School Management Blamed In Child Abuse Scandal
The team behind the Hillside Serious Case ReviewA serious case review has found a teacher who abused his students at a school near Weston-super-Mare was able to because of a failure in the school's senior management.
Nigel Leat was jailed in May last year at Bristol Crown Court for sexually assaulting five young girls over a course of five years at Hillside First School.
He pleaded guilty to 36 offences including the attempted rape of a child and was jailed indefinitely.
North Somerset Safeguarding Children Board has now completed its serious case review into the teacher's behaviour and has highlighted a number of issues at senior management level.
During the investigation it was revealed there had been 30 incidents reported to the school about the 51-year-old's "inappropriate or unprofessional conduct" but only 11 of these were properly reported.
The review has made 35 recommendations which include:
- Sending a copy of the report to all schools in the country.
- Making sure schools keep accurate records of all incidents and concerns arising in connection with members of staff so it can been seen if any patterns appear.
- Improvements to child protection training to make sure they can spot grooming and know where to get advice externally if they have any concern.
- There needs to be better assessment and development of schools leaders.
- The way complaints are recorded and dealt with should be improved.
- Recruitment processes need to be reviewed to make sure they're as robust as possible.
- The use of technology should be encouraged but if it's being misused the processes should be in place for other members of staff to be able to raise concerns.
- Although the school's focus on attainment was positive, this was not matched by a positive culture of safeguarding children.
This review has raised concerns about the way staff who work with children are appointed and checked.
Tony Oliver - the Chair of the North Somerset Safeguarding Children Board told us: "The CRB checks were done when Nigel Leat was appointed but since that time no checks have been made. That is a policy issue which perhaps needs to be looked at."
One of the victim's mums - Dawn has launched a petition calling for the government to introduce child protection awareness lessons in the national curriculum and also have spot checks in place for all existing and prospective staff members. "We're trying to raise the awareness of child protection. I've just got to fight for my children now. We're trying to improve the law and improve education that safe touch and no secrets needs to be taught from a young age."
The campaigners need 100,000 signatures in order for the issue to be talked about in Parliament - you can sign it here.
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