Ofsted is carrying out a snap inspection of the school at the centre of the “cat gender” row, The Telegraph can reveal.
A teacher at Rye College, in East Sussex, sparked a major backlash after she was recorded telling a girl she was “despicable” for questioning another pupil claiming to identify as a cat.
The teacher told the Year 8 pupils they were being reported to a senior leader and were no longer welcome at the school if they continued to say that only boys and girls exist.
It led to Kemi Badenoch, the women and equalities minister, writing to Amanda Spielman, chief inspector of Ofsted, saying she believed the teacher had breached political impartiality rules by apparently teaching contested political beliefs as fact, including that there are “lots of genders” or that “gender is not linked to the parts that you were born with”.
Now, The Telegraph has learnt that the regulator is carrying out a full inspection of the school, part of the Aquinas Church of England trust, on Thursday. The school was last inspected in January and rated “good”, up from its last inspection in 2018 which judged it “inadequate”.
In a letter to parents, seen by The Telegraph, Ofsted said: “We have just told your child’s school that we will inspect it on 29th June 2023”, adding: “We would like to know what you think about the school.”
