For a respected headteacher to spend six months under pressure for saying the words “special needs” defies logic.
A headteacher spent more than six months under a cloud for saying a child had “special needs” before it was found she had no case to answer.
At least three bodies including Sussex Police investigated Janet Felkin, headteacher of Blatchington Mill School in Hove, but found there was “no cause for concern”.
Yesterday she told The Argus the complaints had been vexatious while the governing body gave her its full backing.
Ms Felkin’s ordeal will raise questions about the complexity of the complaints process and the time it takes.
Surely the powers that be must have been able to free Janet Felkin from the ordeal of working under a cloud of suspicion so needlessly? She did nothing wrong but why did it take so long to work that out?
Parents are rightfully very passionate about their child’s education and treatment.
Ms Felkin will understand that better than most and will know how to treat people sensitively. Questions need to be asked about why such an experienced teacher had to face so long under a cloud of investigations by police, the school and Brighton and Hove City Council.
How can it have taken so much time and so many organisations to determine that the Blatchington Mill headteacher had not done anything wrong? The police, school and council must be seen to take complaints seriously. But there are cases where those complaints are dealt with quickly and simply.
Why was this incident dealt with through such intensity? The people involved had more serious problems to work on, no doubt.
The incident was registered as 'disability hate' by the council. With the benefit of hindsight we can see that this was unnecessary. But surely there was a quicker and better way?
Soon Ms Felkin will head off into retirement and might be relieved that she will no longer have to deal with what she describes as “ongoing vexatious accusations”.
But parents and the school will have lost a successful headteacher, sadly one whose time has been taken up needlessly in her last year at the school.
Someone has "special needs"
Someone has "special needs"
but it's not the headmistress...
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”