By Ben Kerrigan-
A head teacher has been banned for life after giving her daughter a job as a teaching assistance without advertising the role.
Linda Grainger, 59, former head of Queensway Infant School in Thetford, Norwich, showed ‘flagrant favouritism” by giving her ”highly unusual and disproportionate increases in pay, a panel for the National College for Teaching and leadership found.
The panel’s report published today highlighted ‘ ‘a conflict of interest’ in which Mrs Grainger employed her daughter without undertaking the appropriate recruitment processes. She also afforded her daughter the opportunity of a psychotherapeutic counselling course not offered to other staff
The damning report stated that Grainger inappropriately commissioned her daughter’s fiancée(later her husband) as a contractor to carry out decorating work and those necessary tendering procedures were not followed because of his relationship with his daughter and ordered £10,000 worth of stationary in January 2015, and split the order into five separate categories; thereby manipulating the invoices in order to avoid seeking the approval of the legal body. Yesterday’s report said Ms Grainger lost sight of professional obligations and duties. She failed to maintain proper professional boundaries, although she was aware they were required. She made promises to the governing body she did not keep. Worst of all, Mrs Grainger forged the signature of the deputy headteacher.
”She plainly favoured her daughter, offering opportunities in terms of pay and progression that were not open to others, and was dishonest in the pursuit of this. In short, the panel is satisfied that she put family first,; school and the public purse second. The panel is clear that Mrs Grainger ran the school as her own personal fiefdom”.
The school had a need to higher a high-level teaching assistant to cover for one that had been suspended, but the panel saw no evidence that any attempt was made to recruit an HTLA. Instead, Mrs Grainger recruited her daughter- somebody with no teaching experience whatsoever.
The panel acknowledges that she did not have any previous disciplinary actions against her, and was considered a competent head teacher by professional colleagues at other schools. This acknowledgement is irrelevant to the gross misdemeanour of hers, least expected by a head teacher. It seems odd how we have two stories highlighting indiscipline by head teachers, this strongly suggesting that there may be several other instances of serious misdemeanours by other head teachers not yet known. Head teachers are generally leaders with strong moral ethics. They often give direction to staff members and pupils in terms of conduct and expectations of the school.
Head teachers who behave in shocking and despicable ways, serve to bring down the reputation of the teaching profession. Most of all, they display an alarming level of stupidity in not knowing they will or could be caught.