What next at Ofsted?

There's a lot of talk in the wind as to who will take over at Ofsted, now Christine Gilbert has moved on.  Will it be someone in the drill sergeant mode that Michael Gove seems to favour - someone who has run a tough inner city school and who will stipulate formulae for how all schools should be run?  That would seem to conflict with the free market principles that Gove is so keen to promote in UK schooling.  It must be so difficult to resist picking someone like Sir Michael Wilshaw - the director of education for ARK and principal of Mossbourne Academy in Hackney - someone who, with his team, has transformed the life chances of so many young people from deprived backgrounds.  Put him in charge of the national inspectorate and get him to insist that all schools follow Mossbourne principles, cry Gove's counsellors.  The Wilshaw approach assumes that a child has to shed the dysfunctionality that has seeped into its makeup through poor parenting - and that schooling needs to sort this out before any real academic learning can take place.  There is a lot of merit in this, but it isn't the only approach that works.  Focusing on community transformation and the child within that community is likely to be a longer-term game, but ultimately one that will provide a sustained turnaround of individuals.  Such is the approach of Oasis, another group of academies, with their HQ in Lambeth.  It's also the approach that we want to take at Charles Edward Brooke School, soon to be re-named St Gabriel's College, in Lambeth, where I am chair of governors.  Please Mr Gove, do not try to impose a straightjacket on how schools should be run.  As long as they are improving and serving their children, they should be given the chance to test different ways of educating children for tomorrow's world.