Here is the letter I sent to the Board of Governors upon leaving. It was acknowledged but ultimately ignored. There has certainly never been any sign that the head was held to account by the governing body - as is its responsibility.
The DfE stipulates that governing bodies should be fully aware of their responsibilities when it comes to their staff – in relation to both employment law and equalities legislation – and also of the fact that those responsibilities are subject to scrutiny through employment law procedures. This is not the experience I have had.
________________________
Dear
Governors,
I write to you as a teacher who has spent seven years teaching at [the school], and who feels privileged to have educated the hundreds of children who have passed through my care in this period. I’m proud to have helped (...) children to achieve some wonderful results. As a Year 6 teacher, I helped the school to reach its current position of 15th overall for SATs results, including 2nd for Reading, in the whole borough. These results were achieved by working collaboratively with a skilled and professional teaching and support team.
The reason I’m writing is because of the substantial deterioration in the day-to-day experience of being part of the staff at [the school]. I feel that the school is now such a negative and discouraging environment to be involved with. This view is also shared by many staff.
I’m truly saddened to be leaving [the school] but I feel I have little other option: the past two years have without doubt been the most challenging years in my professional life. The direction the school has taken under the leadership of the current head, at hectic and unheeding speed, has caused both me and many of my colleagues a lot of concern, and indeed pain.
There have been immense and negative changes to the school culture. The staff had been assured that the new head would respect the culture that had (been) built over the years: where the staff were consulted, and felt trusted; and where a community spirit was central to our shared values and ethos. I knew a new head would seek to bring change and I welcomed new thinking, but I feel that [the head] has focused on comprehensive reform for its own sake, and it’s been quite hard to discern the reasons for many of these relentless changes and the benefits they are presumably intended to bring the school. I believe [the head] genuinely lacks the expertise necessary to give broader understanding of the bigger picture. The school does have a function and a worth beyond its Ofsted rating. I deeply regret that I just do not feel [the head] really considers children’s individual experiences; this is a devastating view to have of a head teacher, and you will think me unusually blunt, but I have formed this view because of what I have experienced day after day.
The current management style is also a huge issue and in my view it is particularly poor. Surely good leadership doesn’t seek to endlessly impose change, but instead to bring teams on board at every stage, knowing that always seeking the best outcome for the children is an aim the whole staff will share. Across the school staff each different perspective will bring an important contribution into play, but there is no sense from [the head] that she considers views different to hers may have value. She cannot work in a collegiate way as she is clearly uncomfortable with any kind of divergence to her own views, to the extent that she is frequently antagonistic and hostile to staff in both group and individual meetings, with a noticeable lack of consistency when it comes to managing staff and a lack of interest in building consensus. An example would be the early retirement taken soon into [the head]’s tenure by the cleaning staff who could not work with her management style. The four team members in question had worked at the school for many years and were appreciated across the school staff community, but [the head] deemed their views and concerns insignificant.
The narrative we, the staff, have been given by [the head] is that the school was failing before she assumed the headship in 2018, and that she, herself, has turned the school around. In October 2019 she told an all-staff briefing that [the school] had been a school ‘requiring improvement.’ You will know that 2019’s report rated [the school] as ‘good’; ‘good’ was also the verdict of the 2014 Ofsted report, and indeed the 2009 report before that. My overwhelming sense is that [the head] does not recognise the need to be reflective, or the need to bring others along with her, but has a desire to ‘be’ the change.
We have seen the union have been especially important in recent months. They are trusted by school communities to help find a way to reopen schools that best protects children, staff and the community. [The head] clearly distrusts the teaching unions and is dismissive about the value of having their representation within school. I feel this element strengthens collaboration and engagement and draws on shared values and aims, but my readiness to speak up as a union representative for the NEU and through union activity attracted only pressure from [the head] which contributed to my breakdown at the start of November 2019. In fact, the NEU has advised me and my other union representatives that [the head]’s treatment of us over the last year provides grounds for raising a grievance and/or presenting a group action for bullying. (I would be happy to provide further details of any of this.) I also fear the pressure exerted on union reps in the last year may have had the outcome (likely desired by [the head]) that people will be less willing to voice their views because they see the impact of this work on their colleagues.
