Inspectors '˜whipped' in school play about Ofsted at Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley

‘Ofsted The Musical’ was performed by students at Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley (RSSKL), which was forced to close last month after a succession of problems lasting several years.

These included Ofsted repeatedly highlighting problems with the school’s leadership and safeguarding of students.

However the school hopes to re-open under new ownership – albeit with the same staff, on the same site, and teaching the same curriculum – in September.

RSSKL said the claim about the play was not accurate.

The whipping was among a series of claims made by Jeremy Smith, a former employee of the school whose children were taught there.

Over 10 years Jeremy Smith was successively the school’s communications officer, chair of trustees, and education facilitator.

And he has made a series of extraordinary revelations about the school, including:

*An upper school teacher wrote a play called ‘Ofsted - The Musical’ which ended with “an Ofsted inspector being done to death with copper rods”;

*The school almost went bankrupt 14 years ago because of the number of parents who were allowed to not pay school fees;

*Staff openly snubbed Ofsted inspectors, with experienced teachers suggesting the school simply refuse to let them enter the building;

*Some staff “should not have been teaching” but were kept on “due to an endemic weakness of will and misplaced kindness”;

*Legal threats came after the school tried to reclaim some classrooms that had been converted to teachers’ accommodation.

Mr Smith made the comments on his online blog. As well as his experienced at RSSKL he has worked in education since 1986, including times as a member of the executive group of the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship and as a lay inspector for Ofsted inspections of Steiner schools.

RSSKL closed last month after a series of issues that lasted several years.

Five successive visits from Ofsted in the space of 18 months found issues with the school’s leadership and safeguarding of children.

This led the government to take legal measures to close the school. Trustees ultimately gave in when they could not get insurance for next year.

Mr Smith wrote: “I am very sad that a school which provided a good education to my own daughter and to so many other children over the last 70 years, has had to close

because of the weakness, cowardice and malice of teachers and parents who were unable to see what the consequences of their own behaviour would be for the school.”

Despite his blog making a number of criticisms of the school Mr Smith speaks highly of the Waldorf education as a whole – the schools system with RSSKL was part of.

He said: “RSSKL has now tarnished the name of Steiner Waldorf education far and wide.

“One looks in vain to Dornach, the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain, or the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship for a response.”

A spokesman for RSSKL said: “All school inspections have been properly carried out and hosted.

“Similarly, we do not recognise the ending as alleged to a musical written by a teacher who left the school at least five years ago.

“14 years ago, an issue with cash flow was successfully resolved by new trustees and a new bursar, as the author of the blog states. No one at the school is aware that there have ever been legal issues surrounding classrooms.”