There hasn’t been any news,
that I can find anyway, about what is transpiring at one of the country’s
best-known boys schools after it was announced last week that the School Governing
Body (SGB) had, effectively, fired their headmaster.
Well, they realised (or had
been told by their lawyers) that they couldn’t actually dismiss him – he was employed
by the education department after all – so they relieved him of a fair chunk of
his duties.
Now, in a previous life I
was a reporter who wrote quite a lot about labour law and just about all labour
law news is about unfair dismissals, so I accumulated quite a bit of knowledge on
the subject.
Much of it is skin-deep, I concede,
although I was sent on training by Independent Newspapers to become a chairman
of disciplinary enquiries. That was bizarre because that company steadfastly
refused to spend a cent on any kind of staff development but then, those of us who
became qualified soon realised, they needed someone to fire the people they
were hell-bent on getting rid of.
Thankfully a change in the ownership
of the company then occurred and the new guys had never heard of me, so I didn’t
have to do any of that.
Digression over. The point
is that I know what’s happening at that school simply cannot be legal according
to the labour laws. Dismissals occur for two reasons only – misconduct and
incapacity. If, as in this case, a worker is not performing satisfactorily,
that’s incapacity and there’s a procedure of corrective action that has to be
followed. I’m quite sure that never happened.
The issue of breakdown in the
relationship of trust referred to in the statement put out by the school
applies to misconduct cases. For example if your employee steals from the till
then you can’t trust him and you are justified in firing him.
There’s no indication that
anything of that sort happened.
What they did - and there’s
a school sports angle coming up, trust me – is decide that the headmaster is
employed, according to the Schools Act, to run the learning programme at the
school and he can carry on with that. His other duties, and they list them, are
under the control of the SGB, and he will no longer be in charge of those. He,
like many heads of schools, receives additional payment each month from the SGB
and he is, therefore, employed by them, as well as by the department.
My skin-deep legal expertise
doesn’t cover educational law, so I assume they are on solid ground there, and that
they have had legal advice. Even then, they have opened a can of worms and set
a dangerous precedent.
Where I am confident in my convictions
is in the role of sport in education.
I came across the website of
the National Association of Independent Schools - https://www.nais.org/ , an American organisation,
that has drawn up a set of Principles of Good Practice for its members. The one
titled Athletics provides some excellent
guidelines. It’s divided into School Athletics; Team Athletics and Coaches and in all three sections, it stresses that athletics (their word for sport) is part of
the ediucational process.
Download it from:
and you’ll see that it says:
"The school’s athletics program
(sic) is an integral part of the school’s curriculum"; and "coaching is teaching:
coaches are, foremost, teachers".
The implication made in the
statement put out by that school is that isn’t so, as far as they are concerned.
They say they are in charge of all activities with the exception of teaching
and learning. They list, among the activities that they have control of the management
of extra-curricular activities, including sport.
That means that sport is not
part of teaching and learning and you have to ask, what is it then? And why is
it happening at a school which is, after all, a place of teaching and learning, and nothing else.
As I said, a can of worms,
and a dangerous precedent. I’m glad I’m not a school principal. Come to think
of it, I’m glad I’m no longer at Independent Newpapers anymore either.
A case for constructive dismissal: if you detesticulate the head teacher you are taking away his authority over all teacher tasks and duties - not on. Regarding unsatisfactory work performance: Passing time idly. Failing without reasonable cause to complete a task. Performance of work of an unacceptable standard with regard to quality and/or quantity. Non-compliance with established procedures or standing instructions: there would need to be written warnings under the code of conduct (the school's or the departments???) together with remedial action that may include training or counselling etc. Probably a case of overreach and doubtlessly a test case for the department.
ReplyDeleteQuite right. Although to claim constructive dismissal, he would have to resign, of course.
ReplyDelete