The Headmaster's Letter

The letter sent by the headmaster about the delay to the Carlile report has some interesting language in it. This sentence in particular.

David Pearce, a monk of Ealing Abbey and a former teacher at St. Benedict's School, is to stand trial on 4th July 2011, for alleged historical offences committed during his time at the school.

There are three things which strike me about that sentence.

First, the headmaster has started to distance Pearce from the Abbey by omitting his full clerical title. He is Father David Pearce and remains so unless and until he is removed from the priesthood.

Second, the headmaster has made no mention of John Maestri, Pearce's co-defendent in the forthcoming trial, who also was a teacher at St. Benedict's School at the time the alleged offences were committed.

And third, the headmaster has sought to minimise the case by committing the insult of calling it "historical" abuse. A murder committed some years ago is not described as an "historical" murder, it is still a murder, and is treated as being just as serious as if it had been committed last week. This habit of uniquely describing older child abuse cases as "historical" is an insult to the victims who suffer the effects to this day. It is anything but historical for them.

It seems that the headmaster would very much like the abuse to be consigned to history and not be considered to have any current relevance, but that is just not going to wash. It is the failings of the policies, procedures and overall institutional culture of the school which has permitted the abuses to go on for so long, and unless and until it can be shown that the policies and the culture have comprehensively changed, then this issue will remain very current.

They knew Carlile would be delayed

At the time the Carlile inquiry was announced in mid-September, it was already known that Pearce and Maestri had been arrested the month before.

The school's solicitor Tony Nelson was and is representing David Pearce. He would have attended police interviews and would have had a decent idea as to whether charges were likely. And in fact charges did follow in November.

But no mention was made by the Abbot or Headmaster as to the possibility of delays in the report from this cause at the safeguarding meeting. And there was no mention by anybody connected with the school of the possibility that the criminal prosecution of Pearce and Maestri might delay the report when they were in fact charged in November.

And there wasn't even any mention of the possibility of delays from this cause in the article in the Headmaster's Newsletter in February this year.

Tony Nelson must have known from the outset of the possibility that the report could compromise the trial. He's in the best possible position to know, since he commissioned Lord Carlile to carry out the inquiry and is representing David Pearce.

It must have also been pretty clear to Lord Carlile that charges were likely in the case of those who had already been arrested. In email exchanges I had with Lord Carlile before I met him in connection with the inquiry, he made it a condition of the meeting that it be kept confidential until after the report had been published. I pointed out that if publication were cancelled or unreasonably delayed, then that would put a obligation on me to keep the meeting secret for ever, which was not something I was prepared to accept. He eventually agreed that in the event of a substantial delay, I would be free to publish my own account, but he adamantly refused to put any kind of duration on what he meant by "substantial".

From our exchange of emails it is completely clear that even at the end of September Carlile was anticipating the possibility of a significant delay. He would have been most remiss in not advising his client accordingly, and I can only reasonably assume that he did give that advice. So the Abbot and the headmaster knew right from the start that the original estimates they gave of publication dates were wildly unrealistic. And even though Carlile knew that the publication dates being given out were unrealistic, he stuck to his cutoff dates for the Call for Evidence, as if the report were not going to be delayed.

But if the Abbot and Headmaster had told the parents at the meeting in September that the report would probably not be published for almost a year, tempers were running so high that there might have been a serious revolt amongst the parents. Doing nothing for a year is just not an acceptable response to a situation this serious. Doing nothing for a year while you are promising action somewhat faster is just plain lying. There is no better word for it. The evidence very much points to the conclusion that the Abbot and Headmaster have been lying to you. And remember that they delayed sending out the ISI Supplementary Report to parents until the school fees were safely in for the autumn term.

I'll leave it to you to decide how serious they are about making changes to the school.

Carlile Report delayed as predicted

As I predicted last month, publication of the Carlile report is being delayed. And the reason I stated is the one which has in fact been given.

