Following due process is certainly a discipline requiring patience, which over the course of the last three years has become a habit of necessity for us.

It involves a lot of waiting.  For example, it took three years to get any kind of a hearing about the action of TRSS in expelling children rather than address the bullying that was happening to one of them.

But of course even within the Human Rights mediation, the waiting still goes on.  And while it does we are unable to publish about it, as the mediation must remain confidential.

At six months the mediation itself has now gone on for longer than our eldest child actually attended the school before being thrown out with no warning, reason given or right of appeal on 8.6.09.

It is still, however, 8 months shorter than our middle child happily attended the Kindy.  She had no problem there, and was very happy, but that sadly did not stop her from being expelled with the same lack of warning, reason or right of appeal on 8.6.09.  Our youngest daughter, who was in play-group, also got the same treatment.

The reason for the school’s actions is pretty obvious in spite of their boasts to the press that they had no problem with the children but only with us. 

It may seem convenient to make vague noises about parents’ ‘behaviour’ as a justification for causing hurt and distress to their children, but apart from there being no actual evidence, it just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

If our general “behaviour” had been any kind of a problem, it would obviously have been noticed and flagged up through our attendance in the school in the eight months before our eldest daughter even got there.  But there was no suggestion of any problem whatsoever, and the truth of the matter, as many well know, is that we were progressively integrating into a ‘community’ in which we were valued members - until we encountered bullying at the school.  There is simply no evidence to the contrary.

Obviously what such personal smears and allegations are useful for is to obfuscate that simple fact: that we had no problem whatsoever at TRSS until we encountered bullying.  

And as in any school, or any relationship at all, it is only when a problem occurred that you begin to find out what’s behind the attractive shop-front.  In this case, sadly, the reality was that although the behaviour policy said that bullying would not be tolerated, the unwritten rule was that it should be left unchecked. 

And that’s really when the waiting began, waiting for the school to deal with the bullying, waiting for them to look at and adjust their woefully inadequate bullying policy, waiting for it to be updated, then implemented, waiting for it to make any actual difference, waiting for the promised meeting which was held out as a positive step forward.  And all the while, our daughter was in that class of 17 boys and 5 girls where she, and many others, were assaulted physically and verbally every day.

Then after the school’s action of expelling all the children instead of following their own behaviour policy, we waited again, for the Trustees to act as they also claimed they would address it.

Waiting is hard, but it has its upsides, apart from teaching patience it enables time for reflection and research and for the world to move on.

So although we cannot talk about the politics of our own case while we’re waiting, for reasons of confidentiality, we can make observations about others, including noticing how, in many instances, in health and other public services as well as big business, basically anywhere where people have taken a stand over an injustice, institutions want them to sign what’s euphemistically known as a ‘confidentiality clause’ in order to settle. 

The less polite name is a gagging order, and it is valid to question as to why institutions (perhaps especially schools) should either want, or be able to get away with, hiding mistakes they have made which have caused material damage to others.  What does it serve but to obfuscate the dangers? Whereas to openly acknowledge mistakes and be seen to learn from them would seem, especially in an educational setting, to set a better example.

But surely, it’s not possible to compare ‘whistle blowing” activities in health and big business with our protest about the actions of TRSS?  

And yet it’s not so hard to find other, similar examples.  Even sticking to the educational field, and even just to Steiner itself, there was a judgement only last year in 2011 in the UK. Jo Sawfoot, was herself described as a ‘whistleblower’ by the Employment Tribunal judge that found the Norfolk Steiner Initiative to have made ‘misrepresentations to social services’ and to have ‘targeted’ her.

The Sawfoots signed a confidentiality agreement through ignorance of the implications and the fact that they were advised that it is standard legal practise to restrict such a clause to the ‘claimant’.  So the way was cleared for the headmistress Sandi Tolhurst (still in post) to go around the internet “correcting” the judgement of the Employment Tribunal, which she did.

The Sawfoots, meanwhile, having signed, cannot reply to the headmistresses “corrections” of the judge’s findings.

It’s worth asking what good it would have done if the school had signed anyway because how on earth can “The school” agree not to say anything negative about Mrs Sawfoot when “The School” comprises so many people, many of whom may have left, taking stories with them potentially all over the world.  Yet if malicious and defamatory rumours were to be spread by any of those individuals, it would, technically speaking, not be down to “The School”.

In our case as well, although we have plenty of supporters, it would be equally useless for the school to sign such an agreement, and therefore, in the interests of equality, very unequal to ask us to do so.

