Opinion: The Ferret ... digs behind the headlines

Introducing the plan, Bell had said it was a "response to the fact that pupils are surrounded by intense activity during inspections but are often never told, in language they understand, what the outcome is".

This cut no ice with Hart. "I think the chief inspector has gone off the rails on this one," he said. His concern, as reported in The Independent, seemed to be that young people would be given "ammunition" to criticise individual teachers or wider groups who might be identifiable from the report.

Time for a flashback to July 1997. In that month, Sarah Briggs, 15, a student at a Mansfield school, wrote to a local newspaper saying that weaknesses identified in a recent Ofsted inspection were not being addressed. She said that students didn't feel properly prepared for their GCSEs the following year. She was expelled for "behaviour that brings the school into disrepute".