The school has put a notice up on its website. The reason given for the delay is the need to avoid disrupting the forthcoming trial of Father David Pearce and John Maestri, on three charges each of indecent assault against a boy.

Let's get some dates sorted here. The trial of Pearce and Maestri is scheduled to start on 4th July and last for 4 days. If a conviction is obtained, there will almost certainly be an adjournment for sentencing, that is normally about 6 weeks. So sentencing would be sometime in mid-August.

But Pearce and Maestri aren't the only former priests and teachers against whom prosecutions might occur. Abbot Lawrence Soper was required to return to the UK and answer police questions.

And in the ISI Supplementary report on St. Benedict's, there is the the following item

(i) Legal action has been initiated in connection with a previous member of the religious community

I still don't yet know who that is. It isn't Pearce, Hobbs, Chillman or Soper, it is somebody else. And I don't know where the legal action has got to, but if it is or becomes a criminal prosecution, that's another trial that may occur.

So there are potentially a number of overlapping prosecutions that may yet happen. If a pending prosecution is a justification for delaying the report, it may be delayed for a lot longer than is currently anticipated.

But even with a publication date during the summer holidays, there is zero chance of any of Lord Carlile's recommendations being implemented before the end of this academic year. So for instance we are likely to have the current travesty of a child protection policy remaining in force for some time yet.

Remember, at the Safeguarding meeting held last September, Cleugh and Shipperlee seemed to try to express two mutually contradictory positions. First they claimed that all the abuse was "historical" and that there was no risk to current pupils. And at the same time they were claiming that the matter was so serious that it required that they get a Lord and a QC to come and make an inquiry about it.

And since then there has been a deafening silence on what improvements they consider might be needed in terms of their safeguarding policies and procedures. And now the Carlile report is delayed pending the Pearce and Maestri trial. There is nothing in the headmasters' letter which suggests any kind of interim publication which would enable the school to get on with taking measures to improve things.

There just doesn't seem to be any great urgency to do anything.

So if you are wondering whether to keep your child there next year (or even to start sending your child there in September), you can't count on any improvements having been made by the time the autumn term starts. You will be sending your children to a school where where there is a history of child abuse and where the current child protection policy is inadequate.

Parents, are you satisfied with this state of affairs? If you aren't, you need to get together and start deciding to do something about it. The school isn't going to help you. The ISI feels it has done its job in issuing the report and it thinks it is the DfE's job to insist on remedial action. And the DfE appears to be intensively engaged in looking the other way as hard as it can. You're on your own.

Questions for Mrs Gumley Mason

If you are a parent of a child at St. Augustine's, here are some questions which you may be interested in learning about. They are all questions which Mrs. Gumley Mason knows or at least ought to know the answers to.

• When was the first draft of the ISI report provided to the school?
• What modifications have been made relative to this draft in the final version?
• What explanations did the ISI give for any changes made?
• Did the school take legal action against the ISI?
• What was the purpose of the legal action?
• How much has been spent on this legal action, in costs, court fees and fees to the school's own solicitors?
• How much of the headmistress's time has been spent on matters connected with the legal action?
• Who made the decision to proceed with legal action?
• When was the decision made?
• Was the decision formally approved at a meeting of the Governors? If so, when?
• Was the decision formally approved at a meeting of the Trustees? If so, when?
• When was the action started?
• What aspect(s) of the ISI report did the school object to?
• Has the action been withdrawn? If so, when and why?
• Does the school have any reason now to criticise the ISI's approach or anything in the content of the report?
• Who is the new "independent governor" who has been appointed?
• Was he known to the headmistress, any other members of staff or any governors or trustees prior to the search to appoint a new governor being started? If so, what is his connection with the person or persons concerned?
• What version of the safeguarding policy was in force at the time of the OFSTED inspection in 2006?
• Did it share any of the weaknesses recently criticised by the ISI?
• For how long has the Central Register of Appointments not been properly maintained?
• How many staff have been permitted to supervise children before their CRB checks were completed?
• What is the longest period that a member of staff was permitted to supervise children before the CRB check was received?
• What were the allegations against the two members of staff whom the ISI stated should have been referred to the ISA on their departure?
• Have those referrals now been made?
• Have referrals of anybody else been made to the ISA (or prior to 2009 to the Teacher Misconduct Section of the DfE) within the last 10 years up to the present day?
• Are any referrals to the ISA currently being prepared or expected to be sent in the near future?
• Have there been any incidents or allegations made against any current members of staff, governors or trustees, which if the present requirement to report all such allegations automatically to the LADO had been in place should have been so reported? If so, how many and will they now be reported to the LADO?
• At the school, have there been any incidents involving or allegations made against Father Gregory Chillman, relating to his suitability to supervise children? If so, what are they, and what was done in response?
• When did Father Gregory Chillman resign as chaplain and Chairman of Governors? Why?

