School reforms head faces child sex charges
A HIGH ranking head teacher who was hired by the Scottish Government to help shape the current school system has been charged with a string of child sex offences.
Neal McGowan worked at three schools in Scotland before taking up various positions at the helm of schools in England.
He had also worked directly with ministers on a report into classroom indiscipline in the early stages of the Scottish parliament in 2000, a report that is still a benchmark for the school system.
Police yesterday confirmed the 53-year-old, who lives in Leith, Edinburgh, and lectures on education at various universities and colleges in Scotland, has been charged with five sex offences involving former teenage pupils in England.
He has also been charged with three counts of making indecent images of a child as well as two of abusing his position of trust. McGowan was suspended from 1,750-pupil William de Ferrers School in Essex, where he had worked since 2013, shortly after his arrest in March last year.
Chairman of governors Tony Graham said: ‘The safety and wellbeing of pupils is of paramount importance to us and we take our safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously.
‘Mr McGowan was suspended as soon as the allegations against him came to light and we have cooperated fully with the police investigation’.
In 1997, McGowan was made head of Gracemount High School in Edinburgh at the age of 34 – one of the youngest head teachers in the UK at the time.
In 2000, he was seconded by ministers in the Education Department to coordinate a national inquiry into indiscipline. The Better Behaviour-Better Learning report that he produced, launched by then education minister Jack McConnell, is still used a benchmark for modern disciplinary practices in Scotland.
He moved to Banchory Academy in Kincardineshire from 2002 to 2004 before taking a job at Larbert High School in Falkirk, Stirlingshire.
After five years he moved to England where he was made the head of Cherwell School in Oxfordshire.
A spokesman for Essex Police confirmed the charges against McGowan involved one or more pupils at William de Ferrers school in South Woodham Ferrers. Police Scotland said it had not received any complaints.
McGowan is due in court next month.