The Ofsted head’s latest speech won’t allay the concerns of faith schools
"The last thing a chief inspector should be is a crusader.” So said the Chief Inspector of Schools, Amanda Spielman, in a Guardian interview back in February. And yet the Ofsted chief has often been caught up in controversies over what she calls “muscular liberalism”, especially when she says her organisation should take a role against “those who actively undermine fundamental British values”.
Spielman has asked her inspectors to press young Muslim girls on why they wear the hijab. She has been forced to deny that Ofsted was singling out Jewish schools for criticism, after headteachers of traditional Jewish institutions said they seemed to get an unusually high number of visits. She has said that some schools use “the pretext of religious belief” to “pervert the purpose of education” and “indoctrinate impressionable minds with extremist ideology”. Given the consistent theme, Catholic schools will be among those who are watching closely.