If you ask any of these questions, then I would be very interested to learn what the replies are. Even a refusal to reply will be most illuminating.

Mrs Gumley Mason, I know you read this blog. Perhaps you would care to set the record straight by writing a further letter to parents clearly setting out your answers to these questions.

Spin

The letter to parents accompanying the ISI report on St. Augustine's was a wonder to behold. It was loaded with enough spin to make Graeme Swann want to come over and take lessons.

The first thing the headmistress did was to provide lots of nice little quotes about how wonderful the girls are. That is bound to create a nice warm impression with the parents - everybody likes to hear compliments directed towards their children.

Then she nicely conflated the Diocesan report with ISI report. The Diocesan report was published back in September. The only reason it was provided with the ISI report now was because the headmistress knew perfectly well how gruesome the ISI report would be, and needed a good report to balance it out.

I have to say that you can put no weight on the Diocesan report at all. Deacon Anthony Clark, the diocesan inspector, also recently inspected St. Benedict's School, and his reports on both the Senior School and the Junior School were just as gushing as his St. Augustine's report, even though they were carried out in July and December 2010, after the the problems of St. Benedict's had hit the national press, and even though Peter Turner, the diocesan safeguarding adviser, had known about the safeguarding shortcomings at St. Benedict's for several years prior to the inspection visit.

Now, I accept that the diocesan report is not supposed to be about safeguarding. It addresses the teaching of religious education and the extent to which the ethos of the school reflects that of the sponsoring religion.But it occurs to me that the ethos of a religion is communicated in part at least through the effectiveness by which its adherents live and act according to their religious principles. And a school which has shown to be as cavalier as St. Benedict's over the safety and welfare of its pupils surely merits some mention of the fact in the diocesan report? But there is none. So as far as I'm concerned, Deacon Anthony Clark's report deserves to be filed in the bin. Distributing it to parents was a waste of some perfectly good trees.

But the real masterpiece of the letter was how the headmistress minimised the criticisms in the ISI report. Here is the relevant paragraph.

Naturally no organisation is perfect. We continue to battle to keep up with our ever expanding use of ICT. Our Central Register of Appointments has been revamped and is now a thing of bureaucratic beauty. Our Child Protection (Safeguarding) Policy, revised at the time of the ISI inspection, has been completely re-written and is now, I hope, more user-friendly. In addition our Child Protection Committee has added three single page procedural flowcharts, providing readers with an instant over-view of steps to be taken. These will be reviewed each year to keep up with changing legislation. These policies and procedures can be viewed on our website or copies can be requested from the school office.

"Naturally no organisation is perfect". A very nice way of gliding over the fact that the school has been found to have been persistently breaking the law.

The first point she made, and the only real admission of any shortcoming, was to do with the struggle to use ICT effectively.

After that, she's congratulating herself at every opportunity. "Our Central Register of Appointments has been revamped and is now a thing of bureaucratic beauty" carefully avoids making any mention of the reason it had to be revamped. If you read the report, you learn that the reason is that it was in such a mess that it wasn't performing its primary function - to keep a record of the staff, their qualifications, references, identities, right to work in the UK and their CRB checks, as required by law.

