High-profile academy created “hostile environment” for young teacher with multiple sclerosis, tribunal finds

Brampton Manor Academy

A young woman battling multiple sclerosis has won a landmark employment tribunal judgment, after it found she had been put through intense anxiety, “harassment” and “intimidation”, which may have worsened her condition, by the high-profile academy which had employed her as a newly-qualified teacher.

Brampton Manor Academy, in Newham, East London, was found to have discriminated against Yasmin Omar in multiple ways arising from her disability, during less than six months working at the school where she was described as having been “intimidated”, placed under “extreme pressure” and left “frightened” by management decisions.

Omar’s ordeal had started on day one of her time at Brampton Manor, the tribunal found, as an assistant principal refused to grant her half an hour off so she could meet an urgent hospital appointment. Stress-enhancing events then continued, one after another, with the tribunal repeatedly describing the school as having been made a “hostile environment” for her.

After less than three months in the job, Omar initially resigned, only to be persuaded to return with the promise that she would start on reduced hours.

But when she did so, she found herself being required to teach a full timetable, with unannounced observations and performance management following, even as her condition worsened. While signed off sick, and on only statutory sick pay, she ended up being evicted from her home, leaving her homeless for more than two months.

The school is led by a £250,000 superhead, Dayo Olukoshi, and has won admiring headlines for the number of sixth-formers it sends to Oxbridge. But it was also found by the tribunal to have failed to make reasonable adjustments for Omar’s disability, and to have been guilty of “harassment” against her. Among the facts revealed by the report, following a tribunal whose hearings took place over seven days and which was heard virtually, was that Omar had been set a target of not a single day’s further absence from work for the rest of the academic year, having had to take two days off sick in her second week there as her MS condition worsened.

The level of compensation for Omar, now working successfully at another school in London with her MS in remission, has yet to be decided. But she has said on twitter that the near-three-year saga of her fight has been a “very long, draining and scary road.”

Anecdotally at a national level, many employment tribunal cases are settled by those running schools before they see the light of day, while other staff sign non-disclosure agreements in return for pay-offs as they resign. So this case shines a rare light on the detail of employment practices about which this tribunal was absolutely scathing.

I have sought a response from Brampton Manor, including on whether it planned to change its employment practices as a result of this judgment but, at the time of writing, had yet to receive one.

The detail

The tribunal’s 73-page judgment paints a disturbing picture of seemingly unending pressures placed on a new teacher, who was in the first months of dealing with the life-changing diagnosis that she had MS, by the school.

Omar, who had applied and been offered a post at the school as a newly qualified science teacher in January 2018, was on a PGCE course at UCL Institute of Education when she was told, in April of that year, that she probably had the chronic neurological condition. This was five months before she was due to start at Brampton Manor.

Events on and around Omar’s first day

The report then told a story of how on the day before she was due to start at the school, September 3^rd, 2018, Omar’s medication ran out. She had to get to an appointment at Charing Cross Hospital for blood tests on that first day, but was told – after being made to speak in turn to three managers – that she could not have the half-hour off she estimated she needed to get to the hospital.

She did just make the hospital in time, having secured a lift from a friend, ending up “in a flood of tears and pleading with the staff at the hospital to do the blood test, which they did”.

But within the next week, her health started to deteriorate, including blurred vision, losing her balance and developing migraines and eye pain.

After telling the school of this by email on the evening of Sunday, September 9th, and having attended hospital again, she stayed off for two days.

Set target of “no further absence”

But on the next day, a Monday, Stuart Roberts, a vice-principal at the school, wrote to Omar to “invite her to a Stage 1 trigger level meeting under [the school’s] managing sickness absence procedure”. This action, meant to deal with persistent absence by staff, had been started on day one of Omar’s MS-induced time at home. This was despite, the tribunal said, the school’s policy itself saying this should not happen until day two.

In this her second week at the school, in a meeting on September 13^th to discuss her absence, Roberts then set Omar a “target of no further periods of absence from work due to sickness for the rest of the academic year” – which Roberts said was a requirement of all staff at the school who had been off sick.

