Ruth Perry’s death last year was a tragedy. The headteacher had carried the burden of an Ofsted inspection pretty much alone over the Christmas holiday. The sword of Damocles was no longer dangling by a thread, but hurtling towards her. Perry knew that the inspection report was on its way but only one word mattered: inadequate. Unable to discuss the report openly for fear of incurring the wrath of Ofsted, Perry took her own life on 8 January.

Now Ofsted has paused inspections until assessors have been properly trained to protect the wellbeing of headteachers and their staff. As a teacher, I wonder why it took them so long to work out that the inspection process is too often judgmental, uncaring and unfeeling to the hard work and commitment of those of us who work in schools.

This is not inspection, it is judgment, and it is not good enough

Make no mistake, schools need to be externally inspected. Otherwise we risk inconsistency across the education sector, and even worse systems of internal inspections from school managements with maverick ideas.

For those who have been out of school for several years, inspection regimes have changed significantly over the last three decades. When I started teaching in 1996, a visit from Ofsted meant a team of 15 inspectors setting up camp for a whole week. I was observed three times in my first inspection with detailed notes scribbled down during each lesson. Classroom teachers like me were the focus of the inspection and our headteachers could read all about our perceived performance in the classroom. Several weeks’ notice meant that we put on a show – only the best lessons were allowed during Ofsted week. Training courses were cancelled and sickness was prohibited where possible. Anecdotal reports from other schools suggested that some particularly unruly children were educated elsewhere for the week.

But that model was replaced years ago. Schools are now subjected to no-notice inspections. A much smaller team arrives for only a couple of days. Only a sample of lessons is observed in order to moderate the school’s internal self-evaluation, and teachers are spared the horror of summary judgment following a lesson that did not work as well as hoped. During my last school inspection, my contact with the inspection team was limited to pleasantries in the staffroom when they were introduced to us. Inspections trouble classroom teachers far less these days, so I for one do not want to return to the late 1990s.

But what we have now puts the burden squarely on headteachers. They are responsible for signing off the school’s self-evaluation form. Few schools, I would guess, would choose to rate themselves 3 (requires improvement) or 4 (inadequate), but I dare say there is room for subjectivity when it comes to the top two grades. Do you, as a headteacher, rate your school as outstanding (grade 1) and challenge Ofsted to disagree, or play it safe with good (grade 2)? Quality of education is only part of the story. Factors once incidental to education can become paramount.

Ten years ago, as a surprise inspection loomed, my headteacher suddenly took an interest in the radioactive sources we kept in school. As head of physics, I was responsible for keeping them safe. Despite the fact that there was more Americium-241 in the smoke detectors screwed to the ceilings in my own house than I kept under lock and key in the physics prep room, the regulations went on for almost 100 pages. Were we compliant, the head demanded? I assured him that we were, but the truth was that one missing page from the log book could land us in hot water.

Headteachers worry about such things. There was also concern about some digital kitchen scales that I had bought from Argos, rather than the educational supplier than charged at least twice as much for an equivalent product. Are the cheaper scales safe in an educational setting, I was asked, and can I prove it? I promised that they would be well out of sight in the boot of someone’s car before an inspector reached the prep room.

It sounds ridiculous, but compliance failures like these can overshadow all the good work that teachers do in the classroom. Together with perceived shortcomings in safeguarding, such as perhaps records not kept in the required format, they can deem a school to be inadequate – the verdict that Perry knew was coming.

This is not inspection, it is judgment, and it is not good enough. Ofsted is right to pause its programme and retrain its inspectors, but that does not change the inspection framework itself. A toxic pill is no less dangerous if it is merely sugar-coated. The current process with short reports summed up with one-word findings needs to go the way of the lengthy tomes written by Ofsted back in 1996. Is it too much to ask for a supportive process that works with schools to help us improve our procedures and do the best for the children we teach?