Head teacher wins payout after being humiliated by her boss

A HEAD TEACHER has been awarded a payout of nearly £200,000 after her boss threatened to move her child to a private school in front of an Ofsted inspector.

Deborah Lingard was “humiliated” and “seriously undermined” when Yvonne Brown, an academy CEO, chastised her over a marking error, an employment tribunal heard.

After noticing a mistake on her son’s books by a Year 5 teacher, Mrs Brown, chief executive of a trust that runs Tyldesley Primary School in Manchester, threatened to pull her son out of the school and move him to fee-paying Bolton School “unless matters improved”.

Mrs Lingard, who was left embarrassed in front of the school inspector, was awarded £190,804 in compensation after she sued for unfair constructive dismissal.

The employment tribunal in Manchester heard Mrs Lingard was appointed headteacher in September 2016 after rising through the ranks at the “outstanding” school.

In November that year, Mrs Brown CEO of Leading Learners Multi Academy Trust, told Mrs Lingard that inspector Leszek Iwaskow was due to visit.

A tribunal report said: “On November 2 Mrs Lingard said that Mrs Brown told her that a further inspector would be visiting the school at midday, Leszek Iwaskow, and that she wanted her to meet with him as he would be doing some work in the school on the curriculum at some point in the future.

“[A] challenging high achievers issue was discussed in this meeting and Yvonne Brown went to get some books from the nearest classroom to assist the discussion.

“This included her son’s books as he was a high achiever and Yvonne Brown noticed a marking error by the Year 5 teacher and began to criticise the teacher.

“Mrs Lingard said that Mrs Brown went on to say that unless matters improved she would be taking her son out of the school and putting him in Bolton School, the local private fee-paying school.”

Mrs Brown disputed saying this but the tribunal ruled that she did.

Employment Judge Pauline Feeney ruled the ‘humiliating’ incident amounted to a breach of employment law.

Judge Feeney said: “We found that Mrs Brown did produce her son’s books in front of Mr Iwaskow, criticised the way he was being taught and threatened to move him to a local private school.

“Clearly that seriously undermined and humiliated Mrs Lingard in front of a stranger but one who was going to play an important role in improving the school.

“There was no reasonable and proper cause for saying this in front of a third party.”