The tribunal found that Omar became “even more stressed about her health and her job” as a result.

School unwilling to let Omar off break duty

A dispute with the school about break duty followed. Omar asked to be let off break duty requirements, which saw teachers having, usually twice a week, to be in the playground “usually standing”, monitoring pupil behaviour.

Having raised this with Roberts, just before October half-term, Omar also did so with Mark Balaam, an assistant principal.

Omar told the tribunal – though this was disputed by the school – that Balaam said in response: “If you’re unfit to do break duty, the next question is, are you unfit to teach?” The tribunal said: “We find it likely that Mr Balaam did make this statement.”

Roberts suggested amending matters so that Omar did break duty in the library. This meant, found the tribunal, that she did not get a proper break. And, when she did turn up for her first break duty, she found that no arrangements had been made for her: there was, for example, no chair available for her.

On November, 12^th, Omar was at hospital for another blood test. Anticipation of this had given her a sleepless night, as she worried about missing time at work. This, in turn, had “worsened her MS symptoms,” found the tribunal.

At the hospital, Omar received an email from Roberts telling her she had now reached Stage II of the school’s Absence Management Procedure. It invited her to a meeting the following day. Back at home, she emailed back to say that she felt distressed, and asking for the meeting to be postponed.

Omar “ambushed” in a meeting

But, instead, when she returned to school the following day she was “ambushed”, found the tribunal, as she was met by another assistant principal, Joyce Boakye, and led into a room with Roberts and Balaam waiting.

The meeting had seen Roberts re-iterating that Omar would not be released from break duties and that a review meeting on her absence had been arranged for the following month.

Omar resigns for the first time

But within two weeks, and less than three months after embarking on her teaching career, Omar had decided that she had had enough. She wrote a three-page letter to Olukoshi, saying she wished to resign.

Olukoshi said he was sad that she wished to resign and eventually persuaded her to return in January, after a period of unpaid leave to take a break. Olukoshi had told her that he wanted her to stay, as she could be an “excellent role model to many young girls and others”, and had offered her adjustments to her working patterns, including the ability to work flexibly on a daily rate.

The tribunal reported that in a telephone call on December 19th, Shamyla Qureshi, her line manager who was the head of biology, told her “that Dr Olukoshi had agreed that she would have a phased return back to school which meant that she would not be teaching during the first week back and then would increase her timetable slowly over the following week”.

No phased return to work

This was not, though, how things turned out.

The tribunal found that “[the school] had not given any thought to what arrangements [Omar] would need on her return to work”. It had not contacted Omar in advance to find out about the state of her health, or for any update on recommendations from her doctors. The school had expected her to raise any required adjustments with it, but Omar had not known this.

Balaam told the tribunal that he had been surprised, on the first day of term, to find Omar not in school teaching. Qureshi told Omar that “there had been a mistake and she was going to get her full timetable with immediate effect”.

The next day, Omar was back in school, the tribunal’s report implying she actually ended up working more than a full timetable, as changes to the school’s teaching plans for Key Stage 3, brought in while Omar was off, meant she had to spend extra time in the evenings, and at weekends, preparing for lessons.

Symptoms worsening and more pressure

Omar’s MS symptoms then flared again. On the following Saturday, January 12th, “she developed an excruciating migraine headache, had a large blindspot in her left field of vision and an inability to feel her left leg. She did not find out until later that these were signs of a severe MS relapse which progressively worsened over the following days and weeks,” found the tribunal.

She went to hospital accident and emergency “due to a completely numb leg”.

Despite this, and fearing that she was about to trigger Stage III of Brampton Manor’s Absence Management Procedure, Omar was back in school on the Monday.

On the Tuesday, she faced a deadline: her year 11 class had sat a mock biology exam, with Omar expected to have marked the papers and produced the results in a spreadsheet by the Tuesday, January 15^th. Having had the relapse, she did not meet the deadline. She asked Qureshi for a day’s extension. Qureshi did not respond.

Instead, the tribunal said Qureshi spoke about Omar to another head of department, a Ms Bhome, “complain[ing] that the claimant had requested a marking extension because [of] her MS”.

