J'accuse

My local authority/council have begun a new campaign. I could not believe it.  A friend recently sent me the picture above of a poster seen in town.

Ready to shake things up: my arse.

This is the council that has done absolutely nothing to protect its teachers and other school staff from a narcissistic head.

This is the council who has refused to meet me to discuss the wrongdoings of the head and board of governors of my previous school.

This is the council who has to all intents and purpose served me with an unofficial cease-and-desist:

o    11/03/22: extract of Re: EMAIL COMMUNICATION WITH [SCHOOL]

Your emails to the School are causing the members of staff a great deal of stress and they themselves feel that your actions constitute a course of conduct that amounts to harassment.

In the circumstances we require that you immediately refrain from emailing of contacting any member of staff or Governor of the School or member of staff at the Council regarding [the] School.

In the event that you are not prepared to refrain from contacting members of staff or Governors of the School, your emails and contact telephone numbers will be blocked from their computer and telephone systems

We advise that you seek your own independent legal advice in this matter.

o    18/03/22: extract of Re: OFFENSIVE COMMENTS ON (…) SCHOOL’S TWITTER FEED

We ask you please not to comment, respond or in anyway interact with the School's and [PTA]'s social media accounts, including but not limited to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or other social media accounts posting or commenting on the School positively, whether by existing or former staff and governors (…), or other organisations or people supporting [the school]. Any new accounts that relate to the above activity will also be blocked. We ask that you take the above action with immediate effect and confirm to us that you will do so.

I am trying to control my rage at the injustice of it all, but the lies, the collusion, the lack of duty of care... 

Talk about adding insult to injury.

Nothing to see here

Continuing on the theme of smoke and mirrors: at the end of autumn term 2019, my union caseworkers requested to meet with my head to express their concern at and investigate the way reps were being treated at my previous school.

As I have detailed in previous posts, my breakdown had been brushed aside by her and the board of governors. An anonymous letter to the Chair of Governors had not only been ignored but had led to the good friend, who had taken up my position as union rep in my absence, to be given a fraudulent disciplinary. The other co-rep in their turn had also been victimised leading to a nervous breakdown: they never returned to the school. This all took place within a month: it was textbook union-bashing. In my mind, it is a travesty that this in itself was not considered in the ‘public interest’ and investigated immediately by the governors and local council. However, it was not, and things got progressively worse for staff and by extension children at the school.

I digress. Back to December 2019.

Having been kept abreast of the situation, accordingly, the union sent the head an e-mail just before Christmas break to request a meeting. To be present were our two caseworkers plus a regional director.

The head’s response could not have been more disingenuous or hypocritical.

1.     She expressed her surprise at such a request maintaining that there was no proof of her targeting individuals. She maintained that she had acted according to school protocol and always been fully transparent and fair.

2.     She argued that there were no official disciplinaries. A technicality of the most hypocritical order.

3.     And for the coup-de-grâce: she had the nerve to assert that she was being targeted by the union - particularly as the e-mail was sent on the last day of term! For those of you have read my previous blogs, you will remember that I have mentioned her modus operandi of sending missives at tactical times to cause as much damage to one’s well-being.

 

The meeting did eventually take place in January of 2020. The caseworkers were not allowed in the meeting at the same time despite working side by side within the union: they could only be present for the rep that was being discussed at the time. Ridiculous. Nothing concrete was achieved at the meeting – it was a PR exercise for her. The head magnanimously declared that she was happy that there was a good working relationship between her and the union; that she looked forward to working with the union ‘together’ in the future.

A sad and sorry state of affairs. My co-rep and I kept the union protecting its members as best we could for as long as we could. I left in July 2020, him the following year.

There were three more mental breakdowns after I left. Turnover of staff continued to be an issue. Children have continued to move schools. Nothing to see here…

...or lack thereof

Last week, I wrote a piece entitled ‘Duty of care’ putting the onus on the Chair of Governors (CoG). Here is a companion piece.

As I have mentioned in the past, I put in a number of subject access requests (SARs) to the school. Amongst the myriad irrelevant documents sent my way, and despite the huge number of documents that were not sent, some extremely revealing emails were included.

Some of these were emails between governors, and between the CoG and the head. It is clear in all this correspondence that the governors unconditionally stood by the head in late 2019 - despite my nervous breakdown and staff concern. 

It would appear that impartiality and duty of care were never even considered.

As I mentioned in the previous post, shortly after my breakdown, a letter was sent to the CoG by a member of staff, on behalf of other union member staff who wished to remain anonymous. It raised concerns about the Head's management of me and about her responses to concerns around workload.

