1 October 2025

Ofsted,  the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, relates  to England and not to Scotland. The equivalent in Scotland is Education Scotland. Both bodies keep an eye on the quality of education in their respective countries.

Baroness Spielman was the Chair of the Ofsted Board from 2017 until 2023. Recently, she raised some concerns about schools becoming ‘therapeutic institutions’ instead of focusing on academic work and providing extra-curricular activities.

‘If schools have reconceived themselves as therapeutic institutions and are looking for things to be wrong with the child, they’ll probably find some.’ she said. ‘And we’ll stay in this sort of negative spiral of unintentionally encouraging children to find things to be unhappy about.’ She went on to talk about adolescents.

‘Adolescence is a period of massive psychological adjustment … but you have to experience the lumps and bumps to be a resilient adult. The danger is you get into a downward spiral where the more of that kind of mental health support you give to a child, the more you reinforce the idea that they can’t cope without it.’

One of the key characteristics which Baroness Spielman identifies is resilience, the ability to persevere,  to bounce back when things don’t work out according to plan. Things do not always work out as we would like them to. We are disappointed. We want to give up. We think the world owes us a living. Nonsense.

It is nonsense. Experiencing the ups and downs of daily living is a vital part of our education. It is through these experiences that resilience is nurtured. But it won’t be nurtured if it isn’t acknowledged as essential and people are protected from the discomfort and even pain of a humiliating defeat or failure. It is the Gospel.