A multi-academy trust praised by ministers has been accused of engaging in the “ritual humiliation” of pupils and seeking to “terrify” children into compliance using a policy called “flattening the grass”.

Tes has been given detailed accounts of how Outwood Grange Academy Trust used the uncompromising approach for weeks at a time when it took over a new school to bring pupils into line.

Insiders at two academies have told how Outwood had flooded their schools with executives from the multi-academy trust (MAT) to roll out tough new behaviour policies.

They also said the trust had adopted a similarly “draconian” approach to teachers, which sources at one school said felt like “the flattening of the senior leadership team”.

Story breaks: Outwood Grange uses crisis managers to explain ‘flattening the grass’  

Insiders’ accounts: ‘I witnessed a child getting screamed at for coughing’

Read: How Outwood Grange ‘flattened’ school leaders

A former senior leader who worked at Outwood Academy Danum in Doncaster has told how the trust had a deliberate policy to “pick on” pupils, with “intense shouting” in their faces for minor transgressions.

“It was just the slightest thing that was used,” the senior leader - who asked not to be named - told Tes. “It was humiliating - you wouldn’t talk to another human being like that.

“They talk about it quite openly when they take on a school, that they deliberately set out to make the kids, as they would put it, see that there’s a line not to be crossed - so they’re going to play on kids’ fear.”

Intimidating

Another former member of Danum staff - who also asked not to be identified - said: “As an adult, I found it an intimidating process, never mind as a child.”

And a teacher at Outwood Academy City Fields in Wakefield told Tes that the MAT had an “ethos based on threat” and a “dictatorial” approach to behaviour.

The senior leader at Danum said that the practice started when children were lined up waiting to go into a series of rolling assemblies for each year group.

“They just indiscriminately picked on children either in the line or in the assembly, and they basically said that’s what they would do,” the source said, adding that “about 30” members of Outwood Grange staff were present for the assemblies.

“Not just executives,” they said. “You might have heads from other schools, you might have vice-principals from other schools, a range of people they knew would be effective in what I would call ritual humiliation. They were lined up all around to really stare at the kids and find the kids to pick on.”

Flattening the grass continued for the next six weeks, with MAT staff “walking around [the school] in pairs”.

“There will be people in from other schools in the trust who will be walking round all day going into lessons,” the source said. If a child was seen to misbehave, “they’re brought out in the corridor, and [the outside staff] will really shout at them.

“And they see that as a positive, because they’re trying to terrify them into not misbehaving,” the senior leader said.

Intense shouting

They said they were not aware of an explicit intention to make pupils cry, but they added: “If you witnessed it, you would think that. The way they would shout at a child would be to completely invade their personal space.

“It wasn’t just calling them out - ‘be quiet’ or whatever - it was a really intense shouting into their face. Even thinking about it now, it was really upsetting.”

A second source from Danum told Tes that “one little girl” who was “quite a good kid” was reduced to “literally quaking in her boots” following such an ordeal. “We would have some pupils that were in tears, we had other pupils where the reaction would be to meet that with anger,” they said.

The former Danum senior leader said that staff from the school had witnessed a similar approach to behaviour in other Outwood Grange academies. “It was seen as a positive - shouting and having a real go at children was seen as a positive thing to do,” they said.

Outwood Grange, which has 31 academies across the Midlands and North of England, has been repeatedly praised by ministers in recent years. In October 2015, school standards minister Nick Gibb said the government’s academies policy had allowed Outwood Grange to “spread its formula for success”.

In February 2017, Lord Nash - the academies minister at the time - described it as “academically…one of the most successful and, financially, one of our most efficient multi-academy trusts”.

Crisis management

Last Friday, Tes revealed that the MAT used the services of a crisis management firm to respond to initial allegations about “flattening the grass”.

On Monday, two MPs wrote to Outwood demanding answers about the “incredibly concerning” allegations, criticising the MAT for not providing a “satisfactory answer” when asked by Tes what the phrase meant.

When approached by Tes, Outwood Grange said: “In response to your questions, we ask: why are disgruntled individuals so keen to claim our pupils are unhappy when in inspection after inspection, Ofsted is lavishing praise on our schools for their happy atmosphere and outstanding academic progress?

“And why would record numbers of parents be sending their children to our schools if there was this negative culture our critics pretend exists?”

The MAT pointed to a Danum inspection report from November 2018, which referred to the school’s “supportive and caring ethos that leaders are cultivating”.

It said that at City Fields, “we have had parents stopping us on the gate to thank us for the additional care and support their children now have”.