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Former teacher and Chief Inspector of Schools

Sir Christopher Anthony Woodhead (20 October 1946 – 23 June 2015) was a British educationalist. He was Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools in England from 1994 to 2000, and was one of the most controversial figures in debates on the direction of English education policy. He was Chairman of Cognita, a company dedicated to fostering private education, from 2004 to 2013.

Christopher Anthony Woodhead was born in Southgate, Middlesex, on 20 October 1946. His father was an accountant, and his mother a school secretary; he was an only child. He went to Selsdon Primary School on Addington Road in South Croydon, then Wallington County Grammar School in Surrey. Later, he graduated in English at the University of Bristol, where he obtained a PGCE. in 1974. His final teaching position was at Gordano School in Portishead as Head of English. During this period, he was noted for his espousal of "progressive" educational ideology, which he later recanted. In 1976, he left teaching, and subsequently moved into teacher education. He worked as a tutor on the Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) teacher training course at the University of Oxford and held a number of posts in education development, including Deputy Chief Education Officer in Devon (1988–90), as well as posts in Shropshire and Cornwall (1990–1). using the Freedom of Information Act, which confirmed that in 1997 Woodhead had over ruled a unanimous decision by his own inspectors, and a subsequent inspection visit by HMI inspectors, to declare that Islington Green School was failing and required special measures. According to the head of the school at the time, "the consequences for staff and pupils were catastrophic".

He was employed as a columnist for The Daily Telegraph In 2002 Class War: The State of British Education, a damning verdict on the systemic failures of British education, was published. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed a Professor of Education at the University of Buckingham. Woodhead and Cognita were reported in the press as having expelled pupils, and were accused of "milking profits", and dismissing a whistleblower who accused the company of allowing ineligible teachers to participate in the state run Teachers' Pension Scheme. In May 2009 his second book, A Desolation of Learning: Is this the education our children deserve?, a critical examination of the almost two decades of education policy and reforming initiative, was published. He was on the Advisory Council of Reform.