|
|
 |
| |
GOVERNORS IN WALKOUT FROM SCHOOL
Shock as 12 quit over teacher recruitment criminal record checks
A DOZEN governors at a primary school have resigned en masse, insisting they have been made scapegoats for failings in staff recruitment processes.
The shock walkout comes as governors of Canonbury Primary School, where Boris Johnson and former schools minister Lord Adonis sent their children, claimed that the council knew two years ago that criminal record and reference checks were not being properly carried out on new staff.
The governors claim no action was taken when a report detailing the problem was circulated to senior figures at the Town Hall in November 2006.
They are now furious at being issued with a “warning notice” about their performance by Cambridge Education, the private company managing Islington’s schools, last Wednesday.
In protest, 12 of the school’s 15 governors stepped down.
Governors’ spokesman Paul Weller said they were only told of the two-and-a-half-year-old report into recruitment two months ago, making it impossible for them to have taken any action over gaps in the process. The governors involved wrote to parents on Friday to explain their decision to quit.
Mr Weller, who still believes Canonbury is a “fantastic school”, said: “The warning notice raises serious concerns over our ability tomanage HR in the school and to implement change at speed. This is a severe reprimand to a governing body.
“Our understanding is that it’s for governing bodies that are unco-operative with the local authority. It should have been given at the end of a process where they have raised concerns.”
He admitted it was possible staff references had not been properly checked from 2006 to 2009, but the governors believe responsibility lay with the headteacher, Cambridge Education (CE) and private companies employed to check references on behalf of the school.
Governor and father-of-two Jon Taylor said: “There was an HR audit in 2006 which was never presented to the governors. It was meant to be handled by the headteacher and followed up by CE. They had a duty to follow up their findings. The governors were never sent a copy of the report nor verbally notified of it. We were completely unaware that this had happened.”
The governors have appealed against the warning notice to the chief inspector of Ofsted.
CE has directed all press queries back to the council who said that although CE was supposed to check references, it was up to the school to supply them to the company.
A Town Hall spokeswoman said: “The November 2006 report was produced following a sample audit of a number of schools. There were deficiencies in the safe recruitment procedures identified at Canonbury school. CE followed these concerns up at a meeting with the headteacher and another member of staff at the school and it was made clear to the school what improvements needed to be made.”
She said the report was known about at a senior level at the Town Hall, but when asked what follow-up action was taken by the council, she said: “Headteachers are expected to be open and explain to governors where there are issues. Governors are also expected to check that the arrangements are secure and are expected to ask headteachers about policy implementation.”
She added: “The fact that some schools were not fully compliant has been tackled, and LBI holds CE to account on this indicator through the termly contract monitoring.”
Although the Town Hall has refused to disclose the report, extracts referring to Canonbury, seen by the Tribune, read: “Files
for school-based employment lacked documentary evidence to support safe recruitment.”
Islington Council could not confirm if similar difficulties had arisen in other schools across the borough in the past three years.
When asked about the Canonbury case, the Town Hall admitted its figures were based on taking the word of all schools that the right checks had been made.
In October last year Canonbury headteacher Jay Henderson was suspended for alleged “unprofessional behaviour”. |
 |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