The report then stated: “Ms Bhome later confronted [Omar] in front of other staff asking why she had not done her marking. She indicated to the claimant that if she could not handle it at Brampton, she should leave. This upset [Omar] but she felt unable to talk to any of the managers about this incident.”

Omar was also being subjected to lesson observations during this period. During one, also on Tuesday January 15^th, two colleagues watched her teach, producing a report which praised some aspects of her teaching, but listing “areas for development” on the management of pupils’ behaviour. She was told to plan lessons for this class in advance, sending them a week in advance to her NQT mentor, Ayesha Jamal-Deen.

Yet during this formal observation, Omar had been “experiencing distorted vision from a blindspot in her left eye, hearing loss alternating between her ears, fatigue and balance issues,” the report stated. Omar said that, teaching a full day on Tuesdays such as this, she was, by 1.30pm “shattered”, and struggling to walk.

In a note in her diary dated five days later, on January 20th, Omar recorded that the school had “made her feel depressed and that her whole perception of teaching had been ruined by Brampton.” Considering resigning again, “she noted that she did not want to stay in the career after leaving the school”.

On January 23rd and 24th, she was in hospital again, with intravenous steroids having to be administered because of her relapse. The steroids had side-effects, leaving Omar with double vision, “slowed thinking” and insomnia: Omar told the tribunal that she did not sleep at all for five nights from January 23rd.

She also said she had been “tearful and neglectful of every aspect of her health and responsibilities, apart from making sure that she was prepared for and attended school.”  She was back in school on January 25th.

Yet the lesson observations continued, and the report found Omar was “invited to many meetings by Mr Balaam and Ms Qureshi to discuss her performance”.

Omar writes to the school about her condition- but performance management to be “escalated”

February half-term arrived and Omar had an MRI scan which showed a new lesion in her spine. Exhausted, and feeling that she was suffering from depression, she felt that the new lesion may have been caused by her stress at work during the previous half-term. Again, she considered quitting then, but the tribunal found it was likely that her determination to become a qualified teacher persuaded her not to.

On the last day of half-term - Sunday, February 24^th - Omar wrote to Balaam and Kelly Davies, Qureshi’s successor as acting head of biology, with the latter having left the school. In a long letter, Omar set out how her disease had changed since January and how she needed to miss school once a month for new medication. She asked if someone could sit down with her to work out what days would be least disruptive for her to be away from school, and whether her timetable could be reduced from 19 to 15 or 16 hours per week, as she was “on the brink of giving up”. She attached a copy of a letter from her consultant from earlier that month that stated that she had had a relapse and that her therapy had been “escalated”.

The following day, the first day back at school, Balaam told Omar that he had received her email, but that he had not read it. The tribunal said it was likely that he had read it. No meeting was immediately set up with Omar to discuss her requests.

Omar then asked Jamal-Deen if she could delay slightly sending lesson plans to her in advance. Jamal-Deen refused, said the tribunal, “because changing the time would have been inconvenient for her”.

The following day, Tuesday February 26th, Balaam and Roberts met and decided that Davies should discuss Omar’s request for a reduced timetable with her. The tribunal said it was likely that they also discussed and agreed, at this meeting, to “escalate their performance management” on Omar.

The same day, Omar was taken out of a lesson and told to attend a meeting with Roberts “in which he informed her that he had serious concerns about her teaching and overall performance”. He told her that she was being placed on an informal performance management programme which would consist of “continued unannounced observations by Ms Jamal-Deen, Ms Davies and Mr Balaam; with the addition of unannounced observations by himself and another assistant principal, Mr Stewart”.

Omar was also told that she now had to send in all her lesson plans in advance.

When she tried to discuss with Roberts her letter of February 24th – which had gone into such detail about her medical condition – she was told she should take it up with Balaam “as it was separate from the capability issues that he was addressing”.

“[Omar] went to the meeting expecting a discussion about the letter of 24 February. She was upset that it was not about that,” found the tribunal.

