The Biggest Mistake Of All

Throughout the time period over which Marton Primary School has been declining (2004 to the present), much of the reason for its problems can be attributed to mistakes – errors of judgement by persons who are highly paid NOT to make such catastrophic errors. These are people whose day-to-day workload can have far reaching impact, because their every decision can influence the lives of so many others. In the normal course of events, the training and experience of these influential managers would be sufficient to ensure that they could be relied upon to do their job properly. No local authority would willingly put itself into a position where its entire structure and hierarchy could be questioned as corrupt by numerous members of its own public.

The fact remains that those mistakes WERE made – and several of them have already been admitted to. Surely the biggest mistake (since the appointment of Marton Primary School’s present Head Teacher) was Mrs Coupe’s own decision to suspend her Assistant Head Teacher. The second biggest mistake was the decision of David Lund to back her in that decision. It was that suspension that particularly triggered public awareness that something was wrong with the school – drastically wrong. Without that, we may have raised our eyebrows in surprise over the OfSTED “under-achieving” result, we may have expressed our sorrow when the Chair of Governors resigned, we may even have raised a few questions over the reasons why some members of the school staff had removed their own children from the school – but each of those issues could have been adequately passed off by Mrs Coupe or the LEA as purely incidental. The school continued to open its doors, and our children (generally) still came home with the same old stories about what their day in class had been like.

The difference now was that the Assistant Head (Mrs A) was a major figure – a popular, long-serving teacher (twelve years) who had been a mainstay of the previous Head's era. Many school children had passed under her wing to flourish at English in particular (as noted by OfSTED), and her absence at the school’s Leavers Assembly that year could not help but be noticed. Many of her Year 6 class were in tears that they could not say goodbye, or to present their little gifts to the teacher who had prepared them so well for the step up to high school. Parents did ask the question (of Mrs Coupe), and were lied to. The Head Teacher had sworn her staff to secrecy – but the dreadful news was soon to come out. A public outcry began – and has never stopped after over two years! If there had been a valid reason for Mrs A’s suspension – say, for assaulting a child – we would all have raised our hands in horror, the details would all have been made public, and everyone could have moved on. Justice was done… But justice was NOT done! The suspension was not valid, and after years of doubt, unanswered questions, and some appalling examples of bureaucracy gone mad, it is high time that the full story came out:

The difficulties I have had in piecing this story together would make a separate story in itself. There is no single source for this. It would have been so much simpler to have gone straight to the Assistant Head and Mrs Coupe themselves, and taken statements, but both parties are subject to a “gagging” order as a result of an agreement signed over a year ago. Instead, I have had to rely partly on information I obtained from persons close to both parties prior to that agreement being signed, and partly on statements provided more willingly once a document came into my hands that had been “leaked” on behalf of Mrs Coupe. Without the benefit of that document, much of what you are about to read may never have come out.

Earlier in this account I referred to the confrontations that began to take place between Mrs Coupe and certain members of her staff. These arose because the new Head’s ideas for improving the school were sometimes queried by senior teachers, who were alarmed at the possible impact on both their colleagues and the children in their care. For instance, the special reading incentive “ERIC” (Everybody Reads In Class) was suddenly dropped without any proposal for an alternative. As this incentive had been extremely successful in developing both children’s confidence and reading abilities, there was understandable concern over its demise.

The school has a staff of around 60, and most of these had been at Marton for several years – a sure sign of stability and success. Part of that was down to the careful consideration given in the sharing of duties allocated by its Head Teacher. Mrs Coupe decided to alter the balance, and to change the duties of some staff without any apparent regard to their experience or aptitude. Staff became unsettled. Some had been given “promotion”, and therefore felt they should be loyal to Mrs Coupe, while others felt cast aside because they had expressed some disagreement. The cracks were certainly starting to show very early in the Autumn of 2004, but no one had any idea of the “earthquake” to come.

As a union representative, and a member of the Senior Management Team, Mrs A was in prime position to speak directly to Mrs Coupe about the reservations felt by her colleagues. Feeling she was getting nowhere with the Head, she finally turned to the LEA for help, and was summoned to a meeting with David Lund. Far from offering her any support, Mr Lund made it very clear that he expected Mrs A to back her head teacher 100% - or face consequences which would be detrimental to her own career… Thankfully, she ignored his advice, preferring to show loyalty to her colleagues.

