Comment about teacher's accent was "staff room joke", says headteacher

On Monday, the school, which at the time was anonymous, was caught up in national media reports which suggested that a teacher had been given the official target by bosses at the school to make her accent “less Cumbrian” after an Ofsted inspector reportedly made a comment about it.
The issue prompted anger from union officials who described it as victimisation and bullying.
However Kennet School headteacher Paul Dick, who was appointed chairman of Whitelands Park’s executive board when the school was placed into special measures in February, said that it had escalated from a long-running staffroom joke at the school.
The comment was said to have been expressed to representatives of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) during a meeting with staff on Friday regarding the transfer of the school to academy - due to take place in January.
Mr Dick said that during the meeting union representatives had asked the teacher, who has not been identified, whether her targets were sensible and achievable, to which she responded: “My target is easy; it’s sorting out my accent.”
“She laughed, everyone else laughed...she went home for the weekend and thought nothing more of it,” said Mr Dick. “On Sunday night she noticed an email from [a] union representative saying would she be interested in going public with it - she couldn’t believe it.”
However, NUT division secretary for West Berkshire, Keith Watts, said the representatives had no reason to believe it wasn’t true, and added that it wasn’t the unions that had reported the incident to the media but had been leaked by un unknown source.
“We do not want the focus to be on this one individual but rather on the persistent climate of fear created by Ofsted that this incident exposes,” said Mr Watts. “Even the most inappropriate comment by an inspector can result in naive, inexperienced and ill-advised senior leaders setting totally inappropriate performance management targets.
“This is a concern for all teachers in West Berkshire as pay and the continuation of a job is now linked to these targets.”
Mr Dick said he had since analysed the Ofsted report and feedback notes given to the teacher in which no reference to her accent was made and that the union had escalated an off-hand comment made by the teacher because they had “bees in their bonnets” with central government.
“The Whitelands school community is very cross about this because it has been a huge distraction from the important work of teaching children,” said Mr Dick. “It was a throw-away remark, a staff room joke, and the union have blown it out of all proportion.”
A spokesman for Ofsted, who asked not to be named, added: “Inspectors comment on the standard of teaching at schools.
“Negative comments about the suitability of regional accents are clearly inappropriate, and should form no part of our assessment of a school's or teacher’s performance."