Vahidi v Fairstead House School Trust Ltd

This is an appeal by the claimant in another stress at work case from the judgment of His Honour Judge Wilkie (as he then was) who dismissed her claim while sitting as a judge of the High Court, which he has subsequently become. The judge has set out the detailed facts in meticulous detail, but for present purposes I can summarise them as follows.

The claimant is Mrs Vahidi who was born on 17 August 1954. She obtained her certificate of education in 1975 and joined the staff of the defendant, Fairstead House School, on 1 January 1977 as a teacher of what is known as the reception class. This is the class above the nursery class which caters for 3 to 4 year olds. Pupils can stay until they are 11 years old. It is a small school with about 160 pupils and a dozen or so teaching staff. The claimant remained the reception teacher until she was dismissed on the grounds of ill health on 19 November 1998. By that time she had been off work between 17 October 1997 until 22 June 1998. She worked part time and then full time for the last four weeks of the summer term. She resumed her duties at the first part of the Michaelmas term but went sick on 24 October 1998 and has not worked since.

Background history

From 1981 to 1996 Mr David Wedgwood was headmaster of the school. In May 1984 the school obtained accreditation from the Independent Schools Joint Council ("ISJC"). In 1988 Mr David Wedgwood appointed the claimant as assistant head. A routine inspection by HM Inspectorate in November 1995 revealed areas of weakness which fell to be addressed by Mrs Buckenham who took over from Mr Wedgwood on 1 September 1996. Mr Wedgwood told Mrs Buckenham that the claimant might well be resistant to the changes that would be necessary.

One such change was to arise from the school's decision in May 1996 to participate in the Nursery Voucher Scheme announced by the government in January 1996 to take effect in April 1997. Details of the scheme were published in a document called "The Next Steps" and advice to schools was given in a booklet called "Desirable Outcomes for Children's learning on Entering Compulsory Education". These Desirable Learning Outcomes (or DLOs as they are known in educational jargon) required nursery teaching for children of the appropriate age (3 to 5) to be organised around six desired outcomes and envisaged that teaching would be different from the way children of that age group had traditionally been taught.

Thereafter there were a number of incidents which persuaded the claimant that Mrs Buckenham sought to sideline her contribution to the school and eventually that Mrs Buckenham was anxious to bring about the end of the claimant's employment. The judge found that this belief of the claimant's was erroneous but that it nevertheless existed. The incidents included —

(1) the moving of the nursery from its original site into the main part of the school. The nursery class teacher since 1992, Mrs Scheybeler, tried to interest the claimant in liaising their activities, but the claimant was not interested in doing so. After items had gone missing from the nursery classroom, Mrs Buckenham decided that the door between the nursery classroom and the reception should be kept locked. This was announced to the staff without prior notice to the claimant.

(2) After the claimant had asked if she could move to Form 1, the class above reception, Mrs Buckenham agreed but 10 days later changed her mind.

(3) When Mrs Buckenham got flu and could not attend the last day of the Christmas term she sent a note to the school secretary saying that the main problem was who was to take the final assembly, and adding, "I suppose it will have to be Suzanne if she is in." The claimant saw that note.

(4) When it was decided that there should be a deputy head of the school, the claimant was not appointed to that post but became third mistress in charge instead of second with the title Senior Mistress, keeping the small additional allowance she already had as assistant head.

(5) In early 1996, before any decision to participate in the Nursery Voucher Scheme had been taken, Mrs Scheybeler drew up a discussion document about its implications for the nursery and reception class. The claimant returned this document saying she did not need it and had not read it. The significance of this incident for the purposes of the trial was that it showed that in 1996 the claimant felt she needed no help from Mrs Scheybeler but also that she was aware that, if the school did decide to participate in the voucher scheme, there would be implications for the teaching of her class.

The chief trouble, however, arose from the need for inspections. These were of two kinds, an ISJC inspection and an OFSTED inspection. The first was an ISJC inspection due to take place between 17 and 19 September 1997. The inspector, Mrs McClay, made a preliminary visit to the school on 26 June 1997. At this stage nothing was said to the claimant about any official requirement that the reception class would be inspected by OFSTED. When the ISJC report appeared it said that the nursery class quality of teaching had good coverage in each of the required learning areas, which were the six desired learning outcomes or DLOs I have already mentioned. The report on the reception class was not nearly so good, making it clear that the class was not working to the required curriculum or adopting appropriate methods of teaching. Too much emphasis was being given to English and Mathematics at the expense of science and technology and the requisite DLOs were not being achieved. This showed that the reception class was completely unprepared for the more serious HM Inspection of which notice had been given on 13 June 1997 that it would take place between 1 September and 31 December 1997. It did not in fact take place until 16 January 1998 by which time the claimant was off work.

After a series of meetings on 23 and 24 September 1997, the claimant agreed that she must work more closely with Mrs Scheybeler who would have responsibility for assessment profiles. The claimant began co-operating with Mrs Scheybeler in relation to DLOs, but asserted that the parents would not understand why they were necessary or support the forthcoming changes. She later described herself at that time as being in a blind panic without any real support from the school. She appeared to resent Mrs Scheybeler's attempts to assist. On 17 October she went to see her general practitioner complaining of agitated depression. She was by that time quite seriously ill. She absented herself from work until 22 June 1998. She was an in-patient at Dukes Priory Hospital, Chelmsford between 1 December 1997 and 13 January 1998. On 22 June 1998 she returned for the last few weeks of the summer term. This was after a meeting on 23 April 1998 between the claimant, Mrs Buckenham and the chair of the Board of Governors, Mrs Kerry. By this time the reception class had an early-years team with an early-years co-ordinator together with a supply teacher. These teachers were able to work out a curriculum in line with the required DLOs. The reception class passed the OFSTED inspection without difficulty.

The Period of Absence from Work

Dr Jackson of the Dukes Priory Hospital wrote to Mrs Buckenham on 9 January saying that he planned to discharge the claimant from hospital on 15 January 1998, but that she would need rehabilitation for 2 or 3 months before she could return to work. On 17 March the claimant's general practitioner, Dr Bailey, told Mrs Kerry, the chairman of the governors, that the claimant hoped to be well enough to return on 22 June but that her psychiatrist, Dr Webb, thought she should only work part time for the rest of the summer term. The meeting, which I have already mentioned, then took place on 23 April 1998 between the claimant, Mrs Buckenham and Mrs Kerry. The claimant said that she was feeling much better and would be ready to return to work in mid-June. Mrs Kerry was however concerned that, in the light of what Dr Bailey had said, and the claimant's own reluctance to attend a support meeting which she had been offered, a return to work might jeopardise the claimant's health. On 26 April she accordingly asked Dr Webb, with the claimant's permission, to make a further report on the claimant. Dr Webb saw the claimant on 30 April and recommended that the drug dosage which he had originally prescribed should be continued. But he was unable to report back to Mrs Kerry until 9 June when he said that the claimant was persuaded that her depressive illness was caused by changes in the school's working practices and in education generally in order to meet national requirements. He said that she was responding to treatment and that from a clinical point of view she was fit enough to justify a trial period back at work.

By 8 May Mrs Kerry became concerned that she had not yet heard from Dr Webb and decided to ask the claimant to see Dr Burgess, a consulting occupational physician. An appointment was made for 21 May. Dr Burgess reported on 27 May that...