In one email, the CoG contacted certain governors to inform them she had received the letter. She claimed that she wanted to follow procedure carefully but that she thought that there was very little the governors could do about it as she did not consider it to be an official complaint. All highly convenient for both her and the head.

Three days later, an email was sent by the CoG to other governors that she had assured the head of their continuing support and that staff issues were still having an adverse effect on her. The CoG was concerned at how ‘tough’ the situation was for the head and how the governors could offer any external support.

What about us?

In the same mail, she related that the head was carefully documenting as much as possible with regarding me. Apparently, she was considering staff well-being and what might be useful in terms of external assessment regarding workload – nothing came of this. She concluded the email by writing that she would respond carefully to the member of staff who had contacted her: the person -another union rep- was next on the list to be victimised by the head and given a bogus disciplinary…

___________________

Since that fateful winter, nearly three years have passed. There has been significant correspondence between the CoG and me. Not once has she acknowledged that the head has done anything untoward or that the school and board of governors have been remiss regarding duty of care. I wrote official letters (two are included in previous posts - https://alexgwinnett.blogspot.com/2022/04/letter-to-governors-july-2020.html & https://alexgwinnett.blogspot.com/2022/06/second-letter-to-governors-220722.html) – nothing came of them. When I finally blew the whistle officially, she claimed that due to criticism towards the governing body an independent adjudicator would have to be used.

Through one of the SARs, I discovered that she had tried to instigate GDPR procedures when I sent correspondence to her and other governors. She believed I had wrongfully got hold of their email addresses, forgetting that I had been in touch with all of them whilst still working at the school and since. Quite the own goal there.

You would think such collusion may raise questions among people with integrity: where are these people?

Duty of care...

Thus far, most of my ire has been directed at the head of my previous school. Let me now turn once more to the chair of governors. I have mentioned them before but after some of the recent stories I have heard about them and their incompetence and/or collusion, I think it would be apt to include the document which follows on the blog.

Shortly after my breakdown, my fellow union members at the school -worried about me and what could potentially happen to them- tried to find a way to alert the governors. Only a handful were willing to reveal their identities. Understandably therefore, they decided to make an anonymous complaint to the governors. Below is the letter they prepared.

__________

Dear [chair of governors],

We are writing to you to convey our collective concern about an incident that has occurred within the school. Since the Head Teacher is involved, and on account of the seriousness of our concern, we feel that this issue should be addressed by you, as the Chair of Governors.

The incident concerns the apparent mental and emotional breakdown of an experienced member of staff, Alex Gwinnett, leading him to be signed-off from work. This event was witnessed by several members of staff, some of whom had to assist Alex. They understandably found the episode distressing. It happened following the Professional Development Meeting (PDM) of 5th November, and it was ostensibly triggered by an email sent to him from the Head immediately before that meeting. We understand that it contained an unreasonable series of criticisms, several of which would apply to many members of staff.

We are troubled by the specific context of this incident: we are aware that, as recently as 31st October, the Head sent Alex an email offering him time off work due to stress, following a continued period of feedback. As such, the Head was aware of Alex’s deteriorated mental health when she sent the email of 5th November.

We feel that this chain of events signals a lack of duty of care from the Head Teacher, and we would like to help ensure that this is not repeated at [the school].

As you will know, in June of this year, Year 6 celebrated excellent SATs results, demonstrating Alex’s many teaching abilities.

We wish to set out some of the wider context of what has happened. Concerns about workload, including the rapid introduction of initiatives following minimal or no consultation of staff, were conveyed to the Head following our National Education Union (NEU) meeting in October. The Head has taken no action on the concerns fed back to her. On the contrary, the Head delivered a confrontational briefing on the morning following the meeting, in which she derided staff ‘moaning’ – having received, it would seem, information about the NEU meeting’s contents prior to speaking to its agreed representatives. Members of the NEU regard her comments as belittling legitimate union business.

In light of the above, we kindly ask that you take action on the following, in accordance with your role as manager of the Head’s performance:

1.    Speak with the Head Teacher about this matter in order to clarify her duty of care to staff.

2.    Encourage the Head to address the workload and well-being concerns of staff more rapidly. The existing well-being initiatives – including a telephone number to call when feeling stressed – only address the symptoms and not the causes of stress. We suggest that addressing the initial NEU meeting concerns would be a fruitful point of departure.

