FOI Appeal to Access Secret Lesson Plan
Transparency in schools
Summary
Clare Page, mother of a 15 year old female student, was denied to access to the slides used to teach sex education to her daughter. Page was concerned by her daughter’s report of the content of the lesson. She was further told that she had no right to know who was teaching the lesson. Page made a Freedom of Information request but it was declined by Haberdashers’ Hatcham College on grounds of commercial secrecy for the charity and privacy for the teacher. Page then referred the case to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).
In a landmark decision, the ICO backed the school's choice to keep the lesson and teacher's identity secret from parents. Page asserts that this is prioritising the commercial interest of a third party education provider over the public interest of parents to know what their children are taught and prioritising the privacy of the teacher over safeguarding concerns.
More information can be found at at Page’s crowd funder here. Find Page on Twitter as @NoSecretLessons
Status
Appeal in Upper Tier Tribunal: concluded on 16 & 17 September 2024. Judgment reserved.
First Tier Tribunal: Evidence was concluded in a single day - 3 May 2023. Submissions were heard on 10 May. Her appeal was dismissed and she is now appealing to the Upper Tribunal.
Live Tweet Threads
The remote access technology used by the Upper Tier Tribunal on 16 September 2024 failed and needed to be reconnected several times. This resulted in some minor interruptions plus no coverage for approximately the last 45 minutes of the afternoon session.
We were unable to provide any substantive reporting from the morning session on 17 September 2024. A short thread is included for completeness and the vivid description of the noise problem by our reporter.
Upper Tier Tribunal Appeal
16 September 2024 - morning session, afternoon Part 1, afternoon Part 2
17 September 2024 - morning session, afternoon Part 1, afternoon Part 2
First Tier Tribunal
Morning session 3 May - part 1
Morning session 3 May- part 2
Afternoon session - 3 May
10 May - Submissions
Published Documents
29 September 2022 - Original Decision - Freedom of Information Act Decision Notice: Page vs Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation Trust
Abbreviations - UTT
CP - Clare Page, parent
J - Judge Mitchell, sitting alone
SSE - School of Sexuality Education
HHC - Haberdashers Hatcham College
ICO - Information Commissioners Office
JM - Jonathan Moss, barrister for CP
WP -Will Perry, barrister for ICO
SW - Susan Wright, barrister for SSE
Abbreviations - FTT
JB: Judge Buckley
CP: Clare Page, mother who made the complaint
SSE: School of Sexuality Education
ZG: Zoe Gannon , counsel for CP
SW: Susan Wright, counsel for SSE
DP: Dolly Padalia, CEO of SSE
Press Coverage
Links to selected press coverage are included without comment and are not endorsed by Tribunal Tweets. This is a sample of coverage only, with most recent first - it is not comprehensive. Please DM our main Twitter account to submit coverage from an established news outlet. Any paywalled article must be archived.
10 July 2022
Telegraph - Parents blocked from checking their child’s trans sex education lessons
1 July 2022
29 June 2022
Daily Mail - Parents have a right to know what our children are taught, says JENNI MURRAY
26 June 2022
The Times - Parents’ battle to see ‘secret’ lessons on white privilege