Keeping staff safe in education

How some school (mis)leaders are bringing the teaching profession into disrepute

Safeguarding and child protection legislation

A lot has been done in terms of focusing on children’s safety and achievement over the past two decades, often after a legacy of poor educational outcomes especially for the poor and ethnic minority communities, or a tragedy such as a death of a child as a result of abuse.

Policy and strategies were devised in USA called No Child Left Behind (2001) and Every Student Succeeds (2015). In the UK, Every Child Matters (2003) was established as a legal mandate for children and teenagers up to the age of 19 (and ‘adults with disabilities,’ now referred to as ‘vulnerable adults’ up to the age 90). It had five premises that every child should: stay Safe, be Healthy, Enjoy and achieve, achieve Economic well-being and make a Positive contribution (in society) also known as ‘SHEEP.’ This has been superseded by Working Together to Safeguard Children (2010) and Keeping Children Safe in Education KCSIE (2015) with more recent updates to both. Internationally, more than a decade ago, the Virtual Global Taskforce was established. Made up of several law enforcement agencies from around the world, it is dedicated to stop online child abuse. More recently, a commitment by various international British schools associations and membership bodies to form a Safeguarding Coalition.

All of this is commendable if with noble intent, rather than cynical public relations and marketing for commercial gain. Why would anyone with pure and professional intentions, especially working in schools and education, want children to be harmed or fail? The damage to the individual child as a result of abuse or failure is significant and long-lasting, long after staff have left the school for promotion or retirement. The adverse effect to the family and the impact in the community is significant. It can, as often, continue the cycle of abuse into the next generation: the abused becomes the abuser. All efforts must be made to avert this – no matter where we are working in whichever school or children’s setting in the world.

The noble profession with stains of malpractice

Indeed, it is hoped that people choose to become teachers and educators for the right reasons: the honour to help children learn and/or share your passion of a particular subject or discipline. It is also hoped that subsequent promotion to school leadership, headship and/or principalship will allow the most senior line managers to ensure people enter the profession and their organisation with the same noble intentions and support existing staff to flourish in teaching and learning and bring success for the current and future generations.

However, writing from my experiences in the context of state-funded schools in England, but also in the British international private schools, I want to share some thoughts about the challenges the sector faces in keeping staff safe in education.

Rightly, children must be kept safe in education – this is the most important priority even above academic student outcomes. However, this is given a lot more reassurance if all staff are committed to the same priority: every child should be safe and every child should be happy. A good indicator, (asides from informal anecdotal word of mouth opinions of a school,) is a low staff turnover which is a measure of commitment and one would hope some level of job satisfaction or career development opportunities.

Consider if staff in schools are not being kept safe or are not being treated with professional courtesy, respect or fairness by their line manager and/or the school leadership, then this is a paradox in the education profession. School leaders profess virtues of fairness, equity and honesty (to children/parents) but human flaws asides, some are wilfully far removed from what is uttered to what they do in their treatment of staff. It may be a small minority, but enough of a minority for it to be more than a few corrupt individuals.

This is one issue about the fundamental pillar of school leadership: to safeguard the staff we lead and manage who in turn would safeguard children.

If staff are not safe in the school or organisation they work in, then it stands to reason their focus is more of looking over their shoulder, fearing what ‘pings’ in their Inbox or mobile device messenger, rather than looking out for the children in front of them.

Collaborators in a toxic culture

The privilege of school leadership is increasingly (rather than previously ‘rarely’) becoming tarnished by the malpractice from some Headteachers and Principals who are aided and abetted by some unscrupulous members of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), Human Resources (HR) and sometimes a Board of Governors/Owners whose focus is far from upholding the integrity of the profession and more around power and profitability.

From questionable appointments and promotions via a cloud of nepotism through to mistreatment and harassment of staff by questioning ‘their performance and commitment’ (despite a track record to the contrary) in order to ‘move them on’ (resign or be terminated in the infamous Hobson’s choice on offer). The latter has certainly been more evident in the international schools setting where different labour laws has allowed ‘loopholes’ such that these school leaders and HR could not ‘get away with’ in England or in countries with specific labour protection laws against unfair or arbitrary dismissal.

Other wrongdoings range from outright sleaze and corruption which along with the aforementioned, result in an infamous few, who enable a culture of an array of misuse of authority, misapplication of policy and misappropriation of funds.

