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Fee-paying Yorkshire school battles ‘scandal’ claims of sacked whistleblower
Queen Ethelburgas College
A PRIVATE Yorkshire college is in a court battle with a former guardian of 30 of its Chinese students who has accused it of putting its under-performing pupils into a separate school.
Dr Chaunjie Zhou is attempting to sue Queen Ethelburga’s College, near York, after they removed him from his role for failing to ensure that some of his pupils were placed in supervised accommodation during school holidays.
However he believes the school wanted to get rid off him because he could have been seen as a “whistleblower” on what he called Queen Ethelburga’s “wrongdoing and unprofessional behaviour”.
A case opened at Manchester County Court yesterday which revolves around two issues. The school says Dr Zhou was removed in 2010 because he allowed pupils to stay in serviced accommodation during holidays – against Queen Ethelburga’s College policy. However Dr Zhou claims it is because he was seen as interfering with the way Queen Ethelburga’s operates two separate schools, the college and the faculty.
Dr Zhou’s claimed the school had adopted a strategy of putting less academically able pupils into the faculty. In written evidence to the court Dr Zhou claimed Queen Ethelburga’s had inaccurately described itself as the UK’s top performing school in the North.
His statement said: “By moving under-performing pupils into the faculty and moving out performing faculty students into the college, theoretically the school can always claim to be UK top number one in the North regardless of their actual academic performance.”
He claimed it could be the “the biggest scandal in British education history”.
However, barrister Giles Mooney, for Queen Ethelburga’s, said Dr Zhou had never complained about the school and had recommended it to students.
In court Queen Ethelburga’s principal Steven Jandrell said governors had decided to prevent Dr Zhou from being a guardian after he failed to give an undertaking that he would ensure pupils were placed in supervised accommodation. In his written evidence he “vehemently denied” allegations that under-performing pupils were moved into the faculty.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
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Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: East
