Norwich Initiative Steiner School
School’s Official Response to the Tribunal Findings
21st of July 2011
For the vast majority of parents this is the only information they have had about the tribunal.
As you will see, it does not even mention one of the main claims (whistleblowing) and tries to attribute comparative importance to the Detriment claim.
To clarify the outcome, the school was found to have acted illegally in 3 ways:
- Constructive Dismissal (approx. 60% of the case)
- Whistleblowing (approx. 33% of the case)
- Detriment before Constructive Dismissal (approx. 6% of the case)
Ms Jo Sawfoot won the dismissal and that it was caused by whistleblowing - the two main claims. Then there were several small pre-dismissal detriment claims - she won 3 of these and lost the rest.
In terms of relative size, the main dismissal claim alone is worth about 10x the detriment claims combined.
The final claim - Breach of contract/unpaid notice - would have been worth about 1% of the total settlement, and this was lost.
