As autumn draws in, once again I hear the children singing this hymn, blasting out the chorus:

‘So, I mustn’t forget

No, I mustn’t forget

To say a great big thank you

I mustn’t forget.’

So I say a great big thank you to all of my children for giving me happy and fond memories of having the pleasure to see ten years’ worth of seasons come and go at Trinity.

Autumn days at school saw the children proudly bringing in conkers of all sorts, shapes and sizes, ready for our Trinity Conker Championships! Homemade apple pies, chutneys and apple bobbing competitions meant mums, dads, children, staff and friends of the school got involved. Days to savour and remember vividly. I hope the apple bobbing champs still wear their medals with pride!

Seasons come and go, as will all of the children across the country who left behind their primary days and embarked on new adventures at secondary schools this autumn.

Recently, I stumbled on a Trinity family who I will always remember with a warm heart and great fondness. I was taking part in the Bristol Bubble Rush charity run in Wraxall. It was wonderful to see such supportive and honest people using such kind words about me. All the children had grown but still had their beautiful smiling and happy faces. I was slightly emotional but thankful at the same time that the memories of happy days as their head teacher had not faded.

The family know who they are - it was fantastic to see you all as I never got the chance to say goodbye in December 2015. I wish you all, and the many other families I had the privilege to work with, the very best.

As the new academic year commenced I read with great interest and indeed sadness the story of the remarkable Drew Povey, a head teacher in Salford. Drew was widely praised for turning his school around in Channel 4 fly-on-the-wall documentary series, Educating Manchester. I cannot help but think that there are many similarities between this head’s situation and mine. He has my full support. His story makes for interesting reading.

You can find it on Twitter, @DrewPovey. When I tendered my resignation, I too was offered a settlement. I saw it for what it was: a gagging order. Something I was not prepared to accept.

As I have stated on a previous post on my blog, another referral was made against me to the Teacher Regulatory Agency (TRA) by the NUT in March 2017. This was two months after I had sued an NUT member for defamation. I was forced to disclose the referral on this blog as my confidentiality had been breached by the TRA.

I have recently become aware of another Facebook group titled ‘The Official Trinity Triumph’. I felt that getting disclosure of the members within this group and the postings would be beneficial. Recently I took the decision to go to court in order to gain disclosure.

Disappointingly, on this occasion, I was unable to get disclosure. The NUT (now the NEU) had hired a specialist barrister to stop me getting this information from the Facebook group ‘The Official Trinity Triumph’. The judge even said that she would have expected a ‘more junior barrister to have been hired by the NUT for this case’.

Back in March 2017, when the referral by the NUT was made, were the teachers identified as witnesses even aware of this referral? I had left my post in December 2015, some fifteen months earlier.

I have to question an ‘investigation’ process where potential ‘witnesses’ have been warned about the consequences against them should they fail to participate. I believe witnesses come forward willingly and of their own accord.  Who is really behind this and what are their motives?   

The words of Drew Povey resonate with me:

‘The time has arrived where I can no longer sit quietly under the threat of ‘you cannot comment or you will breach your code of conduct’.

I admire Drew Povey for bringing his case into the public domain.

This referral by the NUT has taken 19 months with the allegations continuously changing. The mere words ‘investigation’ and ‘allegations’ put fear into people and create a ‘no smoke without fire’ attitude. The cost to me financially has been significant, as has the amount of public money spent in preparing the case against me by the TRA.

This campaign has spiralled out of control and people are being used. It has been allowed to continue, making a mockery of the systems that should be in place to protect good teachers.

I have many fond memories of the teachers that I worked alongside. Last week I met up with a teacher who I worked with at Trinity many years ago in 2005. He told me ‘I’ll always fight your corner Pepe because I know how hard you worked for the children, their families and the community’. He gave me an enormous amount of strength as do many others.

Time will tell. The truth always prevails.

At the beginning of this post I talked about children embarking on new adventures. Recently I unexpectedly received a letter from the parent of a former pupil. September saw the start of his university life. I remember him well, as I do all of my pupils. I remember reading Goodnight Mister Tom to this pupil and the rest of his class.

Lines from this heartwarming story stay with me as do the little faces of my captivated audience…

‘I’d rather be happy and odd than miserable and ordinary.' Goodnight Mister Tom