Anger after head hands his girl job

David Knox 1607 - 1607 • Last updated 10 Apr 2009 13:05 0 Comments

A PEEBLES school boss has sparked a major row after handing his daughter a teaching job.

Halyrude head Jim Fitgerald gave his girl, Sarah, the nod in front of eight other hopefuls for the temporary post at his school.

And now education chiefs have vowed that the keep-it-in-the-family appointment won"t happen again.

One furious teacher feels further action should be taken.

She told us: 'This is an absolute disgrace and they are sweeping it under the carpet.

'There are strict policies in place that don"t allow this type of favouritism.

'How do you think the teachers who were overlooked feel?'

The 56-year-old headteacher only arrived at Halyrude in October from Australia.

A total of nine teachers applied for the £20,000 temporary post at the 100-pupil Roman Catholic school.

But the dad-of-five breached council rules by joining a colleague from Selkirk to form an interviewing panel.

And it is also claimed he influenced the selection decision giving his 26-year-old daughter the job.

A spokesperson for Scottish Borders Council told the Peeblesshire News: 'Mr Fitzgerald is one of our newest headteachers and was completely unaware he was breaching council policy in this case.

'The appointment of Miss Fitzgerald was made with another independent headteacher involved in the selection process - Mr Fitzgerald thought this would be adequate to ensure no conflict of interest would impact on the decision.

'We are however determined to ensure this breach in policy never happens again. As a result we are currently reviewing our procedures internally and making sure all schools are fully aware of the recruitment policy.'

Mr Fitgerald, who is originally from Dublin, is about to be promoted to head up a second primary school - St Margaret"s in Galashiels - following an education restructuring later this year.

Scotland"s largest teaching union the EIS are awaiting a response from Primary Schools manager Yvonne McCracken over the incident.

Local representative Kay Miller believes Scottish Borders Council should never allowed this to happen.

She said: 'It is up to education managers to make sure that the rules are observed.

'A lot of people are looking for teaching jobs just now and it is understandable that there is bad feeling.

'This isn"t good for the teacher herself - she may well have been the best candidate but that will be overlooked now.'

Mr Fitgerald was headteacher of a 400-pupil school just outside Sydney before moving to Scotland last October.

Local councillor Catriona Bhatia, who is education spokeswoman for Scottish Borders Council, hopes her department can learn from this mistake.

She said: 'We need to review our induction that is given to new headteachers.

'It is unfortunate that this was allowed to happen.'

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This article appeared in Peeblesshire News 10 Apr 09

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