Background
The son of a postman, Wilshaw grew up in a Roman Catholic household in south London in the 1950s.
head Chief Inspector head of Ofsted
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 Street Mary"s teacher training college in Twickenham. He later took a part-time History degree at Birkbeck, University of London while teaching in various London schools. Whilst there, he was knighted in the New Year Honours for 2000 "for services to education".
In 2003, Sir Michael was appointed executive principal of Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney in London.
The school is the best performing in Hackney, with 89% getting five good GCSEs as of 2013. The school has been described as the country"s most fêted, praised for getting excellent results in a deprived inner-city area.
The school was rated as Outstanding by Ofsted in 2006 and again in 2010. In November 2011, Sir Michael was announced as the successor to Christine Gilbert.
He took up his five year term from 1 January 2012.
As of 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 British Broadcasting Corporation television"s The Andrew Marr Show in the wake of the GCSE English results controversy in August 2012, Sir Michael 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.".