My friend and colleague Mike Raleigh, who has died suddenly aged 69, was an educationist whose work, first as an English teacher, then with an education authority and latterly in Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMI) and Ofsted, influenced all the people with whom he came into contact.
He was born in London and brought up there and in Kent. His father, Michael, was a porter in a private bridge club, while his mother Bridget (nee O’Donovan) had been in service before her marriage. Mike was educated at St Joseph’s Academy, Blackheath, south London, and the University of Sussex, where he gained a first-class degree in English literature, graduating in 1971.
He began his teaching career in Loughborough then returned to London as head of English at Ladbroke school, before becoming deputy warden of the Inner London Education Authority English centre in 1978. The force of his ideas and his formidable work rate were major contributors to the centre’s growing influence on English teaching in the capital, and then nationally and internationally, in the courses it ran and the publications it produced.
In 1985 Mike moved to Shropshire as an English adviser. Over the next few years he rose through the ranks, becoming senior secondary adviser, then chief adviser and deputy county education officer. In each post he demonstrated the qualities that had distinguished him from the beginning of his career: an appetite for hard work, clarity of thinking, a tendency to plain speaking, an impatience with jargon and the human touch. The effect was to invigorate the county’s educational practices.
In 1996 Mike moved to HMI and Ofsted. Once again he progressed swiftly upwards, taking on a variety of roles, first in HMI’s local authority inspection division, and later in its secondary education division, which he led. He also had regional responsibility for schools in north-west England. After his retirement from HMI, Mike co-founded the consultancy Owen Education, which did important work in school improvement across the UK.
Mike met Sue Goldie when they were both working at Ladbroke school. They lived together for many years and married in 1995. Sue died in 2010. After an interval, Mike and his long-time friend, Kate Myers, became partners and their brief years together brought them much joy.
He is survived by Kate, his sisters Anne and Sheila, and his stepdaughter Sophie.