But there were further incidents of intimidation and harassment, and in the first week of July 2005 Mrs A lodged a formal “Grievance” (complaint) against Mrs Coupe through her own union (NASUWT). Just over one week later, on 14 July 2005, after a final meeting between herself, Mrs Coupe and two colleagues, Mrs A was suspended by her Head Teacher for “allegations of potential gross misconduct”. She was immediately escorted off the premises by Stephen Collinge, Link Adviser to the LEA. The details of these “allegations” were to remain unknown to all but a few for the next eight months, and Marton School staff were told to say nothing at all to anyone, or face disciplinary proceedings themselves. A week later, at the Leavers Assembly, parents of Year 6 children were told that Mrs A was “indisposed”.

During the months that followed, while parents were exasperated at the lack of answers coming out of either the school or Progress House, two very important documents were being prepared: The first of these related to the Grievance lodged on the Assistant Head's behalf, and eventually ran to over 100 pages, comprising statements from around 30 staff members prepared to testify against Mrs Coupe. The other was relating to a Disciplinary Investigation following Mrs A’s suspension, and would be carried out “independently” by one of the Council’s own officers… The document that was produced for the Disciplinary is the one that was subsequently leaked, and found its way to me, but it was first produced in March 2006 – one month AFTER a hearing was called for the aforementioned Grievance to be heard.

In fact, departures from established rules and procedures have a lot to do with the reasons why Mrs Coupe’s case against her Assistant broke down. Included within the leaked file is a 19 page statement from the Investigating Officer, summarising statements taken from Mrs Coupe and several others. This officer (Linda Marsh) admits that a meeting took place with Mrs A's representatives on 15 September 2005, in which the NASUWT complained that allegations referred to in the letter of suspension served on Mrs A exactly mirrored the allegations made in her own Grievance against Mrs Coupe! The implication was that the charges levelled by the Assistant Head were now being twisted against her, painting Ruth Coupe as the victim. It was a direct result of this conflict that the meeting was then adjourned, and no further meeting took place until January 2006. Curiously, the statements supporting Mrs Coupe contained within the file were all recorded between July and October. In addition to Mrs Coupe’s own statement (September 2005), there are 11 others from Marton school staff, and five from the LEA. Two staff members are since said to have asked for their statements to be withdrawn, one saying she had been asked to lie, and another that she had been promised promotion. One wonders what happened during the three months between the last statement being recorded, and the January meeting…

It is my understanding that several things went on between October 2005 and January 2006: To begin with, in October 2005 the Marton School Action Group was formed, and the present Discussion Forum was established on the Internet. I had my first (and only) meeting with David Lund, and in November 2005 (after being threatened with legal action by Mr Lund) the Action Group attracted the attention of Councillor Jon Bamborough. Questions started to be asked in Council Chambers, and a legal wrangle broke out between NASUWT and the LEA over the need for the Grievance to be heard before the Disciplinary. Even the Council’s own Legal Department backed that one, and recommended a reciprocal investigation into the conduct of Ruth Coupe. Their recommendation was ignored!

One would normally expect, for justice to be seen as fair and transparent, that a Grievance hearing against a Head Teacher would be very carefully assembled and prepared. The hearing was to be held by a panel of three (Marton) school governors under the supervision of the LEA. While I cannot provide any details of exactly what was said at this event, I can say that the hearing was abandoned by Mrs A's union representative after the panel were only prepared to examine the first three pages of the 100 page Grievance document! In the meantime, the Director of Children’s Services had been actively promoting Mrs Coupe’s endeavours at the school among Blackpool Councillors and Heads of other schools in an attempt to counter the gathering negative publicity.

So now, with the publication of the Disciplinary document in March (5 months after recording the last statement), a date was set for a hearing. Immediately, the LEA ran into trouble. The recommendation in the Investigating Officer’s report was that there was a case to answer – which meant that, if a hearing accepted that report, dismissal was inevitable. But the NASUWT pointed out that such a decision would be illegal if the Grievance had not been heard, and further action could take place that would be exceedingly embarrassing for the Council.

With time running out, the arbitration services of ACAS were finally brought into play in early June 2006, and the LEA were forced to compromise. Both actions were dropped entirely, and Mrs A was left with a clean record, and free to resume her teaching career. Both she and Mrs Reidy were paid an undisclosed sum of money by way of compensation for losing their positions at Marton Primary School, and both parties signed an agreement that they would not disclose details of their respective actions.

And that really should have been the end of that sorry little story, but as we shall see – it wasn’t.

TO BE CONTINUED