27/06/2019
To our community,
We write to you to correct significant misconceptions you may have been given in respect of the reasons why the school closed.
You will be aware that in August 2017 The Council of Trustees and Tim Byford, Principal, issued a Public Statement, that included:
“In particular, the school wishes to apologise for any suggestion that may have been made in the past by school leaders or staff, publicly or privately, that family members who had raised concerns about safeguarding or SEN provision were the cause of the difficulties the school has found itself in. The latter is wholly and entirely of its own making”
However, despite issuing this public statement it is evident that Trustee Board Members and senior leaders at the school did not act, least of all decisively or assertively, to redress the issues of blame attributed by the wider parent group to families who had raised concerns about safeguarding and SEN provision in the past. As a result, a false narrative continued unchecked.
Our failure to act caused distress to families and their children and we seek to put that right now. We wholeheartedly condemn the false narrative that ex-parents were responsible for the closure of the school. The school closed for its failure to meet the Independent School Standards.
We have now offered our sincere apologise to the families for our failure to challenge the false narrative and for the immense distress caused.
We wish to re-iterate the key message from our earlier public statement:
“the school wishes to apologise for any suggestion that may have been made in the past by school leaders or staff, publicly or privately, that family members who had raised concerns about safeguarding or SEN provision were the cause of the difficulties the school has found itself in. The latter is wholly and entirely of its own making”
The school closed for its failure to meet the Independent School Standards.
The Trustees of RSSKL