I first wrote about the Trust in 2015, following 'a review of the trust by the government’s Education Funding Agency (EFA) in 2013', about how the EFA 'found 11 breaches of the Academies Financial Handbook, including six contracts awarded by the trust without evidence of competitive tender and no evidence of a register of business interests. The independent audit for the EFA added that there was no evidence “a process was in place for independent checking of financial controls”. The auditors additionally found that a financial arrangement with a “connected party of one of the trustees” was approved by a board on which three out of six of the trustees were “connected to companies providing services to the trust”'. An article in the Guardian amplified this scandal, reporting that ‘in just two years the Trust paid over £700,000 to a company jointly owned by its two chief executives, one of whom is Elizabeth Lewis, previously a headteacher of Dover Grammar School for Girls’. The other Chief Executive was Ange Tyler, the company was Capital Talent which is still run by the pair who were both still being paid for services in 2019.

Unbelievably, on the very same date that Wayfield was re-brokered to the reputable Primary First Trust, 1st September 2016, Griffin Schools was awarded the Stantonbury International School in Milton Keynes. At that time Griffin comprised ten primary and just one secondary school, the Medway schools being  Kingfisher, Lordswood and Saxon Way.  The Trust's first action on taking over Lordswood was to impose an increase in the level of payment to the centre from the agreed 5% of funds to 7% without the school having a say. The secondary school is Nicholas Chamberlaine in Warwickshire, which it has now brought down to Ofsted Requires Improvement, the inspectors identifying a pattern of shipping out pupils with SEND, which has also occurred elsewhere in the Trust. It beggars belief that such a record is considered appropriate to take over what was at the time the second-largest school in the country, presumably with the intention to improve it. Stantonbury had been classified by Ofsted as Requires Improvement the previous year and had been served with an Academy Order following its poor Ofsted record but why did the Regional Schools Commissioner choose the totally inappropriate Griffin Schools Trust? Two years later, after a shorter period than the normal three years allowed to a new academy, Stantonbury yet again found to Require Improvement, presumably and rightly because of concerns which had arisen. 

Education Uncovered has carried out an extensive analysis of the appalling management of Stantonbury International leading up to the 2020 Inspection (100 staff departures since academisation out of a staff of 120, including a number of ‘headteachers’, student roll down by a quarter, a decline in academic standards, the dangerous environment with bullying rampant). It has also has looked closely at the leadership of the Trust and established how it is principally controlled by three people through a charity, Griffin Education Trust: Liz Lewis, Trevor Edinborough and a Sarah Anne Galvini, of whom little is known except that she is 'an academic' who has been a Director of Griffin Schools Trust since 2013. The Review reports that 34 new staff are joining the school in September!  

The fourth key player is Ange Tyler, the second Director of Capital Talent since 2013, who was Chair of Governors of Stantonbury International at the time of its 2018 Ofsted. Trevor Edinborough had taken on this role by the time that Ofsted placed the school in Special Measures, with Ange Tyler having become Executive Head. Her Linkedin profile describes her as having been Head of St Joseph's Academy, Blackheath for 20 months until it was academised, being a small struggling 11-16 boys school at the time. There is then a gap of two years until she became Head of School Improvement for Croydon for 13 months, the following year becoming Chief Executive of Griffin until the present, although she resigned as a Director of the Trust in 2016. Her Griffin Trust profile describes her as 'After serving as a Head and Executive Head in inner city schools, Ange led change programmes for LAs and for the DfE'. I am sure there must be a way these are consistent. At the time of the 2018 Inspection, Ms Tyler is responsible for School Improvement within the Trust (!), was Chair of the Trust, but became Executive Head of Stantonbury in December 2019, just in time to take responsibility for the catastrophic Ofsted the following month. She was succeeded as Chair by Mr Edinborough who is also a Trustee, one of the many conflicts of interest and irregularities in the operation of the Trust, which are highlighted by Warwick Mansell in Education Uncovered. These include the operation of a charity called Griffin Education Trust which is the official sponsor of Griffin Schools Trust, but which carries no website and is described by Companies House as being a dormant company for the past seven years, although with a regular turnover of directors. 

None of this has helped the scandal of Stantonbury International College. The school website introduction opens as follows:

 I have read many fantasy descriptions of schools promoting themselves, but never one containing so many actual lies. 

Final Thought:  One of the Officers of  Griffin Schools Trust is the distinguished Professor Mary Stiasny,  Pro Vice-Chancellor  (International) and Chief Executive of University of London Worldwide. One wonders if she is aware of the state of this organisation for which she carries some responsibility.