Sky News exposes the scale of staff-on-staff bullying at UK schools from more than 320 current and former teachers. Some have suffered a devastating emotional toll and were paid thousands to “keep quiet”.
Warning: This story contains references to suicide along with racist and sexist language readers may find distressing.
When Maya* started a new teaching job, she did not expect to be called the n-word as she walked down the corridor.
The bullying from her fellow teachers proved relentless. She was called a “curry lover” and believes she was hidden from meeting parents at one point due to her skin colour.
It was not just racism she faced there but also sexism. Male colleagues told her she would have to “bend over a desk to get a promotion” and had “blowjob lips”. Incidents like these happened “almost every day”, she says.
Eventually forced to leave her job, Maya signed a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) making her unable to speak about the abuse she suffered. As part of the conditions of her exit, she also received a significant payout, which she describes as “money to keep quiet”.
Sky News has spoken to over 320 current and former teachers from state, private and special schools across the UK, who allege having been bullied at work. Among those, 119 say they signed NDAs and received payouts ranging from the low thousands to tens of thousands of pounds in compensation.
Sky News has calculated that the total amount of money paid to these teachers is more than £1.73m.
This is taxpayers’ money meant for school budgets, which is instead being used to pay teachers to leave. We cannot verify when the earliest of these payments was made, but most were completed within the last decade.
The National Education Union, the UK’s largest education union, confirmed that the “vast majority” of financial settlements included NDAs.
NDAs used to ‘cover up’ bullying
The use of these NDAs was “not appropriate,” said Phil Clarke, the NEU National president. He added that the use of them was “covering up” or preventing further investigation into whether “it was appropriate for the individual, and an appropriate use of public money, for them to be paid to exit a school”.
Maya says she felt there was no other option but to accept the payment and NDA to escape the bullying, which left her feeling “worthless, sad and suicidal”.
Over a third of the teachers we spoke to have experienced similar thoughts and made plans to harm themselves to escape the bullying. A handful have gone as far as trying to end their lives.
It’s a familiar story for Tracy*, who says she “drove into school each morning willing myself to have an accident so I didn’t have to go in”.