Update: Stantonbury School became part of the Tove Academies Trust on 1st September 2021.
Update 22/01/21: In the pyramid of power above the Griffin Schools Trust, are complex commercial companies including Capital Talent, Ltd, described as 'a consultancy service with a difference'. One of its Directors, Liz Lewis holding between 25% and 50% of the company shares, and one of the founders of Griffin, has resigned as a 'person of influence' of the Trust. Capital Talent, influential and powerful in the affairs of Griffin, has just two Directors, Ms Lewis and her partner, Ange Tyler.
Update 22/12/20: An excellent article by a local website The View from Bradwell Common builds on this and offers much more detail.
Update 23/12/20: The investigative website, Education Uncovered, run by Warwick Mansell has published three articles about Stantonbury in the least two months, two in the last two days: (1), (2), (3), (4). Amongst other matters, they look at the large sums of money passing between the Trust and its associated companies, and transactions lying outside the rules for running academies.
Although Stantonbury International School is in Buckinghamshire, not Kent or Medway, I have followed its misfortunes for some years, as it is run by the Griffin Schools Trust which had its origins in Medway. My most recent article, posted less than a month ago, explored its continued failures since being placed in Special Measures by Ofsted earlier this year, and expressing the view that the school should be taken away from Griffin Trust because of their long term incompetence, arrogance and downright lies to parents.
Earlier today, the CEO and Chairman of Trustees of Griffin Schools Trust wrote a letter to parents at the school informing them ‘that the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State wrote to us yesterday to communicate her decision to re-broker Stantonbury International School to a new sponsor’. In typical style, there is no hint of an apology for damaging the education of a generation of pupils, indeed they begin with the claim that ‘We have sent documentary evidence of the improvements we have worked so hard together to put in place since 2016’ , in spite of the multitude of contrary views, including those expressed by Ofsted, the Regional Schools Commissioner in warning letters and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State herself (see below). It continues with: ‘The RSC will determine the timing and choice of sponsor, but has given us to understand that she expects the process to be complete by July 2021’, which appears an inordinate time to leave over 1500 children in the care of an organisation that appears incapable of keeping them safe, let alone providing a proper education.
However, the real shocker comes in a breathtaking statement by the Trust to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in its attempt to head off closure. I would have previously thought the following unbelievable and it makes my previous examples of arrogance fade into insignificance: 'Leaders are not able easily to provide data and records of impact. This evidence finding takes up too much of their valuable time'. In other words, they cannot even be bothered to make an effort to save their positions. On the evidence of that statement alone, the Trustees have shown their utter uselessness and incompetence and that they should not be in charge of the education of children. They need urgently to have their valuable time for other matters freed up, provided these are not to do with the welfare of children and, faced with the evidence, the Griffin Trust should be closed down completely.
The letter from Baroness Berridge, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the School System, is utterly damning about the performance of the Griffin Trust.
'The school has been with the trust now for over four years and as stated in its most recent report, Ofsted found that “the trust has overseen the decline of the school since the last inspection”. The progress made by pupils is well below national average and has remained so for the last 3 years for which data has been published. Again, Ofsted noted that “pupils do not achieve well” and that many children do not feel safe in the school. Ofsted judged that the arrangements for safeguarding at the school are not effective and found that there was a high level of poor behaviour, disruption in lessons and that leaders have not been effective in managing pupils’ behaviour'. It continues 'the representations offered by the trust lack evidence that that the trust has the capacity to make the rapid and sustained improvements required at the academy. Given the trust’s track record at Stantonbury International Academy, coupled with the fact that another of the trust’s secondaries, Nicholas Chamberlaine School (which joined the trust in 2013), has declined from an Ofsted good rating in 2015 to Requires Improvement in 2019, there are concerns about the secondary capacity within the trust. There is a very real risk that performance will not improve, and children will not receive the education they deserve. The monitoring report commissioned by the trust does not provide strong evidence of impact'.
As if that is not enough, there now comes one of the most breathtaking and arrogant statements I can conceive from a school threatened with closure and bears repeating. The letter states: 'While the report references a number of actions taken in respect of safeguarding and leadership it states “Leaders are not able easily to provide data and records of impact. This evidence finding takes up too much of their valuable time.”'
The letter continues relentlessly: 'The representations offered by the Trust raise serious concerns about the trust board’s ability to hold the trust leadership to account for school improvement...The evidence from Ofsted and from pupil outcomes from the last three years indicate that the unacceptable standards at Stantonbury did not come about, as the trust describes, as the result of a “lapse in rigour” but is, in fact, more fundamental'.
In summary, the DfE letter places the blame for this abject failure squarely on the Trust Board, whose Trustees and Members are: Trevor Edinborough (Chair of the Board of Trustees); Julie Adams; Marissa Davies (Assistant Director of Education for the Girls Day School Trust); Sarah Galvani; Elizabeth Lewis (founder Director, civil partner also a founder Director); Michael McCreedy; Mary Stiasny (Pro-Vice-Chancellor University of London - what on earth is she doing being mixed up with this?); and Ann Powell (CEO).
An article in the MK Citizen newspaper published yesterday also describes some of the issues.
The conclusion of the DfE letter that ‘the school would improve more quickly with a stronger trust with a track record of secondary school improvement’ should surely act as a death knell for the Trust itself and its management of all the schools it runs, including the three primary schools in Medway.
