safe school is not one in
which a few neatly typed documents are available to the inspectors. It’s
one where members of staff have the right state of mind; where they understand human error and how it
can and does occur; and where they remain creatively anxious about the possibility of failure. It's a school where everybody takes a part in improving services and systems to make them safer.
I wonder how much the inspector who wrote that clean bill of
health knew about organisational safety?