Then we have "Our Child Protection (Safeguarding) Policy, revised at the time of the ISI inspection, has been completely re-written and is now, I hope, more user-friendly", which again skirts very carefully round the truth, which is that the policy was grossly inadequate, was hurriedly rewritten just in time for the ISI visit, was failed by the ISI and had to be rewritten all over again, and has only just been republished nearly a year later. She hopes that it is "more user friendly", as if that were its primary purpose., It isn't, the primary purpose is to ensure that procedures exist and are followed which serve to protect the children, as required by law.

Then we are told "These will be reviewed each year to keep up with changing legislation", as if that weren't a legal requirement anyway, and one which had been ignored up to now, and finally we are told "These policies and procedures can be viewed on our website or copies can be requested from the school office." which has been a legal requirement for some years, and is nothing to be all that proud of.

All this is designed to give the impression that everything is so wonderful at the school that you as parents really have no need to bother your little heads with the ISI report itself. Just file it unread and let the school carry on as before.

But in actual fact, I recommend you do read the report, very carefully, and take the trouble to understand what it is saying. I have described my understanding of it, but you should no more rely on my interpretation than that of Mrs Gumley Mason. Read the report for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

The St. Augustine's Report

Well, I now finally have it, a parent has sent it through to me, and I've had a good read. The most important page is page 4, which details the ways in which the school has failed to meet regulatory requirements - in effect the ways in which the school was breaking the law. Here is the text of the clauses from that page.

2.4 At the time of the initial visit, the school did not meet all the requirements of the Independent School Standards Regulations 2003, as subsequently amended, and therefore it was required to:

• ensure that any persons whose services are no longer used because they are considered unsuitable to work with children are always reported fully to the Independent Safeguarding Authority within one month of leaving the school
  [Regulation 3.(2)(b), under Welfare, health and safety];
• ensure that appropriate checks and central register entries are made on staff appointed since 1st May 2007
  [Regulations 4.(2)(a), 4.(2)(b), and 4C.(2)(b) and (d), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];
• ensure that enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks are always obtained and recorded for proprietors as necessary
  [Regulation 4C.(7), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];
• ensure that the central register of appointments is correctly completed regarding staff appointed before 1st May 2007
  [Regulation 4C.(3), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];
• ensure that the facilities provided for pupils who are ill are appropriate
  [Regulation 5.(l), under Premises and accommodation].

2.5 At the time of the final team visit, the school had rectified some of the above shortcomings, as noted in the text of the report. However, the following requirements remain unresolved, and therefore the school must:

• ensure that all appropriate checks are made on newly appointed staff [Regulation 4.(2)(a), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];
• ensure that the central register of appointments is correctly completed
  [Regulation 4C.(3), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors].

Let's look at these bullets in turn, and I'll put into plain English what they mean. Remember, if the requirement is to "ensure that xyz is done", what this means is that it wasn't being done by the school at the time of the inspection, but that it ought to have been.

• ensure that any persons whose services are no longer used because they are considered unsuitable to work with children are always reported fully to the Independent Safeguarding Authority within one month of leaving the school
  [Regulation 3.(2)(b), under Welfare, health and safety];

This first one is very serious. It is a requirement of the regulations that if a governor or member of staff resigns or is sacked when the school considers them unsuitable to work with children, then the ISA must be informed within a month of that person's departure. "Unsuitable to work with children" doesn't necessarily mean that the staff member has been convicted of a criminal offence (e.g. an indecent assault). It could be that the staff member has committed a disciplinary offence. There are a number of grounds on which a person can be considered unfit to supervise children.

The fact that the ISI is requiring that this be ensured means that they found that members of staff have left in such circumstances and the school has not notified the ISA! This means that members of staff who are considered unfit to supervise children are free to go on to take up posts elsewhere, and the reason for their departure from St. Augustine's doesn't show up when the subsequent CRB check with enhanced disclosure is made. It is obvious how this puts children in danger. They have just removed the danger from the school, without having any consideration for their responsibilities for the protection of society at large, or of their legal responsibilities.

