Inside a governance “hornets' nest”: the extraordinary story of couple’s dispute with Catholic school and academy trust

St Paul's Catholic College, in Burgess Hill in West Sussex.

It started simply, with a controversial and last-minute intervention in the GCSE options process by Rob Carter, the school’s headteacher. Who could have known then that it would still be rumbling on, more than two years later, following investigations by the Department for Education and the Information Commissioner and controversy involving the school, the trust and eventually a Roman Catholic diocese?

Within months, after 16 parents had initially written to complain, one couple who were dismayed by the way the issue had been handled were raising a host of concerns with the Department for Education.

These alleged multiple breaches of the Nolan Principles of public life, which those leading schools are supposed to abide by. Aspects of contention ranged from strategic decision-making to governance, alleged conflicts of interest and data handling.

The couple relied on Subject Access Requests to reveal evidence including what they saw as concerning communications between decision-makers. The academy trust has said that a DfE investigation found no wrongdoing - though the latter did raise concerns including apparent "misrepresentation" of Ofsted's stance on schools' GCSE choices by the headteacher, while the Information Commissioner ruled against the trust. The diocese said the school and trust’s leadership teams had its full support.

How the story began