Sir Michael Wilshaw, head of education standards watchdog Ofsted Susannah Ireland Weak headeachers are responsible for too many of the country’s brightest teachers quitting the classroom, the chief schools inspector has warned, as the Government called for precocious twenty-something recruits to be fast-tracked into headships. Sir Michael Wilshaw, head of the education standards watchdog Ofsted, called for more “battlers, bruisers …

The inspectorate has been widely criticised for demoralising teachers and stagnating school improvement. Is it time to ditch the watchdog? What else might work? Professor John Macbeth from the University of Cambridge: ‘Ofsted focuses primarily on maths and English… They marginalise other creative aspects of school life…’ Photograph: Alamy “Scrapping Ofsted would leave us with a fragmented system” Dr Melanie …