For the ISI to state this so baldly, there must be more than one clear-cut case where referral to the ISA should have been made but wasn't. One clear case might have been accepted as being an oversight, one or more marginal cases might be regarded as a matter of reasonable differences in judgement. But the ISI is looking for a change in policy and procedure to "ensure" that this doesn't happen again in future. (In fact, section 4.6 of the report (on page 10) tells us that there were two identified cases of failure to report.)

• ensure that appropriate checks and central register entries are made on staff appointed since 1st May 2007
  [Regulations 4.(2)(a), 4.(2)(b), and 4C.(2)(b) and (d), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];

This is a really basic safeguarding principle - you make sure that people known to be a danger to children don't get employed in a school in the first place. Teachers and other staff supervising children are required to undergo CRB checks with "enhanced disclosure", which means that events such as a previous school making a report to the ISA would be flagged up as well as criminal convictions.

But the ISI is clearly stating that the school isn't consistently doing this. It isn't a matter of just one or two checks being a bit late, or the school being a bit slow with making sure that they update their register with the checks that have been made. In other words, this isn't a minor bureaucratic slip-up. For the criticism to be this harsh, it must mean that a significant number of staff have either not been CRB checked at all, or have been permitted to work unsupervised before their CRB check has come through, or there has been a failure to adequately check identities, qualifications and references. The ISI hasn't stated in detail what the failings are, they have just said that the school had to ensure that it was all put right.

Again, if you know the language, this is a stinging criticism of the school and of its failure to assure the safety of the pupils.

• ensure that enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks are always obtained and recorded for proprietors as necessary
  [Regulation 4C.(7), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];

This means that the school has not obtained the necessary CRB checks for all the governors of the school and Trustees of the charitable company which is ultimately responsible for the school. Notice they say "obtained and recorded". So again this is not a minor bureaucratic record-keeping error. It seems that they have neglected even to obtain an enhanced CRB check for at least one of the governors or trustees. So not only have they not ensured that appointed staff are safe around children, they haven't done this either for the proprietors with the ultimate responsibility for running the school.

• ensure that the central register of appointments is correctly completed regarding staff appointed before 1st May 2007
  [Regulation 4C.(3), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];

The rules are slightly different for staff who were appointed before that date. In May 2007 the rules were changed in that identity checks and checks for the right to work in the UK became necessary, foreign nationals had to have an enhanced CRB check, and additional checks had to be carried out on staff who had lived abroad if the CRB check is insufficient.

But the most important aspect of this point in the ISI report is that the central register of appointments is not even correct and complete for staff who have been at the school for some years. This isn't a minor bureaucratic delay in getting the records up to date - this means that the records haven't been adequately maintained for the last several years. If it weren't for the coincidence that the rules changed in 2007, I doubt that we would have been able to know that from the ISI report.

There is an implicit criticism of OFSTED here. The school has only recently joined the ISC, and so its last inspection in July 2006 was carried out by OFSTED, not ISI. And yet ISI is critical of arrangements going back to before May 2007. The OFSTED report of the July 2006 inspection (published in October 2006) had this to say about safeguarding.

The school’s child protection policy is up to date and implemented effectively. The headteacher is the responsible child protection officer. She is readily approachable to pupils and provides an inspirational role model of respect and care for pupils of all ages.

It is hard to believe that all the safeguarding problems have sprung up since July 2006 to the extent that the ISI is making criticisms concerning regulatory failings from before May 2007. Mrs Gumley Mason has been headteacher for much longer than that, so there is no reason for the quality of safeguarding arrangements to have suddenly gone downhill just at that time. But if the problems haven't sprung up suddenly, then OFSTED missed this entirely last time they visited - and who knows how many inspections previously have also missed it?