Roberts then wrote to Omar, stating that the performance management process would last four weeks, with weekly meetings on Fridays to check on her progress. Omar was told that this was because of “the quality of your teaching at all key stages, which requires improvement; and the outcomes for the pupils that you teach which has been inadequate”. Omar was told that the quality of her teaching needed to be “consistently good”, at least. The first review meeting with Roberts would be on March 29, and if her performance did not improve, she would be put under a formal capability procedure.

The letter made no mention of Omar’s health, or of her letter of February 24th.

The tribunal said Omar had been surprised that the school had put her under performance management, as she had never been told that it had serious concerns.

Omar was upset after the meeting, reported the tribunal. “She taught her classes that day but by the end of the school day had developed an MS flareup in the form of blurred vision and flashing lights; with other symptoms coming on, later that evening. She had a relapse.”

That same evening, Balaam emailed Omar to invite her to a meeting with himself and Davies to discuss her letter of February 24th.

But she would never return to the school to teach. For the next two days, she was off sick and, on the second day, February 28th, sent the school a sick note to be off for the following month.

Omar signed off sick, but pressure from school continues

On the same day, she wrote to Olukoshi to complain. She stated that in principle, she was not opposed to performance management, provided it took her health into consideration.

Olukoshi responded to say that the school had shown her “considerable understanding and support” and that it was appropriate for it to manage her performance.

On March 4th, Roberts wrote to Omar to invite her to a Stage II formal absence review meeting, to be held in his office on March 7th. The meeting, in which Omar was supported by the NEU, happened on March 14th.

The tribunal said that, although the school had claimed that it had split Omar’s “capability issues” from her sickness absence, in this meeting Roberts criticised Omar for not sending in cover work for her classes. Yet Omar had spoken to Davies about this, the latter saying that she would cover Omar’s lesson planning. The tribunal said it was unlikely that Roberts had checked with Davies before raising this issue with Omar.

The tribunal said the meeting minutes show that Roberts stressed at its start that Omar’s absence “was having a significant impact” because of “the school having to arrange cover for all [Omar’s] lessons”.

“[Omar’s] trade union representative reminded [Roberts] that [Omar] had a disability and not simply a cold,” said the tribunal.

Roberts said that the school had made adjustments for Omar, including moving some of her classes to the ground floor and giving her a key to a lift so she could access others, as well as moving her break duties indoors and moving the days of her break duty in order for her to take medication.

But Roberts then agreed that Omar would, finally, be referred to occupational health for a report. He added, though, that the school could not always “facilitate all recommendations and adjustments”, and that if Omar could not get back to work, this was likely to lead to Stage III of the Absence Management Procedure, “which could lead to disciplinary procedures”.

Omar’s union representative “tried to engage Mr Roberts in a discussion about [Omar’s] request for a reduced timetable but he did not want to discuss it”.

On March 22nd, in an appointment with occupational health, the doctor showed Omar a referral form completed by Roberts. In it, Roberts had said: “There are serious and ongoing concerns about this colleague’s performance as a teacher and this is being actively managed through the school’s appraisal procedure. Following a meeting on 26/2/2019, she was absent on 27/02/19 and then signed off from 28/02/19 to 27/03/19.” This implied that Omar had gone off sick because of the meeting of February 26th, the tribunal found.

In the meeting of March 14th, Roberts had told Omar that, if she did not return to work on March 28th, further action under the absence management procedure could be triggered. A letter to her following up on this stressed the impact Omar’s absence was having on the school but did not mention her MS. She was told that, if she did not return to work on the 28th, further action which could lead to the stage III “and her dismissal” could follow.

The occupational health report came through on March 26th. The report confirmed that Omar had had a major relapse of MS, had had frequent and significant relapses since her diagnosis and that she was suffering from weakness in her left arm and leg, and significant fatigue. She was declared unfit for work, with the doctor stating they would be in a better position to say when she would be able to return once it was known whether she would respond positively to new medication.

The tribunal report said, pointedly, that the occupational health doctor had “confirmed that MS is a long-term condition subject to episodes of relapse and remission” and that Omar had “tried to tell Mr Roberts this at their very first meeting under the absence management procedure, on 13 September 2018”.