My breakdown resulted from an intense ramping up of pressure and scrutiny from [the head]. I was subjected to sustained criticism of my teaching and subject leadership. After several other visiting head teachers sat in on a lesson at extremely short notice – having visiting teams join a class is something I have often been asked to do in my career and something I have no problem with - [the head] sent me a lengthy hostile email which described the many different ways she felt my lesson had been poor, as well as reproving me for my failure to follow the school policy correctly with regard to presentation, marking, layout of the classroom. I had been subjected to intense criticism over previous weeks and I understand now that this aggressive tactic on [the head]’s part was aimed to shock, which it did: it triggered my breakdown. This was despite my telling both her and other senior team members a couple of weeks beforehand that I had been experiencing high levels of depression and anxiety because of her hostility. [The head] clearly understood this because she had offered me time off work. Following my breakdown, I had an occupational health assessment which judged my stress to be entirely work-related.
[The head] has since said things that are untrue: she has said that she hadn’t known about my depression and anxiety, that my breakdown was caused by stress outside work, and that I had been struggling to be an effective teacher to the extent that she had assessed me as needing a support plan - the occupational health assessor said that [the head] had told her I had been on such a support plan for some time. When I asked [the head] about this, she said the assessor had misunderstood her and she had not said it, but it’s clear that her intention was to position me as a failing teacher. I find it unacceptable that a head teacher would attempt to smear and bully her teachers like this.
My previous union co-representative has also suffered a great deal this year with mental health issues as a consequence of the way she has been treated, most recently regarding attempts to force through unwished for changes to her permanent contract – about which the NEU has told [the head] that she is risking legal action if she persists. Moreover, my current co-representative for the NEU has also most-likely been victimised directly by [the head]. In his case, disciplinary action was taken after he attempted to share a letter with the governing body that detailed the concerns of [the school]’s NEU members, both about my breakdown and also staff wellbeing in general. (Whether the Governors saw this letter I cannot say, but no response was received.)
Feeling that everyone at the school was personally invested in what the school can achieve was something that originally drew me to working at [the school], as it did others. But now, there is little trust in staff or respect shown for their expertise. What is especially sad is that staff had been told during an INSET in September 2019 that we now had the opportunity to take risks and to ‘throw cards into the air’. Nothing could actually have been further from the truth. In fact, the way things have been done at [the school] has become progressively more rigid, with teachers less trusted and given less autonomy, and with the head seemingly beyond accountability.
As a result, and from any perspective, turnover of staff over the last two years has been unusually high: close to twenty members of staff have left (eight of these have been teachers). While each case is of course an individual one, they have in common much unhappiness over how that team member has been treated by the head teacher, and concern about the changes that have been instigated at [the school]. This turnover is both extreme and illustrative of the impact of the current culture of the school.
I was so lucky to have found a new post very early in spring; if 2020 had been in any way a typical year I’m absolutely certain that other staff would have already secured new opportunities for September. Many feel [the school] simply isn’t a rewarding place to work anymore. Like the teachers who have already left, I cannot work for a head teacher who does not share similar values and who does not value and support their team. Beyond the teaching staff, I’d describe important relationships across the school - with the children, their parents and carers, and with the wider school team - as disconnected, showing just how different the school has become in such a short time.
Leaving [the school] with a letter like this is extremely sad. I opened by describing my experience of teaching at the school as a pleasure, which is true: I have taught some wonderful children and have also made great friendships with colleagues. But not sharing my concerns about the leadership in place at [the school] over the last two years would be remiss because I care deeply about the school. As I have mentioned above, I can provide more detail on any of the concerns I mention. In the meantime, I will be joining a new school to work for a head I respect, and who cherishes integrity and collaboration. I really can’t wait to start there.
Please accept my best wishes for the best future for [the school].
Alex
Gwinnett
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