Headteacher suspended for saying that some teachers were ‘sat at home doing nothing’ during lockdown

When Pauline Wood, a primary school headteacher from Teeside, agreed to be interviewed by her local radio station, she did not intend to be anything other than truthful.

But just two days after her interview, in which she said that some of her teachers were “sat at home doing nothing” during lockdown, she was shocked to learn she had been suspended.

During her appearance on BBC Radio Newcastle earlier this month, Mrs Wood was asked if all teachers had been working hard while schools have been closed.

She replied: “You can’t lump everyone together as if they are all one type…some teachers are coming up with the most imaginative, amazing things…and other people do sit at home doing nothing. I won’t defend those people.”

When asked whether that included teachers at her own school, she said: “Yes, I think it’s time we talked about the elephant in the room in some of this.”

Mrs Wood told the radio show that while “a lot can be done” by headteachers to motivate staff to work, it is a complex situation with “lots of HR rules, regulations, unions and people can say all reasons why they can and can’t work”.

Two days after the interview she was suspended by the chair of governors who told her she had bought the school into disrepute.

Mrs Wood told The Daily Telegraph that she stood by her comments, adding that headteachers around the country will agree with her but feel they have to “kowtow” to the unions and their local council in order to keep their jobs.

“I have broad shoulders, I am not going to lie,” Mrs Wood said. “But the barriers for most heads are too great. There is a lot of pressure to toe the party line and there are lots of heads who think it’s not worth raising their head above the parapet.”

She described how problems with staff began earlier this month, when she asked teachers to come for three days a week rather than two as more vulnerable children took up places at school. “We thought this was a perfectly reasonable request but a small minority of teachers didn’t like it,” she said.

“They started getting in touch with their union who spoke to the council and they bent the ear of the chair of governors who agreed to it.” Mrs Wood said that teachers are “paid to work five days a week and should be acting as role models to children.

“I have always promoted a hard work ethic, a no excuses and no quitting culture,” she said. “I always want to lead by example but this flies in the face of that.

So I am not just going to say nothing”. Mrs Wood, who was due to stand down as head at the end of this academic year, said that her treatment has been a “bitter pill to swallow”. During her 15 years as head at Grange Park Primary, Mrs Wood transformed the school from being rated by Ofsted as “inadequate” to “outstanding”.

The school, which is in a deprived community and has 40 per cent of pupils on free school meals, is one of the best performing in the country for maths and phonics.

Over 100 headteachers from schools around the country have come to visit Grange Park primary in recent years to learn from its approach to boosting attainment among disadvantaged children, and Mrs Wood has been invited to give lectures about how to turn around underperforming schools.

The school’s most recent Ofsted report, from 2011, said that the “relentless” way Mrs Wood and her leadership team “pursue excellence and improvement” has had an “extremely positive impact” on pupils’ results. 

Grange Park Primary School declined to comment.

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