Can I refer the reader to Sean Carr’s comments in my posting of 9th June Cameron, St Bede’s, O’Sullivan And Much, Much More. Sean in his first comment quoted verbatim the note issued to all parents at St Bede’s and dated 10th June 2011 which I included in my posting of 19th July 2011 The Ejection Of Mr Barber.
Sean rightly pointed out the lies told to parents by the florid Quinlan in this note. Quinlan said that Mr Barber had said that he would like to return to teaching. In fact Barber was deposed in a Night of the Long Knives with Quinlan, Kearney and Pike the daggers that had him doomed. Barber was naturally distraught but the quality of the man was recognised immediately by St Edmond’s, Ware bringing him into their fold as Deputy Head. St Edmond’s, with a clutch of martyrs as their alumni, instead of Bede’s wizened collection of faded rock stars, comedians and the odd politician, is, as Sean said, ten times the school that Bede’s could ever dream of being.
This dismissal was followed by more lies from the then triumvirate (Florid, Baldy and Fishface) that Barber was stressed out, not able to cope and he was leading a failing school. Well, by God, if the College was failing in 2011 with its record A Level results, it has now gone past the point of no return under the trio’s haphazard and woeful management.
This same policy, an absolute unchristian policy of spreading lies and discontent is the same that made Mrs Carr Deed, another excellent educationalist, hand in her resignation letter two weeks ago. Another fine teacher ruined by lies, innuendo and spiteful gossip.
Why is it in this supposedly Catholic ethos supporting establishment have the senior management had to revert to this barrage of malicious lies to ensure their work, their malevolent policies are carried out. It is a scene redolent of the lower reaches of the political world than that of a supposedly top class educational institution.
Only a few weeks ago I had a barrage of parents and pupils telling me what a bad man I was for telling the truth. I understood it from the pupils who had obviously been coached in their wayward attacks on my blog and it did make most people realise the poor quality of the pupils that were doing the slanging. What was harder to overcome was the attacks by parents or should I say parents stupid enough not to know better when this sinking ship was already listing beyond the point of no return.
But the tide has changed, I am no longer receiving this kind of hate mail in comments and e-mails, people are now realising that what I have been saying for two years is correct. Florid Quinlan, glabrous Kearney and piscine Pike have been put there to run the school into the ground.
Well that is all very well, let management do what management does but an awful lot of innocent people are caught up in this Machiavellian game of snakes and ladders that the Salford Diocese are determined to play. I have pity for the pupils or at least those serious enough about their future lives to want to succeed with their examination but they have youth on their side and those that fail will bounce back given an extra year in fresh air. I pity the parents to the extent that they are paying out lots of hard earned monies to keep this Titanic afloat. However they should have seen and understood the runic symbols held up by the creepy lot in charge. They should have started the process of child extraction as soon as Kearney’s name was mentioned in preference to Barber. Those parents that have not gone this extra mile are nearly now stuck in steerage with no lifeboats left to ease their passage.
However those that I have most pity for are the vast majority of the teachers, those that are still trying to bale the ship out of trouble, that are still trying to educate pupils in their charge. It is not their lot to rebel, nor to stand up and be counted but they should before it is too late. These people can only move on at their own pace, they become mortified, petrified when the pace quickens. They have to break out of this paradigm and enter a brave new world. I know that will be difficult but for their own sanity it needs doing.
They, I must admit, have choices. They can resign and move on: difficult in two ways, their natural inclination to stay put and the difficulty of finding somewhere more suitable for their talents. They could leave in the correct manner and sue the school for constructive dismissal for those with more than two years service but they have to prove that and it is sometimes difficult in the employment tribunal process. Or they can soldier on into crassness and morbidity and eventually go for redundancy but by then their mental strength might have been diminished. It is a sad outlook for able, gifted people.
The big downside to all of this is that the Salford Diocese now totally control the school. The Board of Governors is bereft of lay people who had some say in the past. The scary hands of ancient priests have a grip on everything and as the Church fails it will drag institutions like St Bede’s College down with it. I have it in my power to quicken that process but for legal reasons I am hamstrung. If we all knew as much about Bede’s as I do we would all be trampled underfoot by stampeding parents, teachers and children but one day and it might not be far off, I might throw off my shackles, shout “bugger it” and let fly with both barrels. The College is one stinking, putrefying corpse and needs something or somebody to make a Lazarus out of it.