Thread by @warwickmansell

New: high profile academy created “hostile environment” for young teacher with multiple sclerosis, tribunal finds.
educationuncovered.co.uk/news/151306/hi…
The extraordinary, and disturbing, story of Yasmin Omar’s experience as an NQT at Brampton Manor Academy.

I’m going to tweet out essentials of the first few pars of my story. (This judgment was released a few weeks ago; it has taken me a while to process what are lengthy findings).

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.

Brampton Manor Academy, in Newham, East London, was found to have discriminated against Yasmin Omar in multiple ways arising from her disability.

Omar’s ordeal had started on day one of her time at Brampton Manor, the tribunal found, as a vice-principal refused to grant her half an hour off so she could meet an urgent hospital appointment.

Stress-inducing 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.

Omar had also 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 seemingly stress-affected MS condition worsened.

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.

The tribunal found that the school had a legitimate aim of trying to do well for its students. But this “has to be balanced with its duties to its employees".

The level of compensation for Omar, now working successfully at another school in London, 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.”

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.

Any readers of this case are likely to be full of admiration for Yasmin Omar, who faced this treatment within months of being diagnosed with MS, and yet still found the strength to fight and win a lengthy employment tribunal battle.

Yet it seems that, nationally, there are many cases which don’t find their way to public scrutiny, either because staff settle before cases reach tribunal, or are subject to the now-routine non-disclosure or gagging clauses as they get pay-offs on leaving schools.

Hence cases such as this seem extra significant.

The tribunal’s full judgment can be read here: gov.uk/employment-tri…

I have done another piece about this, which I’m going to mention in a separate twitter thread…