Michael Wilshaw

Career

The son of a postman, Wilshaw grew up in a Roman Catholic household in south London in the 1950s. He went to Clapham College, a south London grammar school, and then St Mary's teacher training college in Twickenham. He later took a part-time History degree at Birkbeck College while teaching in various London schools. At the age of 39 he was appointed head teacher of St Bonaventure's Catholic School, also known informally as St. Bon's, in Forest Gate, London. Whilst there, he was knighted in the New Year Honours for 2000 "for services to education".

In 2003, Wilshaw was appointed executive principal of Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney in London.

In November 2011, Wilshaw was announced as the successor to Christine Gilbert. He took up his five-year term from 1 January 2012. In 2015, Wilshaw was paid a salary of between £195,000 and £199,999 by Oftsed, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time.

Speaking on BBC TV's The Andrew Marr Show in the wake of the GCSE English results controversy in August 2012, Wilshaw said the row was a "really good opportunity" to examine whether examinations were "rigorous enough", adding that "Two-thirds of our schools are good or better. We have got a third of schools, 6,000 schools, that are not good, that are satisfactory and below. We have to make sure that schools know they have got to get to good soon as possible. We have given them a prescribed period of time, up to four years, in which to get to good."

From 1st January 2017 Wilshaw has been a board member of the Education Policy Institute, a Westminster-based research institute.