LEIGH COLLINS looks at the reaction to the official report on events at St John's School in Friern Barnet

After five months of waiting for it to arrive, the report into events at St John's C of E Primary School has raised eyebrows for a number of reasons.

Tory Councillor and GLA member Brian Coleman confessed to being surprised at how hard-hitting it was, describing it as "a condemnation of the whole authority".

But his colleague, Councillor Vanessa Gearson, the Conservative shadow cabinet member for education, was equally surprised that it seemed to hold no-one in authority accountable for what was a sorry mess at the school in Crescent Road, Friern Barnet.

"We have to ask ourselves who was ultimately taking responsibility for this," she said. "I'm deeply concerned that Councillor Alison Moore Labour's cabinet member for Education, doesn't seem to have taken a more personal and close interest in this case once it was brought to her attention. It's as though she wasn't there."

Despite being the single councillor most responsible for education in the borough, Councillor Moore is not mentioned once in the section of the report which details events and meetings over an eight-month period. Neither is council leader Alan Williams.

"Ultimately, the buck stops with them Alan Williams has overall executive authority," said Mrs Gearson.

Councillor Moore declined to comment on her actions between October 2000 and May 2001. She said: "At the moment we're talking about the issues in this report."

She commented that the council needed to go away and evaluate "the way each of us handled the event" and decide what improvements can be made.

"We have absolute confidence in the rigour of the report and the professionalism of the panel," she added.

One parent, who did not wish to be named, said: "They keep mentioning the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. I don't know why. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that the child was black. They're actually trying to find a scapegoat now because the council and the Church did so little to support the school that they're now trying to put some blame on other people."

The report commented that the school was 'utterly overwhelmed', and criticised many of its actions. It adds that the situation was exacerbated by the inexperience of the acting headteacher, Elena Ttofis who was only appointed deputy headteacher a few months before the headteacher, Mrs Harvey, collapsed during a meeting with parents. It also criticises governors for allowing Tony Thamia, the part-time games teacher, to return to his job after he quit and spoke to this newspaper about what he saw as a crisis at the school.

Governors accept some of the criticisms, but thought many other points made were unfair because, they argue, they were not properly consulted by the team compiling the report. For instance, they were accused of seeking independent legal advice in April 'when they felt they were receiving advice that did not support the exclusion of the child'.

"What they didn't put in," explained Fiona Childs, chairwoman of the school's governors, "was that we were told we weren't going to be granted access to the borough's legal department. It was felt that they had a conflict of responsibilities." In fact at the time, the council agreed to pay for this independent legal advice.

"The report doesn't say how hard the school tried. Every step of the way, we tried to get the right advice and make the right decisions," Mrs childs added.

The London Diocese Board for Schools, which shares responsibility for the school with the LEA, was criticised for not recognising the seriousness of the situation and for not using its influence more.

Tom Peryer, director of schools at the London Diocese Board for Schools, who described the events at St John's as 'damaging and distressing for a great number of people', said the report was 'a useful analysis'. He hoped everyone involved 'will observe a period of calm reflection'.

This newspaper and others were also criticised in the report. It says: "The named child and his family were badly let down by the reports in the local newspapers and they were deeply hurt and distressed by these. Over time they repeatedly printed allegations about the conduct of the child, including on one occasion mentioning that he was black, when there can have been no good reason for so doing."

Hendon Times Group editor, John Killeen, said: "We were not consulted before being criticised in public. If we had been we would have said that in nine articles about the school between April and July, we said only that the unnamed child was 'allegedly disruptive'. We only mentioned the boy was black in order to report his stepfather's claims that he was the victim of racism."

Rita Dexter, chairwoman of the review team, said: "The report sets out our findings in the way in which we felt we wished to express them. We carried out our brief to the best of our ability."

December 5, 2001 18:47

LEIGH COLLINS