The Acting Principal appears to have been presented with a poisoned chalice: "Governors consequently appointed you from your substantive role as vice-principal to that of acting principal. You have made no new teaching appointments since this time. However, a considerable number of staff will be leaving at the end of this term as a result of budgetary enforced re-structuring". A concluding sentence reads: "Unreasonable demands have been made of the acting principal in respect of the budgetary deficit, who in turn has been unable to assert sufficient influence to move matters forward. This has resulted in her spending a disproportionate amount of her time attempting to resolve an intractable problem, which now needs to be urgently addressed by officers of the local authority, the Department for Education and the proposed sponsors so as to secure the necessary rapid improvements to which students within the school are entitled".
Kent County Council argues that it has the ability to turn round failing schools rather than hand them over to academy groups, a principle which I would love to endorse. However, this abject failure by KCC hardly supports the case that they have the ability to change schools. As the OFSTED Report records: Governors recognise that they have been negligent in their monitoring duties and now wish to strengthen their influence, knowledge and expertise. To this end they have sought an external review of governance from the local authority. This has not been prioritised by the local authority and no date has been offered. Leaders are still waiting to know if the local authority intends to establish an Interim Executive Board to assume responsibility for the finances and leadership of the school. The local authority’s lack of urgency in this matter is unacceptable.
So we have a failed school placed in limbo for what looks like a whole year by KCC's own failures. We await the Local Authority's apology to the children of the Chaucer Technology College for the dreadful state in which they find themselves.