Together

England is a strange place in many respects. We love to complain in this country and yet we very rarely take direct action when it comes to bigger things. We groan, we grumble, but we rarely act.

I grew up in France. I am not saying the place is perfect. There are many institutional problems there. However, people will take to the streets far more readily than across the Channel, especially when it comes to workers’ rights.

Why? I am sure there are myriad reasons. Maybe having more of an insular mentality has made us more prone to accepting the whims of the ruling classes. Maybe our own brand of liberalism has meant that people trust the ‘money’ over morality. Could it be that it partly due to the influence of living under a monarchy, however risible it may be?

Added to this lack of action, many people in this in a country allow morals to be pushed to the side in favour of rugged capitalism, ultra-individualism: a philosophy of might is right - basically neo-Thatcherism. ‘Woke’ is increasingly used as an insult. It would appear that believing in justice, integrity and decency is deemed a sign of weakness by some. Does this scare people from speaking out?

My main point linked to the blog being that while we may moan, many will accept a status quo which is unacceptable, like a once community-focussed school gone toxic due mainly to the actions of one person.

I can understand that the ‘system’ underpinning a toxic workplace (led by a narcissist who puts their workforce at risk) will protect its own, however guilty they may be. Guilty by association... What I cannot understand or accept is that those who have suffered under such a system should choose to remain silent about their experiences.

Only by calling out bad -not to say damaging- behaviour and shoddy practice, can we hope that it will not continue and be repeated ad infinitum. It is apparent that after the appalling experiences of my contemporaries and myself, people are still suffering. We owe it to them and those to come, to speak out and protest to put a stop to unfair treatment.

No one deserves to be victimised, to be gas-lit, to be ostracised just because they will not accept the unreasonable demands of a bully, just because they refuse to bow down to a compromised and unfair toxic culture.

This is my plea to any of you who have suffered: get in touch. Share your experiences. 

I would like to extend this invitation to people who have suffered under other rogue heads, SLT, governors, etc. Please get in touch.

I know it is as cliché as it comes, but it is a truth that we are stronger together. If we do not do anything, how can things possibly progress? How can we guarantee decency at the workplace? How can we ensure that staff, children and families all feel safe and respected?

I would be grateful to hear from you. Nothing would give me greater pleasure to help in any way. You know where to find me.

Collusion

Ah, that good old period between Christmas and the New Year: no real structure per se, and plenty of time on one’s hands to sit around looking at this and that on the hard drive, especially if feeling a bit ill. I have been idly looking at few documents that I was sent after I made SARs to my previous school.

I have come up with a number of rather interesting mails from the chair of governors (CoG). They share a complete failure to address legitimate whistleblowing complaints:

1)     a letter sent confidentially (anonymised below) by a member of staff about toxic culture there at the time, following the ordeal in November 2019 which led to my breakdown;

2)     the CoG’s reaction to my having tried to blow the whistle in July 2020.

 

As GDPR seemed to be the main priority for the CoG, rather than staff well-being and safety, I will paraphrase and elaborate on the content of the e-mails instead of including them verbatim.

                                                            ___________

On 05.11.19, I had the nervous breakdown.

On 13.11.19, a letter was written by a concerned friend, colleague and fellow-NEU member in the name of NEU members at the school.

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 5^th 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 31^st 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 5^th November.

We feel that this chain of events signals a lack of duty of care from the Head Teacher, and we would like to put on record a complaint about this so as to help ensure that it 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 these 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 – address the symptoms but not the causes of stress. We suggest that addressing the initial NEU meeting concerns would be a fruitful point of departure.

3.     Maintain a channel of communication between yourself and the teaching staff in order to guarantee the proper oversight of school leadership. This includes an indication of any action taken.

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,

NEU members 

He had shown it to other members to be able to send as a collective as the de facto NEU rep (he was subsequently voted in). They all agreed with it. However, the general feeling was that it should remain anonymous rather than be signed. The culture had just become too toxic and, understandably, no one wanted to be victimised in the same way I had been.

Accordingly, my friend approached the CoG to ask for permission to give her said letter. They approved and promised confidentiality stating they would not inform the Head of his identity. In good faith, he used the CoG’s email address available to him via the school directory since it was not published elsewhere. To keep things confidential, he had not wanted to make a request to the school office. So far, so good.

                                                            ___________

On 16.11.19, the CoG wrote to the Vice Chair and Chair of Staffing governors explaining that they had received a communication from a member of staff who had sent an anonymous letter on behalf of NEU members raising concerns about the Head's management of my situation, and concerns about current workload at the school.

My friend later noted that the letter was not about 'workload': “it was about a breakdown and wellbeing, as [the CoG] well knew...”

The tone of the CoG’s message was very much in favour of the Head and showed no concern for the staff. Instead the CoG was looking to reassure the other governors that this did not constitute a formal concern under the grievance or whistle blowing procedures. Rather than upholding her responsibilities as a CoG and treating the letter for what it was – whistleblowing a health and safety concern – they were was more interested in finding a reason to close down the concerns.

They claimed to be doing their best to get the correct advice and stated that there was a limited amount they could do. I reiterate that there was certainly no intent to protect staff. There was mention of a meeting with the Head planned to discuss the situation, but with the onus being on ensuring HR policies were being followed.

                                                            ___________

 

On 17.11.19, the CoG broke their promise to keep my colleague’s identity confidential – they informed the Head of his identity. This immediately reveals the CoG’s lack of ethics and their actual priorities: not the good of the school but keeping a leadership regime in power.

Three days later, on 19.11.19, another e-mail was sent by the CoG to the same governors summarising their meeting with the head. This stated gratitude to the two governors and that the CoG had assured the head of the governors’ full support. The CoG expressed concern that problems with teachers were weighing heavily on the head, who was having a really tough time of it all. There is talk about what type of extra support the governors could offer.

