the way back - nervous breakdown and all that

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 Govern...

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 d...

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 wo...

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 Go...

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 ...

"It was agreed that I would write to parents and inform them of your return to work. You shared your concern that parents may attempt to discuss the details of your absence with you and we agreed that you would keep to the professional line and confirm that you have been unwell but would not share any personal details of your absence." Last week, I discussed my initial back to work meeting. The above is taken from the letter I was sent by the head immediately after the following meeting on 24.01.20. I was not informed of what parents were told about my absence which lasted the best part of 3 months. One thing I do know is that they were not told that it was due to a nervous breakdown, nor that it had been caused by the head.  But apparently, I "shared (my) concern with (her)  that parents may attempt to discuss the details of (my) absence with (me)   and we agreed that (I) would keep to the professional line and confirm that (I) have been unwell but would not share any p...

On 23/03/22, I made a Subject Access Request to my previous school’s council’s HR as I had to the school before (see previous posts). Data protection law requires that such requests for personal data are dealt with within one calendar month. I finally received documents at the beginning of July… And the contents were woefully meagre. A lot of the communication I had had with HR over the years was not included. More importantly, unless the vast majority of communication between the school and HR had been conducted over the phone or in person, it is odd that was such little email correspondence between the head and HR knowing the number of unresolved issues. Below is one of three e-mails I was given. It was from HR to the head sent after my Sickness Review Meeting – I have of course anonymised it and added annotations. It concerns my sickness review meeting, a month after my breakdown. It is mainly verbatim: I just added the odd bit of punctuation. A lot of the minutes are poorly trans...