Bridget Phillipson says failing schools could still be forced to be academies despite end of Ofsted single-word ratings – UK politics live

Good morning. The summer recess is over, parliament is back, the newish Labour government is still in its hyperactive ‘early days’ stage (although no one is using the word honeymoon any more) and Keir Starmer is celebrating his 62nd birthday by making a visit to publicise the government’s announcement about the abolition of single-word Ofsted verdicts for schools in England.

This is a policy proposed in Labour’s manifesto, and it has been warmly welcomed by teaching unions who have long complained that single-word judgments were too crude. Pressure for their removal intensified after Ruth Perry, a primary school head, killed herself after learning that her school was going to be downgraded from outstanding (the best of four grades) to inadequate (the worst), even though Ofsted said it was giving pupils a good education, because of safeguarding errors.

Pippa Crerar’s overnight story about the announcement is here.

This morning Amanda Spielman, who was appointed to run Ofsted when the Conservatives were in office and who served for seven years until December last year, welcomed the change. In an interview with the Today programme, she said that although parents liked the simplicity of one-word Ofsted judgments, the system was flawed because the overall one-word assessments were too powerful. For example, schools rated inadequate had to become academies if they weren’t acadamies already. Spielman told the Today programme:

[The previous government] wouldn’t acknowledge that fear of inspection overwhelmingly related to the fear of consequences. I listened a lot to the sector. I knew that. So this a very interesting switch … I think this is beneficial for inspection, I think it’s beneficial for schools. I think it’s beneficial for parents and children …

When you survey parents, generally, they like the simplicity and clarity [of one-word judgments]. Various surveys have showed stronger support from parents for models with overall effectiveness judgments. But, nevertheless, because of the weight of consequences that government had hung on them, they had become more of a problem than a help.

I will post more from Spielman’s interview, and from the interviews the education secretary Bridget Phillipson has been giving, shortly.

The Conservative leadership contest is warming up this week. Kemi Badenoch, who is generally seen as the favourite, is giving a speech this morning and, as Harry Taylor reports, she has also given up one-word assessments. She has got a three-word verdict on the Labour government – “clueless, irresponsible and dishonest”.

Guardian readers can probably think of another recent government which might deserve this label much more.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Keir Starmer is visiting a school in London, where he will do a pooled TV interview.

10.30am: Kemi Badenoch formally launches her campaign for the Conservative leadership.

11am: The campaign group More in Common holds a briefing on research into what people who voted Tory in 2019 think about the current leadership candidates.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

12.10pm: James Cleverly, another Tory leadership candidate, gives a speech.

2.30pm: Angela Rayner, the housing secretary and deputy prime minister, takes questions in the Commons.

We will probably get various statements and/or urgent questions at 3.30pm too, but they have not been announced yet.

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