Due to the absolute vacuum of law governing the welfare of children at TRSS, we had to make quite a loud noise to get heard at all, and of course such perseverance has fuelled the rumour-mill circulating in the local community, rumours that have impacted our reputation, our standing in the community and our income and which began at TRSS.

It’s not really surprising as it’s hard to imagine a school culture so notorious for bullying producing many people prepared to be vocal in support of dissent. As one parent said at the time:

“we did nothing initially because we had just seen a family expelled from the school”.

But the upsides of developing the necessary patience apply not just to what’s happening overseas, but also to the broader picture of TRSS itself, because the longer we wait, the more time there is for further evidence to emerge from others who attended that school.

Here’s an email we received recently from a former teacher there:

“My daughter was bullied by her class teacher (a Mr Thompson) at the time (yes, one of my colleagues) and we had similar experiences with the school pretending that we were the ones with the problem. I have nasty memories of that time, as has my daughter. There was (and by the looks of it still is) a culture of bullying a the school which was so at odds with the 'public' face and the overall mission. Sad to hear that your daughter suffered at the school and sad that nothing seems to have changed.

We were also new immigrants at the time which makes me wonder if there is another undercurrent of 'us' and 'them' at play. All the best with taking this forward. 

I was there between 1990 and 1996. This particular episode happened '94/'95. I think this kind of behaviour is deeply embedded in the school culture. I am inclined to go one step further and make this an issue that is somehow specific to Steiner Ed because the School in Christchurch had definite bullying problems (we tried the school when we moved to Chch in the late 90’s) that were completely ignored. Both of my daughters have sad and disturbing stories to tell.” 

This was sent to us from Dr Iris Duhn, Senior Education Lecturer at Monash University, in Frankston, Australia.

In retrospect, Dr Duhn’s daughters say they think it made them “more resilient” and enabled them “to question authority”; they don’t feel like ‘victims’.

And that’s right because the word “victim” does have connotations of complicity, which the school made explicit in an unsigned article in a newsletter of 21.5.09:

“children who are regularly victimised by bullies may also be engaging in addictive behaviour.  A child becomes a target when he or she has no role in the group”

So ignoring the fact that being a target is a role, for bullying is not possible without targets, it’s healthy to move away from the word ‘victim’ with it’s subtle connotations of complicity or as in the above quote, of being the subtle cause of the bullying in the first place.

None of that changes the fact, however, that a school is certainly not a “safe peaceful and natural learning haven” if the majority of what your child is doing there is dealing with being a target.

There are much better ways to learn resilience and how to question authority than being bullied, either by a gang of boys, or by the adults that have undertaken to care for you, and whom children are supposed to trust, and in the case of Steiner Education specifically, to love.

  Boundary issues in Steiner between school/family have now also been brought up powerfully by Gregoire Perra, a senior anthroposophist in France, who last year turned whistle blower when he had his testimony published on by UNADFI, an organisation dedicated to offering support to cult survivors - such is the strength of his writings that the Fédération des Ecoles Steiner en France is now suing both him and the UNADFI. 

In his testimonial Perra, shines a bright light on the ambiguities in the desired ‘love’ relationship between teacher and pupil that he says can lead to:

“a profound confusion between what belongs in the family sphere and what belongs in the professional domain.  It is a serious matter to seek to become a substitute for someone’s parents.  A role like that has to be taken on for life, otherwise it’s a sham.”

What does that say, then, about such deliberate encouragement of love from a child, who is then summarily flung out of the school, for no reason but to maintain the bullying taking place in another class?  But it gets worse, because in boasting to the press that they had ‘no problem’ with the children, TRSS have framed them as collateral damage of their unreasonable action against us.  They then lay the blame for that action at our door for naturally and dutifully trying to protect her sister from bullying.

We are so grateful to Gregoire Perra for speaking out about these boundary issues as a facet of Steiner education and for helping us to see how TRSS, in their actions have not only rejected, attacked and targeted our family as a whole, but have also tried to drive wedges between its members as well.

So waiting isn’t such a bad habit and some of its gifts can be an unexpected relief.

At least it’s a better habit than that of delaying important matters, just to avoid dealing with them, which can easily become a very ingrained habit indeed - being rationalised as ‘if we just ignore this, it will go away’.  It’s the same habit we met over the bullying, the meeting, and the Trustees’ apathy towards fulfilling their solemn duty not to open the school to legal or financial danger.   

It appears that some old habits can be lot harder to break than the faith and trust of little children.