Sarah Gillett

Introduction

Sarah Gillett is the former chief executive of the ACE Schools Multi Academy Trust who was prohibited from teaching indefinitely after a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel found she bullied and intimidated her staff and dishonestly represented herself as holding a master’s degree in education. The panel found a “regular and consistent pattern” of threatening behaviour — including the redundancy of a manager who stood up to her — and dishonesty that reached the Trust’s website and the Department for Education. On 21 October 2022, decision maker Sarah Buxcey banned her from the profession with a five-year review period, capping a fall that began with her suspension as CEO in May 2019.

Background Information

Gillett ran the multi-academy trust — a chain of alternative-provision schools — as its chief executive from 1 June 2016 to 31 July 2019. In March 2019, concerns about her conduct were raised with the Chair of Trustees; the Trust commissioned an independent investigation on 13 May 2019, and she was suspended as CEO on 25 May 2019. She left the Trust by mutual agreement before any disciplinary process could dismiss her. The TRA’s notice, dated 5 April 2022, put nine particulars before the panel covering bullying, an intimidatory environment, and the degree misrepresentation. She admitted one particular and disputed all the rest; she was present at the hearing, represented, and gave evidence.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Contested findings of bullying and dishonesty. Gillett admitted only particular 1(d) — calling a colleague “tiresome”, “immature and plain petty” and his leadership team “dysfunctional” after he asked for training and support. The panel found particulars 1(a) through 1(g) proved, found the conduct amounted to bullying and intimidation, and found the degree representation dishonest.

The proved pattern was specific. She threatened the dismissal and engineering of the redundancy of a staff member in retaliation for a grievance he raised against her in summer 2016 — and the panel found she acted on such threats, with a witness made redundant after standing up to her. After a poor Ofsted rating in 2019 she told staff they had let the Trust down and were wasting taxpayers’ money, said there was no room for staff who were not performing and their mortgages depended on it, and told the whole body of staff, “I love ya, but I am coming for ya.” In a senior leaders’ meeting she said, “if you don’t like it here you can fuck off.” The panel also cited her “stinger” or “stinker” emails; in evidence she accepted that one of them demeaned both its recipient and herself, and expressed remorse for that message. On the second thread, the panel found she represented to the Trust that she held a master’s degree in education when she had enrolled on the course but withdrew before taking the qualification, permitting the false representation to be placed on the Trust’s website and communicated to the Department for Education — conduct it found lacked integrity and was dishonest. The panel found the bullying environment inhibited staff from raising concerns through grievance or whistleblowing routes, creating a serious risk that safeguarding issues would go unreported, while recording that it had no concerns about her interaction with pupils.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel’s harshest language was reserved for the staff impact: witnesses recalled the adverse effect of her behaviour on their health and wellbeing, and it found her “drive to improve the Trust was at the expense of the way she communicated with, and treated her staff”, with the harm to individuals outweighing the positives she achieved — including her acknowledged role in bringing the Trust together. It found her actions deliberate, “calculated and motivated”, and noted the Trust had adopted the Nolan Principles of public life, parts of which she breached. The panel recommended a five-year review period, and Buxcey adopted it, citing the dishonesty and bullying findings and the lack of full insight — Gillett “has not demonstrated any insight in to her conduct”, with remorse limited to the single admitted particular.

Current Status

Gillett is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. She may apply for the order to be set aside no earlier than five years from the order — 2027 at the earliest; an application is not an automatic right, and without a successful one the ban stands. Her departure from the Trust in July 2019 by mutual agreement preceded the regulator’s findings by three years; the published decision is the account of why she left.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case is the regulator’s clearest recent example of a senior leader banned for workplace conduct rather than classroom conduct: no pupil was mistreated, and the safeguarding risk was constructed through the fear of her own staff. It also demonstrates that credential dishonesty — a withdrawn master’s degree left on a website and repeated to the DfE — is treated as seriously as the bullying itself, the panel calling it of “greater concern” alongside the treatment of colleagues. For multi-academy trust governance, the decision documents how a CEO’s retaliation against a grievance-raiser escalated to suspension, an independent investigation and a lifetime teaching bar within a single year.

Sources

• Teaching Regulation Agency (GOV.UK), “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mrs Sarah Gillett,” October 2022 — source