Omar was then signed off from work for another four weeks by her GP, on March 27th; this was extended again for another month in late April.

On March 28th, Roberts wrote to Omar saying he was “prepared to consider further action under the absence management procedure but would not do so until he received the further report from the [occupational health] doctor”. Once Omar was off sick, there was no further communication from the school about her request for a reduced timetable. There was no response to her lengthy letter of February 24^th about her health.

Another occupational health report, dated May 9th, confirmed that Omar remained unfit for work, with a recommendation that she be re-referred in 12 weeks after her medication had had an opportunity to settle.

Roberts them wrote to Omar inviting her to another Stage II absence meeting, on May 24th, with this then being put back to June 5th.

Omar made homeless

Meanwhile, Omar’s crisis at the school was generating major financial implications for her. Having only been in receipt of statutory sick pay*. She was evicted from her home on 30 April 2019 and was homeless until July 2020. “[Omar] had to couch surf at various relatives’ homes,” the judgment stated. “At the same time, she was having physiotherapy to enable her to walk without crutches and use her left hand.”

However, after a few months, away from the school, Omar’s health did begin to improve, the tribunal reported. By the time she attended another occupational health appointment in July 2019, she was walking without crutches, her manual dexterity had improved and her balance and strength in her limbs were better.

However, she continued to be stressed about work, and “worried about due to the lack of understanding of her condition by senior management”. She was declared still unfit to work, but the doctor considered that she should be able to return to work in the September, subject to a list of recommendations to the school including a phased return.

However, Omar “could not contemplate” returning to Brampton Manor. On September 2nd, 2019, she resigned. The school accepted her resignation, and offered to pay her notice pay, which she accepted.

After her resignation: a new working life

In December 2019, Omar had another MRI scan. This confirmed her condition was stable, with no new lesions having formed since she left Brampton Manor. She then applied for a non-teaching role at another school in East London, attending a pre-employment occupational health assessment in February 2020.

The headteacher there then offered her a full-time science teacher role, the school making adjustments, including not requiring her to do break duty at all and “giving her access to the lift from her first day”.

The tribunal reported: “Her new school’s attitude inspired her with confidence and has led to her having an uneventful working life as a teacher. At the time of her hearing [November 2020 to March 2021, Omar] was working as a classroom teacher at this new school. Her condition remains stable.”

I understand that Omar’s condition is now in remission, although the tribunal also stated: “Since September 2020 [Omar] has been diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorder which she believes is related to her experiences at [Brampton Manor].”

The tribunal’s conclusions

The tribunal delivered a damning verdict on Brampton Manor’s management of Omar.

It listed 10 instances where the school had instigated “act[s] of discrimination arising from [Omar’s] disability”

These had been:  

-Balaam’s “effective refusal” to allow Omar to leave half an hour early for her hospital appointment on her first day at the school;

-Roberts triggering the school’s Absence Management Procedure without modifying it because of her disability;

-Roberts’ decision following the meeting of September 13th to set Omar a target of no further absences, after she had taken time off and bearing in mind likely future absences linked to her disability;

-The school refusing Omar’s request to be removed from break duty;

-Roberts putting Omar on “Stage II trigger” of the AMP on November 12th, 2018.

-Roberts’ decisions to reject Omar’s request to postpone the Stage II trigger meeting, and instead to bring it forward by a day;

-Brampton Manor’s cancellation of Omar’s phased return to work on January 7th, 2019 and “put her back on a full timetable with immediate effect”. This, the tribunal found, had put her under “extreme pressure,” adding that “she suffered stress, anxiety and worry at this time, which could well have contributed to the relapse which began during the week and escalated so that she had to attend A&E”.

-The school effectively ignoring Omar’s request on February 24th for a reduced timetable;

-Brampton Manor failing to refer Omar to occupational health until March 2019. The tribunal found that, while the school had provided some adjustments for Omar’s condition, it “did not have any expert/medical opinion that those were all the adjustments that [Omar] needed”.

