Sir Christopher Anthony Woodhead (born 20 October 1946, Edmonton, London) was Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools In England from 1994 until 2000 and is one of the most controversial figures in debates on the direction of English education policy.[1] He is currently the Chairman of Cognita, a company dedicated to fostering private education.[2]
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His father was an accountant, and his mother a school secretary, and he had no brothers or sisters. He went to Selsdon Primary School[3] on Addington Road in South Croydon, then Wallington County Grammar School in Surrey, where he was caned twice. A graduate of English[4] from the University of Bristol where he gained a PGCE.
Woodhead briefly worked as an English teacher at Wallington County Grammar School for Boys and two other state schools (the Priory School in Shrewsbury from 1969–72 and Newent Community School from 1972-4) before moving into teacher education. He has an MA from the University of Keele.
He became a lecturer at the University of Oxford and held a number of posts in education development, including Deputy Chief Education Officer in Devon (from 1988–90), as well as posts in Shropshire and Cornwall (from 1990-1). From 1991-3 he was Chief Executive of the National Curriculum Council, and also of the SCAA from 1993-4 (the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority later replaced by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority) which replaced the National Curriculum Council and the School Examinations and Assessment Council from 1 October 1993.
Woodhead was appointed head of the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), the schools inspection service, in 1994.
Woodhead is particularly associated with support for "traditional teaching methods" and for taking a scornful view of "progressive educational theories" introduced into English schools from the 1960s onwards. Supporters claimed that Woodhead was a radical reformer willing to tackle the failings of the education system and only encountering the defensiveness of the educational establishment. Critics argued that he was generating poor morale, rarely identified successes in schools, and that the "progressive teaching" he attacked was a straw man, with little resemblance to actual classroom practices. Woodhead most prominently identified weaknesses in schools with poor teaching and repeatedly asserted this view. Amongst his controversial remarks he claimed there were "15,000 incompetent teachers" and "I am paid to challenge mediocrity, failure and complacency". His blunt approach gained him many enemies, especially in the teaching profession.
When the Labour government came to power in 1997 there was much political pressure to replace Woodhead, either immediately or when his initial term expired in 1998, but instead he was retained and his appointment renewed by Education Secretary David Blunkett. In 1999 Woodhead came under immense pressure to resign when it was claimed by his ex-wife Cathy Woodhead (they divorced in 1977) that whilst working as a teacher he had had an affair with a pupil, Amanda Johnston.[5][6] His version of events is also hotly disputed by some former colleagues. However Woodhead stood firm with the support of Blunkett. Woodhead and Johnston insisted that although they had met while he was her teacher, the relationship (which lasted for nine years) had only developed several years later in Oxford after they had both left the Gordano School, near Bristol. He was Head of English at the school from 1974-6. In February 1999 Woodhead addressed an audience of trainee teachers and was asked for his views on legislation to ban sexual relationships between pupils and teachers. His response was that such relationships, while regrettable, could be "experiential and educative on both sides",[7] a remark for which he later apologised.
On 2 November 2000 Woodhead announced his resignation, to much rejoicing amongst the teaching unions.
In February 2005, The Guardian obtained information[8] using the Freedom of Information Act, which confirmed that in 1997 Woodhead had overruled a unanimous decision by his own inspectors, and a subsequent inspection visit by HMI inspectors, in order to declare that Islington Green School was failing and required special measures.[9] According to the head of the school at the time, "the consequences for staff and pupils were catastrophic". Despite Woodhead's enthusiasm for evidence-based inspection, he has never made public the reasons for this decision.
He was employed as a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times newspapers. Subsequently he stated that he felt the school-inspection system was now in a strong position and that he "felt unable to defend some aspects of government policy."[10] In 2002 Class War: The State of British Education, a damning verdict on the systemic failures of British education, was published. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed a Professor of Education at the University of Buckingham.[2] He continues to speak out in public on many issues relating to education at both school and university level, often provoking great controversy.
In 2004 Woodhead became chairmain of Cognita, a company that owns and runs independent schools.[11] In May 2009 his second book, A Desolation of Learning: Is this the education our children deserve?,[12] a critical examination of the almost two decades of education policy and reforming initiative, was published. Throughout the years Woodhead has consistently objected to David Blunkett and his cabinet on the way in which English schools have now been governed.
He is on the Advisory Council of Reform.[13]
He met his wife, Cathy, at Bristol and they married in 1969 and had a daughter in 1975 whilst living in Bristol. They divorced in September 1976. He now lives in north Wales with his second wife, and now has two granddaughters. Woodhead was knighted in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to education.[14]
Woodhead enjoys running and rock climbing. In 2006 he was diagnosed with the fatal neurodegenerative condition motor neurone disease. In an interview with The Sunday Times published on 3 May 2009,[15] he stated publicly that he would prefer to end his own life than suffer the indignities of the final stages of the disease; in an interview he stated, "The truth is that I would be more likely to drive myself in a wheel-chair off a cliff in Cornwall than go to Dignitas and speak to a bearded social worker about my future."[16]
| Preceded by Stewart Sutherland |
Chief Inspector at Ofsted 1994-2000 |
Succeeded by Sir Mike Tomlinson |