A Trip Down Memory Lane

The government has ordered one of England’s most prestigious Catholic boarding schools, Ampleforth college, to stop admitting new pupils as a result of “very serious” failings.

 

Scandal has surrounded the private school in recent years and an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse published a highly critical report in August 2018 that said “appalling sexual abuse [was] inflicted over decades on children as young as seven”.

 

The abbot of Ampleforth Abbey, Cuthbert Madden, stepped down from the abbot’s post in 2016 following allegations that he indecently assaulted pupils. Madden has denied the claims. The abbey sits at the heart of the monastic community and the school, which is staffed by monks and lay teachers.

 

At the school, Deirdre Rowe, stood down as acting head in 2019 after 10 months in the role after a highly critical inspection report found that the school did not meet standards for safeguarding, leadership, behaviour, combating bullying and complaints handling.

 

The Department for Education (DfE) has now launched enforcement action against the 200-year-old institution in North Yorkshire after ruling it had failed to meet safeguarding and leadership standards following an emergency Ofsted inspection. The ban on new pupils is due to come into effect on 29 December unless there is an appeal, in which case acceptances can continue until the appeal is resolved, the DfE noted.

 

Ampleforth has said it will appeal against the ruling because, it argues, the order is “unjustified and based on incorrect information”.

 

The letter, which was published by the DfE on Friday, highlighted concerns from a number of inspection reports from January 2016 onwards.

 

“The SoS [secretary of state, Gavin Williamson] also had regard to the fact that the school is failing to meet the ISS [independent school standards], including standards relating to safeguarding and leadership and management, and in his view, these failings are considered to be very serious,” it said.

 

The letter acknowledged the school had shown “some willingness” to improve since 2018, but Williamson ruled the school’s progress had been “too slow” and “insufficient”.

 

It said: “The school failed to meet the ISS for more than a year before new leadership was brought in. In the year since then, the school has still not done enough to consistently meet the ISS, and in some respects the school appears to have relapsed.”

 

The letter added: “The St Laurence Education Trust, the proprietor of Ampleforth college, is required to cease to admit any new students.”

 

A spokesperson for the college said it had noted the department’s intent to serve notice of an enforcement action.

 

“We will be appealing this on the basis that we believe, and have been advised, that it is unjustified and based on incorrect information,” the spokesperson said.

 

“Given the very considerable steps forward that have been taken by the school to learn from the mistakes of the past and to put in place a robust safeguarding regime, a new senior leadership team, and a new governance structure that has effectively separated the abbey from the college, we cannot understand why this decision has been taken, and we cannot understand why it has been published, given the appeals process is still open to us.

 

“As far as we are concerned, we will continue to educate our students to the very high standards they are used to in a safe and supportive environment. We have lodged a complaint to Ofsted and await the outcome of that complaint.”

 

A damning government-ordered independent inquiry into child sexual abuse this month found that between 1970 and 2015, the Catholic church in England and Wales received more than 900 complaints involving more than 3,000 instances of child sexual abuse, made against more than 900 individuals, including priests, monks and volunteers.

 

When complaints were made, the church invariably failed to support victims and survivors but took action to protect alleged perpetrators by moving them to a different parish. “Child sexual abuse,” the report said, “was swept under the carpet.”

 

This article was amended on 1 December 2020. An earlier version gave 2018, instead of 2016, as the year Cuthbert Madden stood down as abbot of Ampleforth Abbey. His replacement was said to have been Deirdre Rowe; she was acting head of the school. A sentence was added noting that a ban on new pupils could be suspended for the duration of any appeal.

 

Yesterday, Wednesday 24th February 2021, two Ampleforth College pupils presented a letter, signed by nearly 400 Ampleforth College pupils, to the Prime Minister, asking him to lift the restriction order on admitting new pupils, placed by the Education Secretary in November 2020.

The letter notes that:

 

"Whilst all school pupils are facing uncertainty regarding exams and the effects Covid will have on their education, we at Ampleforth are also left feeling very uncertain about the future of our school. It is a school in which we are not only educated by dedicated teaching staff but also feel cared for, respected and valued. We want it to be known that we feel safe and confident in our school."

 

This statement is backed up by evidence from an Ofsted research amongst parents in February 2021. Hundreds of parents participated, with 99% agreeing or strongly agreeing that their child is happy at the school and 99% agreeing or strongly agreeing that their child feels safe at the school too.

Among the children, the lack of certainty is causing distress. A Year 10 pupil said to his father: "A restriction order isn't helping the school and it means my friends can't have their younger brothers and sisters join us here."

 

Ida Bridgeman, Head Girl of Ampleforth College, who wrote and organised the letter commented: "The last year has been a difficult one for pupils because of Covid and this additional uncertainty means further worry and apprehension. I think the Prime Minister and his team should listen to the children who are at the school now. We feel safe here. "

 

One Y9 student said: ''I love Ampleforth and don't want to go to another school. Everyone else is worrying about lockdown and missing school but we have to worry about Gavin Williamson actually closing our school. I don't know why they are doing this. He should come and see what it is like here before he makes a decision like this."

