This article is about one school, but the predicament it highlights has wider implications – about independence, bureaucracy, freedom of religion and the best interests of children.

My own specific interest in this case goes back to 2020. I wrote about it here that December. In September 2020, under “emergency” provisions – but without specifying what the emergency was – Ofsted inspectors had descended upon Ampleforth College, the well-known Roman Catholic boarding school in Yorkshire. Even though the school had recently been favourably inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate, Ofsted had concluded that Ampleforth was “inadequate” in its safeguarding.

As a result, the then education secretary, Gavin Williamson, had issued a “restriction order” on the school: Ampleforth could not recruit new pupils until it had complied with Ofsted requirements. I pointed out that, for independent schools – who live by their fees – such an order is a death sentence. New money cannot come in. Existing parents, seeing no future, place their children elsewhere.

So the perverse real-life consequence of official measures to improve what was recognised as a good school, with 100 per cent parental belief (even according to Ofsted’s own surveys) that their child is “safe and happy” in the school, would be to shut it forever.

Just in time, the Department for Education quailed, and lifted the restriction order. Ampleforth survived. Indeed, under its able and determined headmaster, Robin Dyer, new in 2019, standards improved.

This week, Ofsted published a further report on the school. It rated it good in all other areas, but still “inadequate” in safeguarding. So here we go again.

After publishing my column in December 2020, I got an interesting mixture of reactions. Most were supportive. Ampleforth has always had a monastic (Benedictine) ethos, with the college and monastery on adjacent sites. My correspondents valued this distinctive form of education, finding it deeper and more spiritual than the secular norm. They felt the inspectors had no sense of religion’s role in educating children and suspected them of prejudice against boarding schools, especially Catholic ones.

A small minority disagreed. They felt that, over many years, Ampleforth had been lamentably lax about sexual abuse of boys (the school went fully co-ed in 2004): the instinctive reaction of the authorities to accusations had been covering up, rather than cleaning up. They suspected this still applied.

It seemed worth taking both points of view seriously. I accepted an invitation from the school to chair its new, informal advisory council and went to see the place, which I had last visited about 20 years earlier.

I am not an education specialist but, having attended independent schools, sent both my children to them, been a governor of one and visited dozens, usually to speak to pupils (and occasionally their parents), I have some sense of their differing qualities.

Modern Ampleforth seemed to me to score very high. It cares about all pupils, rather than trying to cultivate a few stars. This is part of something wider, which I found expressed in the conversation and behaviour of the pupils themselves.

In these competitive days, the atmosphere of some independent schools can be utilitarian, over-worldly, ultimately boring. Teachers and pupils obsess about exams, CVs and lucrative careers. Ampleforth is different. I found pupils confident and firm in their beliefs, but also considerate, gentle and neighbourly. That over-used word “community” fits the place.

The same applied to the teachers and those running the school. Although they were, of course, upset by the Ofsted ruling, they were not in a “There’s nothing wrong with us” frame of mind. Where inspectors’ criticisms were grounded in facts, they were eager to comply. The almost painful conscientiousness of those who look after children today is remarkable.

I noted the difference between the past and the present. The support I received for Ampleforth tended to come from those – parents, pupils – who know the school today, the criticism more from those who had known it in the 20th century (though it does also command great loyalty from many old boys of that vintage). The school has not been under investigation for accusations of current child abuse for many years.

So why has Ampleforth yet again (it must be the most inspected school in the country) incurred the wrath of Ofsted?

The four specific areas complained of, all contested by the school, were: a sexual incident between two pupils, access of monks to the school, a post-exam organised breakout by 80 senior pupils who went drinking in the playing fields, and a complicated bureaucratic row about who told which relevant authority what when about whether to refer a particular dismissed teacher to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

In the interests of clarity and brevity, I shall detail only the first two.

In the first, a pupil simulated a sexual act with another while they were changing for sport. This was witnessed. In their report, Ofsted inspectors said “penetrative” sexual activity took place. Yet, according to the school, this was not what the witness said. The incident lasted about three seconds. “No implication of penetration”, says the police report, which added “no further action for police”.

Ofsted has reasserted its lurid version, but not produced the evidence. “Penetrative” sexual activity is in a completely different class of seriousness from a momentary simulation. One thing Ofsted says in its report is that “Leaders do not accept responsibility readily for the harm experienced by pupils in their care”. But how could any school responsibly accept an unproved description?

Now for the monks. Ofsted complains that “monks of concern” could be admitted to the monastery and might therefore pose a risk to the school. They worry that the headmaster has no “veto” over which monks are in the monastery.

Yet, as the Ampleforth Abbey Trust quickly wrote in a letter to Ofsted, the abbey contains no “monks of concern”. No monk with criminal convictions may enter the abbey, nor one who has been barred from “regulated activity” by the DBS. The abbey trust says Ofsted is libelling the abbey (with whom it did not check) by suggesting otherwise.

As for the point about the head’s “veto” on monks, one reason he does not have one is – almost comic to say – Ofsted itself. Throughout these arguments, Ofsted has insisted that the governance of abbey and school should be separated. This has duly happened. As a result, the school head can have no ultimate power over the abbey. It cannot, in logic, be otherwise. Abbey and school have, however, agreed a safeguarding protocol between them.

The school has requested Ofsted to correct the facts which it says are untrue. It has refused to do so and published its report before the complaint process has been exhausted. This way of proceeding is unjust. The school is duty-bound not to agree to factual errors. As I write, more than 200 Ampleforth parents have already signed a draft letter to Gavin Williamson’s excellent replacement, Nadhim Zahawi, to defend the school’s conduct.

The practical consequences of the injustice could be severe. Under Home Office rules, visas are likely to be refused for foreign pupils wishing to attend boarding schools rated “inadequate” for safeguarding. Many schools have 30 per cent foreign pupils and so could collapse as the inspectors get fiercer in their judgments. Indeed, many well-known public schools are said to be in danger over this.

Ofsted genuinely wants to improve schools; but I fear its methods and attitudes are making the running of independent boarding schools, particularly faith-based ones, all but impossible.