‘An insult’: Amanda Spielman, Ofsted chief at time of Ruth Perry’s suicide, to be given a peerage | Amanda Spielman

Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s chief inspector when headteacher Ruth Perry took her personal life after a bruising inspection, is poised to affix the Home of Lords after being nominated by the Conservatives, the Observer can reveal.

Spielman, who earlier this month launched what was broadly seen as an overtly political assault on Labour’s colleges invoice, is one in every of a number of names on former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s listing, attributable to be put ahead for King Charles’s approval as a part of the annual birthday honours. Her nomination was met with outrage by Perry’s household, whereas college leaders described it as “obscene” and “an insult to each trainer within the nation”.

Perry took her personal life in January 2023, after an Ofsted inspection that downgraded her college, Caversham major in Studying, to the bottom ranking of insufficient.

After information of Perry’s loss of life first broke, Spielman angered colleges by taking per week to say publicly that she was “deeply sorry” for the household’s loss and resisting calls to pause inspections. A coroner dominated that the inspection, at instances “impolite and intimidating”, contributed to the headteacher’s loss of life, and issued a rare prevention of future deaths report calling for pressing modifications to inspections, together with coaching for inspectors on responding to misery. Spielman, nonetheless, stated in interviews final 12 months that her organisation made no errors through the inspection.

Prof Julia Waters, Perry’s sister, stated this weekend: “Amanda Spielman’s legacy is indelibly related to my sister’s horrible, preventable loss of life – and with defending the unaccountable, inhumane system that led to her loss of life.”

She added: “That isn’t the sort of report that ought to be rewarded with a spot within the Home of Lords.”

Andrew Morrish – a former headteacher and Ofsted inspector whose psychological well being helpline for headteachers, Headrest, has taken “quite a few” calls from college leaders who say they’ve been pushed to the brink by inspections – stated it was “obscene” for the Conservatives to present Spielman a peerage.

“It exhibits pure contempt for the sector and for Ruth Perry’s household,” he stated. Headrest intends to launch a public petition in opposition to the nomination.

Spielman angered the federal government by declaring not too long ago that Labour’s kids’s wellbeing and colleges invoice was “very probably” to make training in England worse, and accused Bridget Phillipson, the training secretary, of being in thrall to the unions.

No 10 issued a stinging rebuke criticising Spielman’s report at Ofsted. A spokesperson for the prime minister stated: “Amanda Spielman ought to spend much less time criticising the reforms this authorities is bringing and extra time reflecting on her failure at Ofsted and on a educating occupation that totally misplaced confidence in her as chief inspector.”

However Spielman, who led Ofsted from 2017 to 2023, was admired by a succession of Conservative training secretaries together with Gillian Keegan, who praised her for “championing” the curriculum. The brand new framework she introduced in for inspections targeted extra on drilling down into the “substance” of what was being taught – a story that chimed with Michael Gove’s frequent references to tutorial “rigour”.

Nevertheless, small major colleges particularly struggled to deal with inspectors’ “deep dives” into 4 or 5 totally different topics, and academics complained that judging a college by asking randomly chosen teams of kids “pop quiz” questions on what they’d realized was subjective and sometimes unfair.

Spielman commissioned a excessive profile evaluation into sexual harassment and abuse in colleges after hundreds of younger individuals posted their tales on the Everybody’s Invited web site in 2021. Ofsted discovered kids not bothered reporting incidents as a result of they’d turn into so frequent. However Conservative MP Maria Miller condemned Ofsted for failing to behave to safeguard kids years earlier than.

Daniel Kebede, basic secretary of the Nationwide Schooling Union, stated: “Amanda Spielman’s appointment to the Home of Lords can’t be on the premise of getting made any constructive contribution to training. Her influence was totally destructive.”

He added: “She was blind to the failings of Ofsted, the organisation she headed, which was deemed by a coroner to have contributed to Ruth Perry’s loss of life, and which has definitely pushed the retention disaster we now have in colleges.”

Sean Lang, a historian and the chair of governors at Queen Emma major college in Cambridge, which efficiently challenged what they described as a “brutal” inspection throughout Spielman’s tenure, stated: “To offer an honour to that girl is a deliberate insult to each trainer within the nation.”

A Conservative occasion spokesperson stated: “It will be unfair to touch upon whether or not particular people have or haven’t been nominated or vetted for any honour or dignity. We don’t touch upon hypothesis or purported leaks.”