UK NEWS

HEAD HAD LUNCH AS BOY LAY IN PAIN WITH BROKEN LEG

The headteacher ignored the boy for 15 minutes / pic posed by model

Thursday June 11,2009

By Laura Clout

A “BULLYING” head teacher who sat calmly eating her lunch while a pupil writhed in agony with a broken leg has been found guilty of unprofessional conduct.

Rowena Brace, 62, ignored pupils who begged her to help for a full 15 minutes so that she could finish her sandwiches.

Even then, she rang the boy’s father instead of calling for an ambulance, a tribunal was told.

The panel found her guilty of failing to summon medical attention to the seriously-injured boy.

But Mrs Brace is still allowed to teach again. Her formal reprimand is the lowest punishment officials can give and stays on the teachers’ register for two years.

She was also found to have fiddled SATS test results, by allowing pupils extra time so the school appeared to be doing better than it was, and of behaving “inappropriately” to a colleague by slamming a window.

A General Teaching Council tribunal in Birmingham heard that she had fostered a “climate of fear” at her school, regularly reducing teachers to tears.

The incident concerning the injured pupil took place at Hope Brook C of E Primary School in Longhope, Gloucs, in May 2005.

Isobel Hollis, the former acting deputy head, told how pupils begged for help when a boy was injured in a football tackle.

She said: “One or two pupils knocked on the staff door and said, ‘quick, quick’ urgently.

“But Mrs Brace continued to eat her lunch and only left the staff room 10 to 15 minutes later.

“The pupil was lying on the ground, pale and shaking. Mrs Brace said that he wanted his dad to come, so she had not called for an ambulance.”

Naina Patel, representing Mrs Brace, asked: “If the situation was so obviously urgent, why didn’t you go to see the boy yourself?”

Ms Hollis said she was scared of Mrs Brace and the “climate of fear” was so bad in the school that she did not dare interfere.

Andrew Faukes, representing the GTC, said the atmosphere was such that when Ms Hollis found the injured pupil on the football field she was more concerned with checking that the register would be OK in the afternoon than in his health.”

Mrs Brace, of Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, became head at a stressful time after two schools merged in 2001. Six years later she had been sacked after complaints from staff and parents.

The committee panel heard that bullying, shouting and door slamming was common and it was “a daily occurrence” for a teacher to be reduced to tears.

Mrs Brace, who had denied all the counts of misconduct levelled against her, was cleared of inappropriate behaviour towards four other members of staff.

Another teacher told how the head downgraded Foundation Stage Profile results. Mair Blackman said: “I was shocked. If FSP results are low and Key Stage 1 results are normal a year later, it makes the school sound fantastic, doesn’t it?”

Mrs Brace sobbed as she told the committee she wanted to find a job teaching at primary schools or colleges “as soon as possible”, adding: “I still feel that I have a lot to offer before I retire.”

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