Governors at Holland Park college, a prime London academy, have launched an impartial investigation into allegations in regards to the college’s “poisonous” working atmosphere below certainly one of England’s most extremely paid headteachers, and the incendiary declare that essential employees questionnaires have been hidden from Ofsted inspectors.
Twenty-six of the varsity’s just lately departed academics have written to the chair of the governing physique at Holland Park, whose current dad and mom embody the cupboard minister Michael Gove and the former Commons speaker John Bercow, and individually to the federal government’s academy regulator, the Training and Expertise Funding Company (ESFA), setting out detailed examples of what they describe as abuses of energy by the headteacher, Colin Corridor, and his senior workforce.
The letters, two of which have been despatched to the governors and copied to the ESFA and a 3rd direct to the ESFA, have been despatched in June and July. They declare that bullying and intimidation by the management on the college, judged “outstanding” by Ofsted, are endemic, affecting employees turnover and morale.
9 of the signatories had been signed off college for stress, melancholy or anxiousness, which they are saying was associated to the environment at work, with employees being insulted and humiliated, publicly named and shamed for poor work or examination outcomes and given seating plans for employees conferences to point who was in or out of favour.
The letters, seen by the Guardian, say that academics who wished to depart have been topic to intimidating behaviour, comparable to having courses taken from them. Some say they have been threatened with poor references to discourage them from attending job interviews or given inaccurate and damaging references that led to some job affords being revoked.
One claims the intimidation didn’t cease even when she left the varsity and moved to a brand new job, as she was advised by senior leaders that except she may present further information a couple of former class at Holland Park, her reference could be modified. “A senior supervisor on the college subsequently emailed my new college to say they have been altering my reference to say I used to be ‘unprofessional’,” she stated.
“Thankfully, my new college understood how unjust and ungrounded this was and so it didn’t affect my new place. Nonetheless it triggered and nonetheless causes important stress.”
A lot of the academics have requested to stay nameless, and within the letters state that their expertise makes them terrified of reprisals, though some agreed to talk to the Guardian in confidence. Anna King (not her actual title) was signed off work by her GP affected by work-related stress in 2020, after her complaints in regards to the college’s Covid security measures have been unheeded.
“We have been requested to take a seat shoulder to shoulder with out masks in employees conferences and it was steered that dedicated employees would come to work even when that they had doable Covid signs. Each different college I knew gave the impression to be taking it extra significantly,” she stated.
After she went on sick depart, a senior supervisor on the college contacted her to counsel that regardless of being unwell, she ought to present cowl work for a few of her courses as she was taking “paid time away from college”.
King wrote to the varsity’s management outlining her considerations. The reply stated they didn’t imagine any authorities Covid tips had been breached.
King, an Oxbridge graduate, by no means went again. “That college is held up as excellent and among the best within the nation, but it was a poisonous work environment dominated by constructions that made individuals terrified of talking out,” she stated.
Holland Park college has at all times attracted consideration. Referred to as the “socialist Eton” within the 1970s due to its distinguished leftwing dad and mom, its repute dwindled within the 1990s earlier than the arrival of the present headteacher, Colin Corridor, who has been credited with remodeling it into an excellent and oversubscribed complete.
The final full Ofsted inspection in 2014 described the varsity as “exemplary” and stated Corridor led with “a drive and ability admired by all locally”. Based on the Division for Training’s most up-to-date efficiency tables, the varsity’s progress measure is properly above common for GCSEs, however under common for A-levels.
Since 2012 Holland Park has been housed in a state-of-the-art constructing, after a part of its earlier website was offered off to builders. The brand new constructing price £80m – about 5 occasions the price of a mean secondary college.
In 2019 it emerged that the headteacher had spent 1000’s of kilos on Farrow and Ball paint and scented Jo Malone candles. Corridor’s wage, at £280,000, makes him one of the crucial extremely paid academy leaders in England and, based on a current analysis, essentially the most extremely paid per pupil because the Holland Park Belief incorporates just one college.
This isn’t the primary try to blow the whistle on the tradition on the college. An earlier submission made to the ESFA in 2019 from a distinct group of 30 academics, elevating related considerations, was adopted by an Ofsted monitoring go to to take a look at management and safeguarding within the college, which it then judged “efficient”.
It was throughout this inspection that regardless of the Ofsted guidance stating that employees ought to have the ability to full questionnaires on-line, this digital possibility was not doable at Holland Park and academics who wished to finish the questionnaire had to take action on paper, to be deposited in an unsealed wicker basket exterior the headteacher’s workplace.
The varsity retained its excellent grade however in a letter to the ESFA, one trainer intently concerned within the administration on the time wrote: “Regardless of the Ofsted report of January/February 2020 reporting that ‘all members of employees who spoke to us and accomplished the survey for this inspection have been unanimous in expressing how they really feel very properly supported by senior leaders’, there have been variety of surveys that have been essential of the varsity.
“These surveys weren’t nameless or sealed away from the senior management workforce, who learn them. These deemed to be damaging in tone or content material have been then faraway from the wicker basket which was later checked out by inspectors.”
A spokesperson for Ofsted confirmed that paper questionnaires had been used as a result of “for technical causes” on-line surveys had not been doable and that employees had been capable of put these in a set field or give them direct to inspectors.
She added: “Employees got each alternative to talk to the inspection workforce, as set out within the revealed report. Along with employees surveys, this included direct conversations with inspectors as they walked across the college (unaccompanied by senior leaders), and inspectors met with a number of employees at their request.”
Holland Park’s chair of governors, Anne Marie Carrie, declined to touch upon employees turnover and stated it might not be applicable for the varsity to answer particular person claims however stated that the governors took the allegations extraordinarily significantly. “The wellbeing of all members of our college is our highest precedence,” she stated.
“We have been involved to obtain anonymised claims, raised on behalf of former members of the varsity’s employees. While we imagine lots of the points raised have already been thought of by our regulatory our bodies, it can be crucial that any such claims are totally examined. To supply assurance, we’ve taken rapid steps to fee an impartial exterior assessment. That is the suitable discussion board for these points to be explored and for everybody concerned to have the ability to present detailed, evidence-based responses.”
In an announcement through the chair of governors, Corridor stated he was “saddened and anxious” in regards to the allegations and that he could be supporting the impartial assessment. “We don’t recognise the characterisation of the varsity or our management within the allegations raised,” he stated.
Bercow, who was just lately elected a father or mother governor on the college, stated he wholeheartedly supported the exterior assessment. “That is the right discussion board for these points to be investigated and it’s only proper that everybody who cares in regards to the college group awaits the findings of that assessment. I cannot due to this fact remark additional on the matter at current.”
The letters’ coordinator, the previous Holland Park worker Lara Agnew, stated: “Now we have tried on separate events to alert the chair of governors to complaints in regards to the poisonous atmosphere, bullying and abuse of energy on the a part of management workforce and to the best way by which the Ofsted questionnaires have been dealt with. Up to now we’ve had no response. In consequence, we’ve no possibility however to contain the ESFA once more.”
A number of of the academics, a few of whom left previously 12 months, stated they’d be ready to current proof in confidence to an impartial assessment of employment practices on the college.
A DfE spokesperson stated the first accountability for academy oversight lay with trustees however stated considerations in regards to the college had been raised in 2019, after which the ESFA labored with the varsity and its trustees on addressing the problems. She added {that a} related course of could be adopted with the more moderen considerations raised with the ESFA.
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