MORE lives could be lost due to “really disappointing” government delays in reforming Ofsted, Ruth Perry’s sister told the National Education Union conference today.

Ms Perry took her own life in 2023 after an inspection report downgraded her school from its highest rating to its lowest over safeguarding concerns.

A coroner ruled the report of Caversham Primary School “likely contributed” to her suicide.

Speaking at the National Education Union’s (NEU) annual conference today, her sister Professor Julia Waters said: “She lost everything she had stood for in her career and her community destroyed in a moment by an unfair Ofsted decision, she was offered no way out. 

“But let me tell you suicide is always a terrible, wrong-headed option, ending her own life was the worst thing Ruth could have possibly done.

“So if you are having thoughts about ending your own life please think again, get help.

“More than everything I wish that Ruth was still here, calling for a better, more humane and effective schools inspection system herself.

“I wish she was still here to be a lovely, funny, compassionate mother to her own children. 

“I wish more than anything she hadn’t done what she did, and I wish I could be able to tell her that before it was too late, but I can’t.

“So I say it to you now, instead, you are trapped by an inhumane unaccountable inspection system, but you don’t have to put up with it any more.”

Last month, Ofsted’s new chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver launched the watchdog’s Big Listen public consultation that will seek views about the inspectorate but has signalled no major changes can be expected before a general election. 

Prof Waters told delegates: “Despite the promising start, there seems to be a lot of passing the buck going on between the government and Ofsted.

“There seems to be a lot of unnecessary delay.

“Delays and obfuscation put more lives at risk. It’s not acceptable to play politics with people’s wellbeing.”

She ended her speech by playing a video of her sister encouraging her pupils as lockdown separated them from their friends four years ago.

“As Ruth said, be kind, show compassion, talk to each other, be hopeful that change is coming,” she said.

Speaking to the media afterwards, Prof Waters said Sir Martyn’s comments were “really disappointing. It’s disappointing now that when changes are so clearly needed, he’s unwilling to rock the boat in that way.

“It’s disappointing that the politics of the general election, this general purdah with nothing allowed to happen anywhere, is being allowed to apply here when there’s a proven risk of future deaths and there are things that still need to be changed.

“I would have preferred, and I’m sure the teaching profession would have preferred, [his addressing] those rather than come in and have a ‘big listen’ where I can’t imagine he’s going to hear different things from what has been said already.

“There is a danger I suppose if we wait to after a general election, that this inspection system still poses a risk to life.”

She also thanked NEU members for restoring her faith that Ofsted will be reformed, saying: “I’m not losing faith.

“I feel I know that even if Ofsted is not reformed to the extent I would like and so many others would like, I don’t believe the teaching profession would let themselves to be bullied in the same way any more.”

She added she was not clear on what Labour’s proposed “report card” judgements will be, but welcomed the party’s pledge to abolish single-word Ofsted judgements, describing them as an insult to parents’ intelligence.

She added: “Before Ruth’s death I had never read an Ofsted report.

“I just don’t believe really that parents, either they don’t really understand what a Ofsted judgement means, what it’s judging, or there is some kind of kudos, ‘oh got my child into an outstanding school’ but it’s lazy.”

At the start of the year, Ofsted inspections were paused in England to ensure inspectors were given mental health awareness training.

The watchdog also published new guidance for schools on how to request an Ofsted inspection be paused if staff show signs of distress.