How such school leaders espouse fairness and equity for all, when a distinct minority are notorious for their mistreatment of specific individuals, departments or even the majority of staff? Their mask of manipulated care materialises in gimmicks:

• A ‘Thank You letter’ to selected staff they have been targeting to drive them out of the school a few months earlier, but need their cooperation before a pending inspection and provide a false sense of (job) security with this letter, but end up carrying out an arbitrary dismissal post-inspection anyway.
• An automated 'Birthday e-mail' to staff complete with virtual balloons!
• Or publish online, how the School offers a free coffee and cookie on a ‘wellbeing’ day for all staff to show the (online) world how they, as leaders, care about themselves... errata... I mean how they ‘care about staff wellbeing.’

Such school (mis)leaders regardless of gender or ethnicity, adopt a persona stemming from the aggressive elite of a bygone era, who may take the platform to shout the odds (literally) at staff that children outcomes matter no matter what the cost, but drive staff to despair, depression, devoid of any prospects of being in a happy work environment or progressing in their career which in worse cases, may ultimately result in divorce (from the profession).

It is endemic in such a way that within the teaching sector, many if not most teachers seem to know of a Principal, a Headteacher, a Head of school and/or a Deputy Head Teacher (DHT) or Vice Principal (VP) who is immoral to the core: an unethical school (mis)leader.

‘Stupid’ Leaders

Such school (mis)leaders are, from my experience, ‘stupid’ as per Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity. He implied that it is not malice but stupidity which is the enemy of the good. He suggested stupidity is a moral defect and not due to a lack of intelligence. He also stated that people are not born stupid, but allow themselves to become stupid.

They become pathologically deceitful whose ambition for increased authority and financial success infects others around them, who also suffer from amnesia from their initial intentions to train as a teacher all those years ago. This is to say, the (abuse of) power of one individual leads to the stupidity of others.

Intellectual and moral reasoning is blocked in colleagues under duress, who are deprived of their independent thought or whose courage is diminished to speak truth unto power. Such people join the ‘stupid mob’ and are blind and deaf to all the immoral mistreatment of staff around them as if under a spell. Consequently, they too participate directly or indirectly in the wrongdoing, until they are liberated physically from the organisation and then only do they have the confidence to condemn and call out malpractice albeit as retrospective whistle-blowing.

Such stupid leaders along with their SHEEP – not the children they ought to be protecting, but the leaders they promoted to protect their status are indeed hard-working liars (refer to my Hard Work Vs Honesty matrix post).

When challenged of their unprofessional behaviour towards staff, such school (mis)leaders show their nefarious traits to mischaracterise the chain of events and have some sense of self-satisfaction to present false accounts as truthful. Even if e-mail evidence and colleagues who are brave enough to corroborate what really happened versus the (mis)leaders attempt to gaslight the employee by denial and implying it was all a misunderstanding.

• A real-life case study I can refer to is a Principal of a large British international school who failed ECTs in their first year on very spurious grounds with the collusion of some of his SLT, (yet until around May half-term, the ECTs were on track with no concerns whatsoever).
• Less than five months later, he had the audacity to lecture at a university in England to PGCE students undertaking their initial teacher training about how he and his school supports ECTs into the teaching profession!
• And for those who are concerned about what happened to the ECTs? They rightly ‘passed’ their first year upon a successful appeal. To hide his wrongdoing, he promptly chose to move the goalposts and choose another ECT provider for the next academic year!
• The immoral and unethical bullying of these ECTs would leave many to leave the profession they had trained so hard to recently commence. Thankfully the moral support that they had from other principled leaders enabled them to move on in their careers.
• (I don’t think Hollywood or a streaming service could make up such a chain of events!)

Staff suffering continues after leaving the organisation

How do the victims of such school (mis)leaders continue their career elsewhere in the sector?

Such (mis)leaders continue their bullying and harassment of their victims – despite being ex-employers, by either refusing reference requests or worse, ‘weaponize’ references by giving false and negatively biased references, something I refer to in my second book, A-Z of Teaching, as a vindictive retribution, long after the employee has liberated themselves from the organisation and the oppressive line manager(s).

This can have serious implications for the victim and former employee who may be hampered in securing a new role as they are unable to obtain an honest reference. The HR of the new school may rely on a school website and an official e-mail address to confirm the referee is a bona fide post-holder (Principal/Headteacher) who is fit for purpose (for the profession) in providing an honest and objective reference with no bias, subjective, emotive ‘opinion as fact’ comments.

