Wilshaw`s criticism must stop

Laura McInerney`s reasons for defending teachers who have "been trained in our system", but who add to teacher vacancy rates by teaching abroad, are all valid, but she omits to mention one additional, important factor (Golden handcuffs for teachers won`t solve the staffing crisis in our schools,28/02/16). The Ofsted chief has the unfortunate habit of reporting on schools in generalisations, which usually means the wonderful work being done in our state schools is ignored. Take Wilshaw`s recent announcement about the state of the north-west`s secondary schools, for instance; three out of ten schools in Manchester, four in Liverpool, have been found to be "inadequate", but that does not mean there is no excellent teaching there, or that no pupils achieve brilliant results, or even in the so-called poorer schools, superb work is not being done.

 With over forty years of teaching experience in similarly censured Knowsley, I know that in the six comprehensives there, of which four are now academies, teachers and most pupils will be striving for the best results, but with only criticism from the inspectorate and the education department, morale will be low. With pupils knowing how hard their teachers work, despite getting constant disapproval, how many of them will aspire to the profession? The teacher recruitment crisis is set to get a whole lot worse, and it`s beginning to look as this is the result of deliberate policy!