When Their Only Tool is a Hammer: a school's traumatised parents take on Ofsted
FORUM - ISSN 0963-8253
Volume 62 Number 3 (2020)
When Their Only Tool is a Hammer: a school's traumatised parents take on Ofsted
RICHARD HOUSE, RICHARD BRINTON pages 455‑468
DOI: 10.15730/forum.2020.62.3.455
Abstract
In early 2020, Wynstones School, a Steiner Waldorf school in Whaddon, Gloucestershire, was required to close by the Department for Education, following a damning Ofsted inspection report. The report reads like a horror story of educational malpractice and ineptitude. Here, the authors tell the story of this saga, focusing in particular on the highly contestable nature of Ofsted's report and the subsequent legal case brought by traumatised Wynstones parents against Ofsted, seeking a judicial review. The authors also situate Ofsted's judgements within a wider paradigmatic discussion of what are arguably incommensurable educational-pedagogical world views - and Ofsted's determination to impose its own world view on a pedagogy that rejects its narrow audit-culture proceduralism. Grave questions are raised about the impossibility of achieving educational justice for wronged or abused schools through currently available legalistic means.
To cite this article
RICHARD HOUSE, RICHARD BRINTON (2020) When Their Only Tool is a Hammer: a school's traumatised parents take on Ofsted, FORUM, 62(3), 455-468 . https://doi.org/10.15730/forum.2020.62.3.455