School parents plan protests and demand answers as they lose a much-loved Headteacher

Baltonsborough families packed the village hall to question the ACE Trust. What followed was a clash between Trust-speak and parents’ deep confidence in their teachers.

Baltonsborough is a village school, like so many of the schools across my picturesque corner of Somerset. Small classes, familiar faces at the gate, and staff who know every child, not just by name.

I have sat in many village halls over the years. But I have never sat in a meeting like Thursday’s. It was extraordinary.

The room was full of parents. The strength of feeling was remarkable. It was contained, articulate and focused entirely on their children and the staff who care for them. And yes, by the end, there were tears.

Why parents were there

Catherine Greenwell, headteacher of Baltonsborough Primary School, will leave at the end of term.

At the same time, the ACE Academy Trust announced a new leadership model. An Executive Headteacher will work across more than one school, with a Head of School running things day to day.

Parents were not consulted. They first heard about it when the decision had already been made.

On the day of the meeting, rumours were rife that another member of staff had resigned. One parent asked the Trust directly: “Why has there been another resignation today, if you’re here to put things right?”

The Trust came, and that matters

I want to be fair. It was bold of the ACE Trust to come and face that room.

The Trust’s CEO, Nick Hind, attended with the Vice Chair of Trustees and the Trust’s Flourishing Communities Ambassador. The Chair of the school’s Local Advocate Board (LAB) was there too. The LAB is the Trust’s local body, and it is meant to be where parents’ voices are heard.

The LAB Chair opened by saying the number of parents present “warms my heart, because it means that there is so much passion for this school.”

The Trust did its best to explain and reassure. But the parents’ testimony was overwhelming.

Trust-speak versus parents’ confidence

What struck me most was the gap in language.

On one side was the language of systems. There were “capacity models”, “flourishing communities ambassadors”, “education leadership teams”, support “brokered” through a central database, and leadership “structures”.

On the other side were parents who simply know their school. They know their teachers. They see their children walk through the gate happy every morning, and they were not willing to let that be explained away.

The Trust’s account

The CEO was clear that Catherine’s departure was her decision to resign. He said she was not leaving because of a reorganisation, and that he was “very surprised” to receive her resignation.

He said the resignation came first. Only then did the Trust look at the new leadership model. He described it as a model “already in our head” for small schools, though not one planned for Baltonsborough.

He said running a small school while also teaching is “massive” and “leads to high levels of stress”. He said recruiting a headteacher for a small school is “really hard”.

He told parents he had already offered Catherine another role within ACE: “If I didn’t value her, I wouldn’t be offering her another position.”

Asked whether she was free to explain her reasons for leaving, he said: “Of course she is.”

Parents weren’t convinced

One parent said:

“We knew how much she was looking forward to this academic year… I don’t believe she would resign halfway through an academic year, having taught year six.”

Parents asked why the Trust moved so quickly from a resignation to a restructure, what analysis was done, and what other options were considered.

They asked for real examples of the support the Trust says it gave the school. The CEO described courses, coaching and monitoring visits. Another parent asked whether anyone had actually come in to give “hands-on help”, or whether staff were being guided “to fit the ACE mould”.

The ACER visit

The most significant moment came when parents raised a visit to the school by a Trust adviser, known as an ACER. It took place before Catherine resigned.

One parent said the visit “might be a big part of the resignation.”

The CEO replied: “I’m sure it could contribute to it. I have no doubt about it.” He added that it was “not the only contributing factor”.

Later, the LAB Chair said the visit was “not handled well”. She had written to the Trust “in the strongest possible terms” about it.

The CEO confirmed the problem was “the way messages were delivered within the visit”, and said the visit “didn’t go very well, but that happens.”

By then his position had shifted: “I don’t believe that there is one visit that would trigger a resignation.”

Parents are clear about what they believe: this incident led a dedicated headteacher to leave.

“Our Story”: happy children, in their parents’ words

Towards the end, parents handed the Trust a document called Baltonsborough School: Our Story. Eight families wrote it together. They said many more stories are to come.

This is where the meeting’s real story lies: not in structures, but in children.

One family wrote that their children have not had a single day of school refusal since moving:

“At our previous school, refusal, crying and anxiety happened several times a week. Here, our children are finally happy to go to school.”

Another family described a child who had become frightened of adults. At Baltonsborough, the headteacher became an adult that child could trust:

“For the first time, I have watched my child sit in a classroom and genuinely feel that [they] belong there… This is progress. This is recovery.”

One little girl used to say “I can’t do maths.” Now she says “I can do maths.” Her family wrote:

“Before the school, my daughter believed she couldn’t. Today, she knows she can.”

Another parent wrote:

“Catherine Greenwell isn’t just a headteacher. She is there every day, developing relationships with my children.”

A parent who works in children’s mental health sees young people “so traumatised by education that they have withdrawn from the world for years”. Against that background, she wrote, “Baltonsborough feels different.”

Some families had lived with an executive head model before, where the head “was rarely present” and “communication broke down”. For them, the restructure “feels less like an abstract restructure and more like a warning.”

The families summed up their plea:

“Please recognise what is already working and protect it. Improvement should not mean stripping away a school’s identity.”

Two stories

On why Catherine is leaving

• Trust: “It’s Catherine’s decision to resign.” Asked whether it was connected to staff improvement plans: “Not at all.”
• Parents: “Career progression doesn’t answer why she left midyear.”

On the ACER visit

• Trust, first: “I’m sure it could contribute to it. I have no doubt about it.”
• Trust, later: “I don’t believe that there is one visit that would trigger a resignation.”
• Parents: It would be “naive to the point of stupidity” to assume the visit played no part.

On apologising to staff

• Trust: “I have made my apology… that’s been done.”
• Parents: “That’s not what we’re hearing.”

On how staff feel

• Trust: Staff feel nurtured and supported.
• Parents: “I’m not sure how you can say that with this going on.”

On the new leadership model

• Trust: It adds capacity, and Ofsted has praised it elsewhere.
• Parents: A parent who recently moved from a school with that model said: “It did not work at all at that school.”

On what happens next

• Trust: “I think we’ve got to move on… to the next chapter.”
• Parents: “We can only move on when we’ve gone through the repair process.”

What the Trust promised

To its credit, the Trust made several commitments:

• A categorical guarantee that no member of teaching staff will be pressured into leaving.
• A different ACER will visit within two weeks of half term, at Catherine’s request.
• A list of all the support given to the school in the last year, shared with the LAB and then with parents.
• Support for children with SEN will continue, and so will the adaptations for other children who need them.
• The CEO will return to meet parents again in early November.

What parents want

Parents want the truth about what happened. They want staff protected. And they want a real voice in decisions about their school.

They made clear that if they don’t get answers, they will escalate.

The table of gifts and cards that families brought for the staff told its own story. This is a village school that is deeply loved.

What I am doing

I have written to the Trust about engagement, communication and transparency. I have shared my concerns with Sarah Dyke MP, who is aware of the situation.

At the meeting I offered to chair future discussions. I have also offered to bring parents, the Local Advocate Board and the Trust together, so we can move forward positively and protect what makes Baltonsborough special.

Schools sit at the heart of our village communities. On Thursday, Baltonsborough’s parents showed exactly why.

Claire Sully, Somerset Councillor for Mendip South and Associate Lead Member for Community Resilience.