In your article “Ofsted rebels over closures” (TES, July 8), you suggest that we are at “loggerheads’ with ministers over their supposed plans to force failing schools to close after a year if they do not improve. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We believe that more decisive action has to be taken in the case of failing schools that are not making sufficient progress after a year.
Our evidence from inspection leads us, unequivocally, to the view that the process of recovery in failing schools needs to begin immediately.
Otherwise, children will continue to be condemned to a sub-standard education.
Finally, I think it speaks volumes that your article concludes by saying that it would be “inappropriate” for Ofsted to comment on an Education Bill before it is published. That is normally correct but not when idle, unattributable and untrue speculation is taken as representing the views of this chief inspector.
David Bell
Chief inspector of schools
Alexandra House
33 Kingsway
London WC2
