Will Cardinal Pole findings be made public?

Last week the the Hackney Gazette reported that Katherine Hartigan, the head teacher at Cardinal Pole school had resigned.

This follows an investigation into allegations that the school's senior management attempted to persuade staff to manipulate student assessments prior to an Ofsted inspection. However it is unclear whether the findings of this investigation - believed to include allegations of a "no going backwards" policy for student assessment - will be made public.

The Learning Trust, which oversees the management of Hackney's schools, said that these decisions were being taken at a school level and that the report had yet to be finalised and no decision had been made about whether its findings would be made public.

However Blood and Property has been told that one reason why the findings remain under wraps may be because other senior members of staff at the school could still face disciplinary action. A governors meeting is due to take place tonight on this subject.

Concerns had already been raised about which organisations or individuals commissioned the report and which of them had authority to say whether the findings should be made public or not.

It is believed that National Union of Teachers (NUT) members had threatened to boycott the investigation after the school's head teacher allegedly claimed that the investigation was her responsibility. Those teachers who were interviewed had to be reassured that this was not the case and some believe that the findings will be made public.

More recently there has been a stormy governors' meetings about the report and when it will be available and to whom. Hopefully there will be more news on this later in the week.

All recent Cardinal Pole stories here, and a rough timeline here:

2 July: Vote of no confidence in Head
12 Sept: Hackney teachers urged to falsify coursework marks, claim
13 Sept: Cardinal Pole replies to coursework falsification claims

Official investigation into Cardinal Pole

The Hackney Gazette has some interesting new stuff on what's going on at Cardinal Pole - there is now an official investigation by independent investigators.

This is unexpected because, on 12 September the Learning Trust, which runs Hackney's schools, told Blood and Property: “These matters have been looked into and there is no investigation at Cardinal Pole.”

According to the Gazette's front page story the Learning Trust "said they supported the governors' decision decision for an investigation this week". The Gazette reported that teachers "claimed they were told to mask results for pupils in years 7 to 9 in order to show Ofsted inspectors that achievements had improved".

Blood and Property tried to work out what was going on at the school over the summer:

2 July: Vote of no confidence in Head
12 Sept: Hackney teachers urged to falsify coursework marks, claim
13 Sept: Cardinal Pole replies to coursework falsification claims

In the last story the school's head, Katherine Hartigan, said: "As part of the drive to raise standards across the school, a new system was introduced for all staff which provided a consistent assessment framework for tracking and assessing pupil progress across the school."

However neither the school nor the Learning Trust have answered any of Blood and Property's requests for details about this "new system" introduced at Cardinal Pole.

If the allegations turn out to be correct the question is whether anyone will follow up the accompanying allegation - that Cardinal Pole is behind the curve and that falsification has been going on at all the other schools?