• ensure that the facilities provided for pupils who are ill are appropriate
  [Regulation 5.(l), under Premises and accommodation].

This is the one point where the ISI report is entirely clear what the regulatory failing was. On page 10, it indicates that at the time for the initial inspection there was no washbasin in the sick room, but that this failing has since been rectified.

The initial inspection took place on 23rd and 24th March 2010. The final team visit took place on 4-6 May 2010. By then (i.e. about 6 weeks later) some of these regulatory failings had still not been rectified. Specifically, CRB checks on new staff were still not being properly carried out, and the central register of appointments had still not been corrected. If the register was still not right even after six weeks, then that is further evidence that it was in a terrible mess before.

But the ISI indicates that the other regulatory failings have been rectified. This means that the school has now belatedly sent the two notifications to the ISA which should have been made concerning former staff members who are unfit to supervise children.

 In addition to these regulatory failings, there are a number of areas in which the school has been graded "unsatisfactory". The first of these areas is governance, leadership and management.

2.3 The quality of governance, leadership and management, whilst good in some aspects, notably in supporting high attainment and excellent personal development, is unsatisfactory overall because it has not ensured that safeguarding procedures and practice meet the required standard. The school has been slow to report teachers who may be unsuitable to work with children and its procedures for making and recording appointments have not been sufficiently rigorous. Relationships between governors and senior managers are good. Governors are committed to the school and give their time generously to become actively involved in its daily life. However, proprietors have not always been kept fully informed and have not questioned with sufficient rigour to enable them to fulfil all their responsibilities in respect of compliance with regulations. The systems for accountability within the leadership team are not sufficiently clear and, at the time of the initial inspection, leadership had not adequately discharged its responsibility for regulatory matters. Responses to the pre-inspection questionnaire indicate that the vast majority of parents and pupils are very happy with the school.

Let's unpack this. Safeguarding procedures aren't up to scratch (more on this later). In addition, the proprietors haven't been kept fully informed! The person responsible for informing the proprietors about safeguarding issues is the headteacher or the designated teacher for children. At St. Augustine's, Mrs. Frances Gumley Mason is both headteacher and designated teacher for child protection. The ISI are saying that she hasn't kept the proprietors informed, and that they haven't thought to demand information.

The next area marked down is welfare, health and safety.

4.6 The school's arrangements for welfare, health and safety, while good in some aspects, are unsatisfactory overall because the required appointment checks were not carried out and recorded and concerns about the suitability of two staff members were not reported to the appropriate authorities as required. The school acted quickly to take and act upon advice from safeguarding agencies in relation to the referrals. Good progress has since been made in the completion of the single central register of appointments.

It can hardly be graded other than unsatisfactory if there are relevant regulatory failings. But there is more on health and safety.

4.8 The school is compassionate and caring towards any vulnerable pupils. All employees, governors and volunteers are trained in child protection issues and there is an appropriate number of designated child protection officers; a number of senior staff have undertaken training in safe recruitment methods. Safeguarding issues also feature as a standing item on governors’ meeting agenda. The child protection policy, whilst good in some respects and containing useful guidance for staff, is unsatisfactory overall. In particular, it does not follow closely enough the statutory guidance in relation to the manner in which concerns are handled and reported, placing inappropriate emphasis on investigation by the school and not identifying clearly the proper threshold for referring concerns to other agencies such as the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). This has led to weaknesses in implementation. At the initial inspection visit, significant shortcomings in practice were identified with regard to the requirement to report to the appropriate authorities, within one month of leaving the school, any person whose services are no longer required because he or she is considered unsuitable to work with children.

So, the child protection policy was inadequate. The additional failing mentioned here is the same as was identified at St. Benedict's. The school was attempting to investigate allegations itself rather than referring them automatically to the LADO.

