A Steiner school is facing a compensation payout of up to £100,000 to a whistle-blowing teacher after ignoring her complaint about an alleged assault on her daughter.
Jo Sawfoot, 42, was designated child protection officer at Norfolk Initiative Steiner Schools kindergarten in Norwich.
Ms Sawfoot, a Cambridge University graduate, complained that her six-year-old daughter - a pupil at the private school - had been hurt by colleague Anna Letts.
Ms Letts had seized Ms Sawfoot's daughter by the arm as she sat on the floor refusing to move, a tribunal heard. The school's policy was that physical restraint should only be used as a last resort.
But school managers - who rely on a laissez-faire teaching philosophy unique to Steiner schools - failed to investigate the incident.
They instead gave a misleading report to social services about the girl biting Ms Letts.
They decided that Ms Sawfoot was an "irritant" and made damaging allegations about her teaching skills to social services, the tribunal found.
Ms Sawfoot felt she had no choice but to resign and remove her daughter from the school. Her departure triggered protests outside the school by parents who felt she had been bullied.
Norwich Employment Tribunal ruled that the girl was inappropriately restrained by Ms Letts.
It upheld Ms Sawfoot's claims that she was constructively dismissed and mistreated by the school after making public interest disclosures as a whistleblower.
Ms Sawfoot, of Norwich, is now set to receive substantial damages for loss of earnings and injury to feelings.
Employment Judge Martin Warren highlighted the school's failure to investigate her grievance and misrepresentations to social services.
He said: "The school had failed to recognise that there had been a child protection incident and failed to deal with it appropriately.
"This was a matter for concern to Ms Sawfoot, not just as a parent but as the child protection officer".
Steiner schools are based on the philosophy of Rudolph Steiner, who founded his first school in Germany in 1919. There are now over 900 worldwide.
While in some countries they are publicly funded, most of the 30-plus in the UK, including £5,300-a-year NISS are fee-paying.
Steiner schools do not follow the national curriculum and believe that tests like Sats are harmful for pupils. They give priority to educating the whole child through unconventional creative activities such as gardening.
Former Steiner pupils include actress Jennifer Aniston, singer Annie Lennox and broadcaster Emma Freud.
Ms Sawfoot's solicitor Lawrence Davies, of law firm Equal Justice, is demanding that Ofsted now investigates practices at the school.
He said: "There needs to be closer scrutiny of non-mainstream schools such as Steiner schools and faith schools.
"We have seen honest, professional teachers who whistle-blow being victimised.
"We are calling for Ofsted to investigate."
Speaking after the judgment, Ms Sawfoot said: "I am still passionately committed to the Steiner movement. But my grievance was swept under the carpet by the school.
"Instead, I was subjected to a hostile working environment. They labelled me a bad parent and then a bad teacher."
Ms Sawfoot graduated from Cambridge Universitys Corpus Christi College in 1991 with a degree in English literature.
She had 14 years teaching experience when she joined NISS in August 2007, two years after the school was founded.
In May 2009, Ms Sawfoot complained that her daughter had been hurt by Ms Letts alleged assault but the school failed to act.
The next month, school administrator Sandie Tolhurst reported the incident to social services.
She claimed that the girl was restrained after biting Ms Letts when she, in fact, bit her because she was being held.
Ms Tolhurst also cast doubt for the first time on Ms Sawfoot's professionalism and performance, saying she had been shouting in her classroom.
Ms Sawfoot resigned the same month.
Judge Warren concluded: "We find that the misrepresentation was made because Ms Sawfoot had made a protected disclosure.
"No action was taken against Ms Letts and from her own account of the incident taken from the incident book, her actions were inappropriate in terms of the schools own physical restraint policy.
"We are satisfied that this difficult and obstructive line taken by the school is because they have come to regard Ms Sawfoot as an irritant because of the complaint."
He said that Ms Sawfoot could not reasonably be expected to continue in the schools employment.
The tribunal is set to award Ms Sawfoot compensation at a hearing later this year.
In a statement, the school said that it was still studying the judgment.
It said: "It is a long and complicated assessment and we will continue to consider it in detail and consult with our legal team at this stage of the process. "