The tribunal said that Brampton Manor’s own Absence Management Procedure raised the possibility of a referral to occupational health, at stage II. It added: “Mr Roberts…instead, chose to threaten [Omar] with Stage III and disciplinary proceedings”.

The school placing Omar on performance management was likely not to have been because her performance in itself was “below par,” it concluded, but rather “because of [her] absences from work, her fatigue and the need to attend hospital for blood test[s] and treatment”. There was a “strong possibility”, too, that Omar had been placed on performance management as a response to her request in February for a reduced timetable.

It was likely, the tribunal found, that placing Omar on performance management was “the start [of Brampton Manor] managing [Omar] out of the school.”

-The school placing Omar on Stage II of its Absence Management Procedure, in March/April after she had been signed off sick.

The tribunal’s judgment then accepted that it was legitimate for the school to need to address staff absences, manage staff and ensure pupils achieved to their potential, and noted that it “wanted to maintain its own success by ensuring the success of its pupils”.

But this, it found, “has to be balanced with its duties to its employees”.

It concluded: “The Tribunal do not accept that it is proportionate to manage a disabled person who is in regular contact with her managers when sick and provides them will all the information about her health, under an absence management procedure…with threats…escalating to disciplinary proceedings and dismissal.

“It had a disproportionate effect on [Omar] and caused her unnecessary stress, anxiety, worry and possibly contributed to relapses, sleepless nights and further sickness.

“It is our judgment that the unfavourable treatment [of Omar] was not a proportionate means of [Brampton Manor] achieving its legitimate aims.”

Harassment

The tribunal also found Brampton Manor had been guilty of “harassing” Omar through its treatment of her, in that:

-Omar having to ask “three people who she had only just met, on her first day at a new job, to be allowed to leave 30 minutes early, to go to hospital for urgent medical treatment,” had created a “hostile environment” for her;

-Putting Omar on “Stage I trigger” of the AMP after only one day of absence – even though the school’s AMP policy set out this should not happen before two days’ absence – had been “unreasonable and humiliating”, creating a “hostile, intimidating and humiliating environment” for Omar. The tribunal found that Roberts’ decision had “frightened [Omar] so much that she went back to work when she was not well enough to do so”. This had “caused the claimant stress, anxiety and worry which were all the more serious because MS is a condition that can be worsened by stress”.

-Roberts giving Omar a target of no further absences served to “scare and intimidate” her, even though it was a goal “about which she could do nothing” as her “condition was not in her control. This was harassment,” concluded the tribunal.

-The tribunal said it judged that Balaam had told Omar that if she was unfit to do break duty, “the next question would be was she unfit to teach”. This had been said “to intimidate” Omar and “make her withdraw her request” to be spared the duty.

-Roberts’ refusal to postpone the “Stage II trigger meeting” and instead bringing it forward a day made Omar “feel very unsafe and intimidated her”.

The tribunal dismissed a claim by Omar of victimisation.

Responses

Writing on twitter about the judgment, Omar said:

“I’ve never felt so vindicated. Thank you to everyone that has believed me in a battle I found far harder than MS itself. I DID IT!!!!!!!”

In a response to someone on twitter offering support, Omar added: “It has been a long, draining &scary road. Not many people know the toll it took on me for years & at many points I didn’t know what was the hardest: the 1yr experience itself, the 1yr struggle to get it to a tribunal or the half yr wait for the reserved judgement.”

Many school staff accept settlements from employers which means that cases which could potentially see schools held publicly to account never see the light of day. The fact that Omar persisted with her case, despite her disability, means that some level of accountability for her former employer has followed.

I sought a response from Brampton Manor last Thursday on this judgment, but have yet to receive even an acknowledgement of the email.

This case has many implications, which I hope to continue to explore. I’ve written a separate piece about this case, on policies which the tribunal said applied to all staff at Brampton Manor, here.

*It looks to me as if this is less than Omar would have received had this school not been an academy. Under the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document, which applies in local authority maintained schools, teachers are entitled to full pay for 25 working days during the first year of service, after completing four calendar months’ service, half pay for 50 working days. https://neu.org.uk/advice/teachers-sick-pay-and-sick-leave-entitlement