Nauseating. I am in no way exaggerating the contents of these e-mails. It still continues to shock me that, despite mounting evidence of victimisation and low staff morale in the school, the CoG was so fully supportive of the head – and able to so dismiss so swiftly and completely the idea that staff were suffering. Not even an attempt at impartiality. I wonder if they are actually fully aware of the Nolan Principles.

The CoG also stated that the head was being particularly fastidious when it came to keeping a file solely about me. Not that this information cache was ever revealed by any SARs. Careful indeed…

As far as the general culture of the school went, in response a survey was being prepared: always the ideal solution to any institutional crisis…

The email was signed off pondering about how best to respond to my friend who had organised the letter. As I have mentioned in previous posts, this was to take a rather sinister turn.

                                                            ___________

On the evening of 19.11.23, my friend got an email response from the CoG. They explained that they had met with the head that morning and had a frank meeting about the concerns outlined in the letter. They explained that they had full confidence that the head would look into these and review. They signed off assuring him that they would continue to work with the head in the interests of both children and staff at the school.

                                                            ___________

However, there was no attempt to look into serious issues of victimisation that had been raised. Or curiosity as to how these came about. In a nutshell, my nervous breakdown was not investigated. Nor were the concerns about the toxic culture, or certainly not in any meaningful way. The email related above smacks of duplicity pure and simple. The interests of both children and staff at the school were blatantly not at the forefront of the CoG and head’s priorities.

A period of victimisation against my friend who had communicated the letter began. In all likelihood, the CoG had already alerted the head about the staff letter of concern before the message to other governors seeking 'advice'. Anyway, the school accused him of a serious data breach – using the CoG’s email address – and attempted to have him dismissed via a disciplinary hearing. During the hearing, the chair argued that dismissal should be kept on the table. No doubt it was hoped that if the friend could not be pushed then he might jump if pushed hard enough (part of being ‘walked to the door’). The school was prepared to lie in its desperate attempt to achieve this - the school’s evidence falsely claimed there was an ICO investigation into him personally; it was subsequently established by the ICO itself that no such investigation had ever existed.  And it tried to put pressure on him by saying that he might be (personally) liable for tens of thousands of pounds – again, false. Added to this, the school flouted GDPR rules itself when publishing his own personal email address during the hearing and using CCTV monitoring of him without following the ICO’s guidance on this. The school then flouted the council’s own disciplinary rules on disciplining union reps. This took its toll on him mentally in the time leading up to Covid, but as we all know by now, staff well-being was not high on the school’s priorities. Protecting those at the top is another matter. Impartiality…

In his words: “the fact that I was subsequently investigated while the incident was not further demonstrates that [there was] no intention of investigating the allegations. [The council] HR did not take the original matter seriously either and failed to provide oversight. The incident cannot have been investigated because the colleague who suffered the breakdown was never consulted about the incident.”

                                                            ___________

In many ways, a cynical person would argue that Covid came at a most auspicious time for them all. Priorities shifted for everyone. We had to cope with a ‘new normal’ and supporting our children whilst staying sane. A very fake entente cordiale was the order of the day as far as industrial relations were concerned. It was only towards the end of the 2019-2020 school year that things began to return to a more recognisable normal.

It also was the end of my time at the school. I had by a stroke of good fortune successfully interviewed for a job just before the first lockdown. As I have written about at length in previous posts, I decided to leave using all channels possible to make sure there was some form of accountability. I ruffled feathers but with the council, governing body and SLT in cahoots, it didn’t go as far as it surely would have done if the system had accountability built in.

                                                            ___________

True to form, when I did get in touch to blow the whistle in July 2020, the CoG tried a similar tactic to the one used on my friend. On 24.07.20, the CoG sent emails to governors and the head, trying to make the case that I was responsible for a potential data breach by sending emails to them and other governors. This was despite the fact that at the time I sent the emails, I was still employed by the school and therefore had access to all the school email addresses on the directory, as all other staff did. The CoG seemed not to have thought that through or maybe just reckoned that others would not see through a re-run of this favoured tactic…  

                                                            ___________

On the same day, the head confirmed receipt of the above message, adding that they hoped it had not caused any of the governors any worry. Isn’t it so lovely that there was such a tight-knit community between the head and the governors?

                                                            ___________

Interestingly, that afternoon, there had been a staff/community end-of-term get together in the playground – in order to maintain social distancing. Festivities continued later at the pub where it would appear that a number of staff contracted C19, but that is another story…

The send-off itself was farcical: it was embarrassing. Talk about an elephant in the room; more like a herd of them. Things got particularly spiky when it came to saying goodbye to staff. Initially, I was not going to say anything, so when I was asked to speak I muttered some short ad-libbed speech thanking certain staff members. I stayed on for a short while, but stormed off when the head started to address the room without any real purpose, simply wittering on about this and that. I remember I slammed the gate behind me. It was a petulant gesture but I enjoyed it, I’m not going to lie.

Later on, I sent this brief email to the school’s NEU members:

Dear all,

Sorry I left so suddenly. I just couldn't stand to hear any more false speeches. I'll miss you all. You are all wonderful people and I hope that we get to stay in touch.

Take care, l'll miss you.

Alex xxx

P.S.: Unionise.

  

                                                            ___________

I will leave it to the reader to form their own conclusions from the above attempts to blow the whistle on the toxic culture of a local authority maintained school. Sadly, the local authority has also been unresponsive to concerns. What is the point in having these checks and balances in our state schools (paid for by us)? To make them appear transparent and democratic, it would seem. And are there not bigger questions about the governance structure of maintained schools?