The founding trustees who set up Derby’s first faith free school have resigned following damning reports about the school and their role in running it.
Their departure is likely to herald the start of changes at the Muslim free school, including the relocation of the primary section of the school from Friar Gate.
As of midnight last night, trustees Shazia Parveen, Shahban Rehmat and Ziad Amjad were no longer in charge of Al-Madinah School, which opened in September 2012.
But Shazia Parveen hit back angrily last night, claiming: “This has been the worst experience of my life dealing with so-called professionals”.
Schools Minister Lord Nash had indicated back in October that the trustees’ resignation was a condition of the school remaining open.
He wrote to the school: “I am not satisfied that you have demonstrated a strong basis for the transformation required at the school.
“I have decided the needs of the pupils at Al-Madinah school would be best served by bringing in a more experienced trust. You and your fellow trustees have agreed to resign in due course.”
Their removal follows four months of uncertainty at the school, which also has a secondary department in Nelson Street, following an inspection report in October which called it “dysfunctional”, “in chaos” and “inadequate” and saw it placed in special measures.
Despite a further monitoring inspection by the Office for Standards in Education, which showed school standards had slipped even further, the trustees remained in place until a final deadline was given by Lord Nash to leave.
With the trustees’ departure, the school will need to appoint three new ones and it is believed that Barry Day, chief executive of education group Greenwood Dale Foundation Trust, has been asked to chair the new trust board in his personal capacity as an experienced educational adviser.
Shazia Parveen said last night that she and her two colleagues had been given no option but to resign.
“We were asked to sign our resignation on November 21. If we didn’t, they would close the school down,” she claimed.
“Therefore we all resigned to work on a transition.
“But we have not been involved in the transition or any meeting that has happened over the last two months.
“This has been the worst experience of my life from so-called professionals.”
It is now expected that the primary department of Al-Madinah will move to the Nelson Street site by Easter 2014.
Investigations into the finances of the schools are still ongoing by the Department for Education and also the Education Funding Agency.
Mr Day was asked by the Government to see if he could help the ailing school following the damning reports.
He is in charge of 23 academies but was unwilling to take Al-Madinah School into the Greenwood Dale Trust because of uncertainty over its financial situation and lack of staff contracts.
He came up with an action plan in December and said that the primary department was the “more viable part of the school” and, “with additional staff, a renewed focus on raising educational standards and support from the community”, it could become “a real success story”.