The Wisdom of Chris Woodhead

I don't know how many of you read The Sunday Times, but in the one of the numerous sections of the newspaper, News Review, Chris Woodhead has a question and answer section where he attempts to help out (mainly parents) with any educational queries. As I don't tend to read too many papers (I don't really have the time), I can only assume that most broadsheets have a similar section amongst their various reams of "news".

My longing question, and one that I may well email him, is whether he is actually qualified to offer solid and up-to-date information that can be of any use to those who write in to him?

In my opinion the answer is a resounding "No", and I will qualify this with some facts.

Woodhead has not been a full time teacher since 1974, at which point he entered a career in teacher education and ultimately became Chief Inspector of Schools, or head of Ofsted in layman's terms. I've been a teacher since 1999 and even in that time the profession has changed immensely, so would Mr Woodhead even recognise a modern classroom if he stumbled into one nowadays? The answer is no,the two are poles apart.

As far as his experience in teacher education goes, that is ultimately irrelevent insofar as what he was dealing with was classroom theory, not classroom practise, which as most would realise, are two very different things. As a mentor of trainee teachers at my current school, I am often astouded, if not flabberghasted by some of the ideals university lecturers feed their trainees, ideals that fail to prepare their enthusiastic charges with the stresses and strains of the classroom.

He was then Chief Executive of the National Curriculum Council, before becoming Chief Inspector of Schools, neither of which are classroom-based, the former just stating what should be taught (again a theoretial role) and the latter as someone who looks at data whilst beating schools over the head with a stick.

He was a target of huge amounts of abuse from the teaching profession (mainly the unions) in his role with Ofsted and continues to make what one can only assume is a very good living pontificating about schools and education in general, when he really has little idea of how a normal teacher's day actually pans out.

The fact that newspapers employ him as an apparent expert in education and government's reliance on whatever Ofsted says only magnifies the huge difference between what is reported about schools and what actually happens in them. In his column Woodhead continually points people in the direction of Ofsted reports, which is surely counter-productive for the future of his column, as people will cut out the middleman and stop writing in, simply going to the Ofsted website.

What baffles me is that people still listen to this man and to his former government quango, whose inspectors tend to have similar CVs to that of their former boss.

I've made up my mind, I'm writing to him, although I'm not necessarily expecting a reply, or at least not a polite one.