Introducing Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector

In this episode, Briony Balsom (Head of Internal Insights) talks to our new HMCI, Sir Martyn Oliver. 

Transcript

Briony: Hello, I’m Briony Balsom and welcome to Ofsted Talks, the Ofsted podcast. Ofsted Talks is the official Ofsted podcast, and we cover everything from early years to schools, social care to further education and skills, alternative provision, special educational needs and more. Today you join us for a slightly shorter but also slightly special edition where we take the opportunity to get to introduce Ofsted’s new chief inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver. Welcome, Martyn.

Martyn: Hello, Briony – thank you.

Briony: Martyn, you've had a full career in education as a teacher, then a Head and most recently as Chief Exec of multi academy trust. But, can you tell us a little bit about what it was that drew you to teaching in the first place?

Martyn: Yeah, feels like an awful long time ago now. It must be 29, soon 30 years, ago and it wasn't one thing that started me in teaching. If I look back to my own school career, there were some teachers that absolutely stood out to me. But then it was a passion for my subject, art - fine art - which I absolutely love and I spent my entire childhood engaged in seeing some of the great galleries in the country. But it wasn't just that, it wasn't the inspirational teacher, it wasn't just the subject, it was the fact that I think I've always just enjoyed teaching. I've enjoyed working with people. I love the idea of getting up in the morning and wanting to help other people. And so being a teacher, the act of teaching, was something that I was just really drawn to, and then with my subject expertise, and then my inspirational teachers that I had as a child, it pointed me naturally to this, all those years ago.

Briony: Wonderful. And I was about to ask what was that you enjoyed most about teaching and leading schools. It sounds very much like it was the people overlaid with the subject?

Martyn: Children and working with children and seeing the joy of teaching something new and watching children really get it. And then, you know, even whether it was children who enjoyed the subject and wanted to pursue it themselves, or those that just found it an interesting moment, or part of their week, that all gave me joy. But also, what is incredible about teaching and working with people who care about children is you just come across likeminded professionals. Just such good people that work in the sector.

Briony: You talk incredibly glowingly of teaching. What was it about the role of HMCI that really intrigued you enough to apply?

Martyn: It's interesting because all of my - well, certainly the last 14/15 years - of my career, I've tended to go in after Ofsted into schools that were in difficult circumstances and pick them up. So, I've always had a tremendous amount of interest in Ofsted’s work and its role and the importance of what we do in finding and supporting schools and providers and helping the system to understand where things can be better. So, I've always been a long admirer of the importance of the work. And then I was encouraged by a tremendous amount of people. It's very humbling to see so many people ask me to consider to apply. And so, taking the importance of it, the fact that I was encouraged by so many of my peers to go for the role, it’s something that I thought I should do. And I've come to try and make sure that for young people and parents and how then for the staff in all of our settings - not just teachers or staff in schools, all of our providers, childminders, people who work in children's services, everyone everywhere, further education and skills, making sure that we can provide them the most modern, fit for purpose inspectorate that supports all of them to do their really important work for those children and young people.

Briony: Absolutely. And you've touched on this a little bit, but now that you're in role and you're bringing the weight of your vast experience to bear, can you tell us a little bit about your priorities?

Martyn: Yeah. And today when we're recording this, it's an interesting day because the Education Select Committee’s just published a report, and we welcome those findings. And if people were to listen to what I said when I appeared myself in front of the Select Committee, and some of the things I've talked about in the media, it's about making sure that we are a professional, courteous, empathetic and respectful inspectorate that understands the difficulties of the moment and how hard it is in the system right now. And this holding the system to account in a way which is gentle and for children, and for young people, making sure that their voices are heard and the voices of parents are heard. So, we're going to do an awful lot of work on that. But really importantly, Briony - I don't think I've spoken about this before - that the system should be subject to the new chief inspectors thoughts alone. And so, the most important thing is that we're going to begin a ‘Big Listen’. A lot of people have said an awful lot, especially in the last few weeks and months, about Ofsted. But we want to hear and make sure that we get to as many groups, especially not just the sectors but the parents and the children themselves. And that together, we co-construct this modern, fit for purpose inspectorate, not just for the medium term, but for the long term that will deliver for everyone.

Briony: And I think our listeners will be incredibly interested in our ‘Big Listen’, which we’ll be launching in March. Just to say that we’ll be publishing another podcast then with more details so if you don’t want to miss it, please follow and subscribe.

Martyn, thank you so much for taking time out with us today.

Martyn: Thanks, Briony. And thanks everyone for listening.