A Reading Today front page has been voted the best in the country following a hotly contested readers’ poll.
Industry website Hold The Front Page holds an annual contest invited readers to choose their favourite front page from a shortlist of 10.
As in previous years, Reading Today was one of the titles put forward.
This time, we rubbed shoulders with heavyweight titles such as the Manchester Evening News, The Scotsman, The Yorkshire Post, the Edinburgh Evening News and the Lancashire Post.
Visitors to the website could vote for the front page they thought was the best, and we are delighted that ours came top.
In second place was the Inverness Courier, with its front page of a mocked-up gravestone with the legend ‘RIP SNP promise of dualling A9 by 2025’, referring to a road project that was being cancelled.
It polled 839 votes.
Our entry, headlined ‘The Ofsted problem’, received 959 entries, and 46% of the vote, making it the winner.
The front page, from March 23, 2023, followed the death of Caversham Primary School headteacher Ruth Perry, who took her own life while waiting for the publication of a report that downgraded her school from outstanding to inadequate.
Our story focused on a call from Ms Perry’s family for schools to refuse Ofsted inspectors entry until improvements to the watchdog were made.
As a result, we decided to respect the family’s wishes by not reporting on school inspection verdicts until the system has been reformed.
At the time, Reading Today editor Phil Creighton said: “The death of Ruth Perry has shocked us all. Pausing coverage of schools’ Ofsted reports, unless there is a compelling reason to do so, is not just a mark of respect, but a call for that essential review of Ofsted and how it operates.”
Hold The Front Page said this is the first time in the 10-year history of the vote that the top three entries were weekly newspapers.
On this citation, Mr Creighton said: “We are grateful to everyone who took time to support us in this contest.
“We dedicate our win in the poll to her memory. It provides us with another opportunity to raise the important points about Ofsted inspections that need to be aired.”