We do work hard at [the school] and we believe that the well-being of staff and children go hand-in-hand. Well-motivated and happy teachers are effective teachers. We therefore ask that you address this matter in order to help move our community school forwards.

Yours faithfully

[Anonymous]

____________

 

You would think that such a letter may cause somewhat of a ripple among the governing body, that some members may be rattled and demand that this complaint be taken seriously.

There is no evidence that this letter was even disseminated among governors. The complaint certainly was not taken seriously.

Instead of addressing the issue, the rep -whom the chair of governors had agreed to accept the letter from- was falsely accused of committing a serious data breach. The allegation was obviously made to intimidate him. As a person of the utmost integrity, it did not, but it made the remnant of his stay at the school stressful and generally unpleasant. To add insult to injury, as far as we know, this accusation remains on his record despite being found to be baseless.

To this day and to my knowledge, the governing body of the school maintain that no official complaints have been made and/or upheld.

NPD

I have been reading up on narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) this weekend. It makes for interesting and very relevant reading. Although I am not trained in psychology, I am convinced that my previous head has a NPD. Many others have come to this conclusion too.

People with NPD tend to share some or all of nine most common traits (source: https://www.psycom.net/personality-disorders/narcissistic).

• An inflated sense of self-importance and entitlement.

• A need for constant admiration – heightened self- requiring a steady stream of attention, approval, and recognition.

• The expectation of special treatment:  favours, apologies, etc. – belief that deserve to have it—because superior to everyone around: everyone should know and comply.

• An exaggeration of achievements and talents - no ethical issues with embellishing the facts -or even outright lying- about life, CV, and experiences.

• Negative reaction to criticism: while craving control and taking full credit when things are going well, quick to blame others whenever a situation doesn’t go as planned. It’s extremely hard to accept criticism or admit to mistakes because, naturally, it’s always someone else’s fault.

• A preoccupation with fantasies about power and success. Creation and belief of exaggerated, unrealistic narratives around success and relationships to help one feel special and in control. Anything that threatens the fantasy is rationalized away or simply ignored. Envy of people who have what one wants.

• Taking advantage of others. Exploitation of other people to achieve own ends—whether maliciously or obliviously. No interest in how behaviour might affect others.

• An inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others. Extremely sensitive to how people treat and react to their needs and feelings, but on the flip side, inability to empathize with others’ experiences. Tendency to belittle others or even bully people to feel better about themselves. No depth in relationships with others and this is of no concern to the narcissist.

• Arrogant behaviour: inflated ego and sense of superiority and entitlement. Tendency to look down on people perceived as “inferior,” and only associate with those considered equally special, successful, and talented.

These traits can be identified time and time again throughout the previous posts on this blog. 

We were subjected to a host of unreasonable expectations. All her utterances and ideas were to be treated as gospel - despite her lack of experience and quite frankly skewed pedagogical theory. One example I have not given thus far is that of her regular middle-leader symposiums - enforced upon us every so often. These were perfunctory exercises of sharing teachings learnt from research papers rather than experience; they were widely viewed as dull and unnecessary: having very little impact -if at all- on our practice. They only ever illustrated her own views on leadership, difficult conversations, etc. On one occasion, I remember her vaunting how many of her staff had said how valuable these sessions were. 

She operated under the assumption that respect of/trust in her were givens, rather than having to be earned. On many an occasion, she told us that her word should be enough rather than being given tangible proof of minutes or policies.

She expected to be treated one way, while we were not entitled to such regard. I received so many threatening messages just before weekends, holidays, non-working days (including the message that precipitated my breakdown). Yet on one occasion when my union send a missive on the last day of term, she had the nerve to claim she was being harassed. Despite the email being about my nervous breakdown I hasten to add: the cruel irony…

The school, the governors and its employees were her pawns. She frequently mentioned ‘my’ school, ‘my Chair of Governors’, etc. Never ‘our’. Hardly a collegiate attitude: not quite the team player. 

Advice may have been heard, but it was never listened to or acted upon. Such arrogance. Many times were conversations had, ideas exchanged during staff meetings and one-to-ones where she agreed to take ideas on board, only to have changed her mind by the next day, claiming she had been right all along – if they had not simply been forgotten and then lied about…

She claimed to have ‘thick skin’ yet many of us saw her fly off the handle when contradicted. Both staff and parents experienced this.

As far as exaggeration of achievements go, well, suffice to say that a very long post could be written about that. For another time maybe.

How many more people will be damaged before anything is done? So many of us ex-staff have left. Parents are disgruntled. Children are leaving. And yet the collusion continues.