Ruth Perry's sister criticises 'rushed' reforms

The sister of a head teacher who took her own life after her school was downgraded in an Ofsted inspection, has warned the proposed new system for assessing schools has the "same risks" as before.

Ruth Perry's sister, Julia Waters, joined education professionals in an open letter to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson in asking for delays to the plans which she said are "rushed" and "fail to learn" from Ms Perry's death.

Ofsted has proposed a new system which involves report cards and is due to come in this autumn, rather than the old one or two-word judgements.

The Department for Education (DfE) said reforms played a "central" role in work to raise school standards.

Ed Barnett-Ward, a parent at Caversham Primary who campaigned for changes to Ofsted inspections following Ms Perry's death, said the proposed changes "don't go far enough".

He said: "Our argument was never simply about the removal of single word judgements which we have managed to achieve.

"We need to have a system that gets rid of excessive pressure, inconsistency and we need to get a fair independent complaint process," he added.

National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede said Ofsted needed to "come up with a system of accountability that reduced pressure on schools".

"But the reality is it's turned into a big ignore and we are facing a big disaster," he said.

The DfE said it wanted to make inspections "more powerful" and "more transparent".

"The system this Government inherited was high stakes for teachers but low information for parents, which is why we're removing single-word judgments and introducing school report cards".

It said answers to Ofsted's and the department's consultations would be carefully considered before an approach is finalised.