Following the news last month that Denise Shepherd, The Trust Chief Executive of the Thinking Schools Academy Trust had been suspended, a letter to parents today (Friday), on what is the last day of the school year for some (why just some?) of the Trust’s schools, announces briefly that she has now ‘decided to leave’ the Trust.
As is normal in such situations, it is likely that a financial deal has been done to avoid an expensive disciplinary action taking place, with a newspaper article in The Times reporting extensive evidence supporting claims of alleged snooping on staff email accounts and doctoring parts of an external inspection report, along with other allegations.....
Naturally any such financial deal is paid for out of Trust Funds which are supposed to be put towards the education of the children in Trust schools, a recent Kent settlement reported as being considerably greater than a half million pounds, for a headteacher on a far lower salary than Ms Shepherd’s £215,000 p.a.
The Rochester Grammar School website still contains a Principal’s welcome, main signatory the soon to depart Trust Chief Executive, the Principal himself coming after, confirming the main source of power in the school and the Trust, a fact that has contributed to considerable unhappiness amongst many staff, as encapsulated in The Times allegations. The ‘happy, caring’ ethos it describes is self-evidently historical, but may of course now be restored under the sound leadership of the new interim Trust leader.
Stuart Gardiner, the Trust’s current Director of Secondary Education, has been appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer, the two page letter to parents going into considerable detail about the backgrounds of the new Trust leaders, actually of limited interest to most parents who would be more interested in the consequences for individual schools. Naturally, no mention of the troubles that preceded the decision of Ms Shepherd to ‘decide to leave’ which must have had a debilitating effect on staff morale.
However, no doubt with her extensive background in high education politics she will find an important new role, as do so many other displaced senior leaders, hopefully having learned that certain actions are unacceptable.