An experienced HR would be able to challenge the veracity by triangulating with additional referees but also have an awareness of the ‘local sector’ of schools and their adherence to professional standards. In England, for example, there is a safer recruitment process to check if the teacher is suitable for working with children using the Disclosure and Barring Service. In other jurisdictions internationally, the word of the (former) Principal is the ‘judge and jury’ and falsified use of disciplinary procedures or safeguarding concerns are inserted for vindictive measure. They do this as they know they operate in a jurisdiction where they would not face litigation for libel, slander or character assassination, where the likely outcome is significant compensation offered to the former employee and possibly these ‘hard-working liars’ could face prosecution.

In some jurisdictions, there are ‘workarounds’ by knowing the awful reputation of that school leader or that school organisation, but this does not make it right even if it is a just bypassing of the unscrupulous entities. All schools should adhere to the transparency needed for safer recruitment, honest and accurate references.

Safer recruitment of school leaders – beware of false profits!

How did we end up with stupid (mis)leaders in education and schools?

Many of these unethical leaders immerse in a morally upright discourse, to talk about excellence in education, with the latest buzzwords such as diversity, inclusion, innovation, wellbeing and sustainability, to portray an image as the caring leader who cares about children, staff and the planet. Who could disagree?

Yet, proceed with caution! Beware of false profiteering who literally seek short-term gain, but leave a legacy of long-term pain. For prospective staff, do your ‘homework’ and research in your network in person, or online to find out more about the school, the organisation and ultimately about the Head/Principal.

In my first book, A-Z of School Leadership, I referred to a term that one of my mentors in education, when I first became Deputy Head nearly 15 years ago, referred to, as ‘Principals without principles.’ Combine this with the Dunning-Kruger effect manifesting in imposter syndrome and a false sense of mastery. Often they are of rather low ability, less experience, minimal qualifications, but are promoted above their ‘station.’ In the International Schools sector, it is often the case that many such (mis)leaders were never Headteachers in England/their country of training, but obtained rapid promotion by virtue of a ‘smaller pool of staff from the expat villages’ that many international schools find themselves in.

The ability to ‘reinvent’ or ‘embellish a CV’ to show a sense of grandeur takes a higher precedence than a thorough checking of the background of such individuals which begs another question of safer recruitment. There is an informal association of such (mis)leaders who vouch for each other. They provide glowing references for each other and work the ‘circuit’ and often fail upwards by securing a senior role even if they were exposed for asked to depart ceremoniously or otherwise. The circuit maybe between Academy chains in England or hopping onto a plane between the Middle East and Asia.

Framework and database

How to ensure unethical ethical leaders are held accountable for malpractice?

Whilst pernicious child abusers reinvent themselves to offend in schools across the globe, I would say the approach of such despicable individuals is also reflected in these nasty school leaders who can either move around in senior positions, or remain in situ and drive out any morally upright staff and have a decade of cover up by not keeping staff safe in their school.

The risk of such school (mis)leaders promoted to Headship in a school setting where checks and balances are less robust and authentic is immense and the risk to not to hold them to account when concerns are raised as other (business) priorities are held in higher regard is even greater.

Whilst in the UK, the Nolan Principles offer some stipulation of expected standards in public office (including state-funded schools), and whilst ultimately such unscrupulous leaders may survive by virtue of choosing the correct political colour of whoever is in office, there are professional staff bodies who ensure a sense of accountability and perhaps even justice, if not immediately, then eventually, for the staff who were not kept safe by these unethical leaders.

I advocate for an international framework to be considered for all teachers and school leaders operate in the international arena to ensure they cannot simply move between schools and jurisdictions to continue their ‘professional’ offending of school (mis)leadership.

In having such international safeguarding databases, it ensures Principals and Headteachers who fail to keep staff safe are ultimately:

• reformed as better leaders by being sanctioned with further training.
• restricted from holding such senior posts for a period of time if not indefinitely.
• barred from the teaching profession altogether including to become consultants or trainers in education.

To paraphrase RFK: everyone here will ultimately be judged - will ultimately judge oneself – on the effort one has contributed to building a new (better) world society and the extent to which one’s ideals and goals have shaped that effort.