“Join the PTA, not the pile on” says Sir Martyn Oliver at a major Parentkind speech

It was a privilege to hear him speak to a packed room in Westminster with parents, PTAs and charities coming together to listen to what he had to say on the role of parents in education. Our Chief Executive, Jason Elsom took the opportunity to ask Sir Martyn about smartphone bans in schools — a big issue for parents and something we as a charity are pushing for. He confirmed that smartphones have no place in schools — ​“ban them, ban them, ban them,” he said. He couldn’t have been stronger on the topic, and suggested that Ofsted will make this a behaviour issue, will back headteachers who take a tough line on smartphones, and passed the baton over to the DfE to ban smartphones from the classroom.

We will be following up with a letter to the Secretary of State for Education, asking he Rt Hon Bridget Phillipson MP to make this an urgent priority. 

This was Sir Martyn Oliver’s first big intervention on the issue of parents. He confirmed the voice of parents needed to be heard in education debates, and you won’t be surprised to hear that Parentkind strongly agrees. We need more people in positions of power who put the voice of parents first, which is why we regularly publish data on parents and their voice.

Sir Martyn told us that parents are an important priority for him as Chief Inspector, and that the new Report Card has been designed to give parents more information on what is happening in schools. New style report cards also include parent engagement across a range of measures, something we have repeatedly called for. This means that no school will be able to get a top judgement without being able to show they are really good at engaging parents, an area we know a lot about. Any reform to the way Ofsted inspects schools will cause debate and disagreement, but we know that good parent engagement can make a huge difference to outcomes. 

Sir Martyn was keen to point out the difference parents make when they are involved in schools. We know from our own research there is still more to do to facilitate this. Our National Parent Survey in 2023 found that 11 million parents would like to contribute more to their child’s school, but 2 million don’t know how to and almost 3 million have never been asked.

An important part of his speech focused on parental complaints, an issue rarely out of the news, and an area we are very concerned about. Life is getting harder for both parents and teachers, and this will sometimes boil over. The speech made it clear that parental engagement is important if we’re going to turn the corner on parental complaints. ​“Join the PTA not the pile on,” said Sir Martyn. We couldn’t agree more.