UPDATE ON THIS STORY 5.40pm - Thu 25th February 2021

 

The girls' MP Kevin Hollinrake has received a copy of the letter and asked an urgent question in the House of Commons asking for a debate in government time. He said:

 

"Ampleforth (College) in my constituency it is fair to say has had past problems but these are now behind it. But there are some, I believe, in the educational system that are using relatively minor issues more recently as a pretext for the potential closure of the school. Could we have a debate in government time so this house can send a very strong message that this house does believe that faith schools are an important part of our education system going forward."

 

A ban on recruiting new pupils at the prestigious Ampleforth College has been lifted, despite Ofsted inspectors flagging continuing safeguarding concerns.

 

The Department for Education today withdrew an enforcement notice issued in November, which ordered the private school in North Yorkshire to “cease to admit any new students” from the end of December.

 

The notice was issued following an emergency inspection by Ofsted in September which found Ampleforth was failing to meet the independent school standards. The college said at the time it was appealing the decision as “we believe, and have been advised, that it is unjustified and based on incorrect information”.

 

The DfE said 21 /4/2021 it was lifting the notice after the school agreed to an action plan to meet the independent school standards by the autumn.

 

But an Ofsted monitoring report published today found the school was still not meeting all of the standards at the end of last month, and raised concerns about recent safeguarding incidents.

 

In the report, inspectors found that although “some improvements” had been made since a previous inspection in February, “weaknesses in the school’s safeguarding practice remain”.

 

A culture of safeguarding is “still not embedded”, and standards for the welfare, health and safety of pupils “remain unmet”.

 

Inspectors found recent safeguarding incidents

 

Inspectors also found there was a “near-miss road traffic accident” on site in early March, involving a visitor to the school who was not accompanied by a member of staff.

 

And just a week before the inspection, there was “a further serious safeguarding incident, relating to an unaccompanied visitor to the site”. This second incident “demonstrates that the school’s risk assessment policy and procedures are not applied consistently”, Ofsted said.

 

An external agency working with the trust to improve safeguarding reviewed school records in January, and identified “a number of recent cases of very serious child-on-child abuse”. This prompted a review of all online safeguarding records of current pupils by the school’s designated safeguarding lead and their deputies.

 

Inspectors found trustees were “not confident that they have a full knowledge of all child-on-child abuse that has taken place since the current online data storage tool for recording and managing safeguarding concerns was set up”.

 

Culture of safeguarding ‘not demonstrably evident’

 

Ofsted concluded that leaders had “not yet demonstrated that they fulfil all of their responsibilities effectively so that the independent school standards are met consistently and continually”.

 

“Despite a raft of very recently introduced systems, structures and policies, the desired all encompassing culture of safeguarding, underpinned by a recognition that a hypervigilance is necessary, is not demonstrably evident.”

 

The school, which charges boarders £36,000 a year, has been at the centre of a major child sex abuse inquiry.

 

Last year a report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) highlighted five individuals who were connected to the school who have been convicted or cautioned in relation to offences involving sexual activity with a large number of children, or offences concerning pornography.

 

The report found “appalling sexual abuse” was inflicted on pupils at the college and its adjoining junior school.

 

School still has ‘close’ links to Abbey

 

The school said last year that a new governance structure had “effectively separated” the college from Ampleforth Abbey.

 

But Ofsted found last month that the St Laurence Education Trust, which runs the school, and the Ampleforth Abbey Trust remained “linked closely”.

 

The Ampleforth Abbey Trustees, the sole trustee of the Ampleforth Abbey Trust, is one of eleven members of the St Laurence Education Trust, Ofsted said. The Ampleforth Abbey Trust also met the financial losses of the education trust between 2017 and 2019, and owns the land the school’s buildings sit on.

 

Links between the two institutions are also “evident in the everyday life of the school”, with facilities such as information technology and telephony still shared between them when Ofsted visited.

 

Accounts show the Ampleforth Abbey Trustees ceased to be the sole member of the St Laurence Education Trust in May 2019.

 

School action plan aims to meet standards by autumn

 

The DfE said today the school had committed to a formal action plan to meet the standards in full by its next Ofsted inspection in the autumn.

 

The school has also agreed to make changes to its board to appoint new trustees without a previous connection to the school or the Abbey, and employ a new experienced designated safeguarding lead.

 

It will also commission twice yearly independent monitoring reviews of its safeguarding practices, with findings made available to the DfE.

 

A department spokesperson said its “robust action … has secured unprecedented commitments to improve governance and safeguarding at the independent school”.

 

They will be monitoring the school “closely and if it is not meeting the standards at the next inspection we will not hesitate to consider whether further action is necessary.”

 

Headteacher Robin Dyer said he welcomed the lifting of the restrictions.

 

“However, notwithstanding the fact that our outcomes remain good – our students are happy and safe, and our parents overwhelmingly endorse the College – it is a simple truth that any criticism of our safeguarding policies and practice must be taken with the utmost seriousness.”

Done