Departing teacher delivers scathing criticisms of academy trust’s policies, in school she describes as “totalitarian”

The "Astrea Ascent" behaviour approach. This chart features on pupils' "Character Cards," which state that students should make good choices because "It is who I am."

A long-serving teacher, working for one of England’s most consistently controversial academy trusts, has offered her resignation with a scathing set of criticisms of the way it operates, lambasting her school under its control as “totalitarian”.

Rachel Andrews* offered the three-page denunciation of Astrea Academy Trust as she prepared to leave Ernulf Academy, a secondary in Cambridgeshire which, unlike three other secondaries within the trust, has previously not attracted much detailed media scrutiny.

Ms Andrews said the school, in the town of St Neots whose only other state secondary is also under the control of Sheffield-based Astrea, took aim at a string of the chain’s policies which have come under criticism at others of its schools, including its behaviour regime and centralised teaching approaches.

A parent herself, Ms Andrews said the operation of the chain’s policy of “army style” line-ups in the playground was “intimidating” and inappropriate for pupils; that its behaviour approach did not work; and that its centralised teaching “booklets” were undermining pupils’ education. She said her daughter’s mental health was suffering and that she felt she had no voice.