There are very good and important reasons why the school should not undertake its own investigations. First, there is a clear conflict of interest - the reputation of the school is damaged by a paedophile case, and so the temptation is to quietly investigate and find that there is no problem, and therefore no need to tell anybody about it. Second, the staff member who is being investigated will already be known to the headteacher and may have been appointed by her. The natural assumption for the headteacher is that such a person is unlikely to have done whatever is being alleged. And so the investigation is prejudiced at the outset by the preconceptions of the person supposedly investigating. From the information available in the report there is no way of knowing whether these failings have resulted in avoidable harm to children at the school.

The great advantage of automatic referral to the LADO is that the LADO is independent of the school. So he or she is in a better position to see whether the allegation warrants an investigation by the police or by Social Services. He or she is not going to be burdened with the belief that the teacher is a wonderful person who would never do such a thing.

It is noticeable that a brand-new safeguarding policy has just been published on the school website, ratified by the governors on 16th February 2011, or nearly 11 months after the initial visit from the inspectors which identified the safeguarding concerns. But even now the safguarding policy is not at clear as it should be on this topic.

The Ealing Safeguarding Children board Guidance says:
15.2.1 The employer must inform the local authority designated officer (LADO) immediately an allegation is made.

The St. Augustine's Safeguarding policy says:
When deciding whether to make a referral, following an allegation or suspicion of abuse, the Designated teacher will not make her own decision over what appear to be borderline cases, but rather the doubts and concerns should be discussed with the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). This may be done tentatively and without giving names in the first instance. What appears trivial at first may later be revealed to be much more serious and an allegation of child abuse or neglect may lead to a criminal investigation.

That seems like rather a lot of wriggle room is being inserted, in that the school is being given the option to decide what are borderline cases. Why can't the policy simply reflect the ESCB guidance and simply say "The Designated Teacher shall inform the LADO immediately an allegation is made."? Simple, to the point, and sets a clear requirement. It is then for the LADO to decide that the issue is trivial, borderline or whatever, and inform the school as to what action (if any) is appropriate. That is what the LADO is there for.

Then there is more on leadership and management

5.3 Leadership and management of the educational aspects of the school are mostly good but weaknesses in safeguarding practice make them unsatisfactory overall. The senior management team have worked well together and many improvements have been successfully made since the last inspection. These underpin pupils’ excellent personal development and good achievements. Senior managers generate a clear sense of commonality of purpose through their commitment to the school’s ethos; pupils know that they are cared for as individuals and not just on the basis of their academic achievements. The senior management team encourages in staff a sense of the school’s traditions and values. At the same time it is open to new developments in response to the girls’ interests, for example the inclusion of psychology in the A-level option choices.

5.4 Leadership at the highest level has relied heavily on informal procedures to identify and implement improvements. This approach, whilst effective for some management processes, does not provide a consistent mechanism for evaluating the success of new initiatives, for monitoring the implementation of policies or for driving strategic development based on earlier achievements. Weaknesses in the operation of recruitment checks and in the drafting and implementation of the child protection policy have resulted in inadequacies in safeguarding practice. However, good measures operate to ensure that all staff and volunteers are aware of and trained in their responsibilities concerning pupils’ safeguarding, welfare, health and safety.

There is something very curious about the use of language here. The report is reasonably complimentary about the "senior management team", but is rather critical of "leadership at the highest level". The ISI never names names in its reports when offering judgements, it only provides generalised indications of levels of management. But given that safeguarding is again the subject here, it is possible to decode this. The ISI is making specific criticism of the headmistress, who has this responsibility in her role as Designated Teacher for safeguarding.

Publication of this report has been delayed by several months. Normally an ISI report is published 3-4 months after the initial visit. The ISI has confirmed that publication was delayed by legal action. Why it is being published now is something of a mystery given how critical the ISI is of the school's safeguarding arrangements - admittedly in somewhat coded language. One can only wonder what the original draft report looked like.

The ISI Report on St. Augustine's

I've learned that the ISI Report on St. Augustine's has now been sent to parents. It will presumably be made available on the ISI website within 2 weeks.

Once it is available I shall of course take a look and see what it says that would justify such a long delay in publication. Watch this space!