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.

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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]

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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.