This week John Kyrle High School accounts went public showing the incredible cost to the school of £923,508 for the Employment Tribunal - a reminder of the cruel treatment of a teacher there.

It is not a faceless institution that is responsible, it is people that caused this. Just as it is people who can choose to be open about it or choose not to be. All this and yet there is an ongoing lack of transparency and nobody has been held to account that we know of.

Responsibility for what happened must fall upon many in senior positions in leadership and governance. Headteachers Nigel Griffiths and David Boyd suddenly chose to retire, but were they held to account? Retirement makes it seem that the answer is ‘no’.

Many others connected still seem to be in position. 

The full cost, the accounts show, was £1,173,508 with £250,000 of it being claimed back on the school’s insurance. When the Tribunal was lost, the Chair of Trustees (now gone) seemed to downplay the events to the community and say they were covered.

Just imagine all the good towards the education of JKHS students that approximately 1 million pounds could have done. Make no mistake, that is what the money is given to the school for. Now it is wasted due to shameful actions.

Thankfully, for just over 4 months now JKHS has at least had a new Headteacher.

It does sound like he wants to turn the school around.

Does the current Chair of Trustees want to help? Isn’t it time we had accountability and transparency now?

A reminder to the Chair of Trustees that it is possible to support the school while addressing issues with transparency and openness too - I’d even go so far to say that is the job.

The Judge’s highly detailed and critical Statement came out back in November 2020.

The costs are news to us, but they are not news to the school.

The school also spent vast sums on a review to look into and reveal how JKHS is run. We were promised transparency on this review when it was commissioned, but still nobody has been allowed to see it. There it goes, that word transparency again.

The silence from the school on holding people to account has been deafening. Complaints have been ignored or not processed. Is the school going to attempt to claw any money back from those responsible? 

Do people just get to retire as if nothing happened?

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