The English Schools Foundation has made sweeping changes to its own management and that of Beacon Hill Primary School following the resignation of principal Robert Lyden.
Education officer (primary) David Coles is to leave the foundation at the end of the year following an executive committee 'recognition' that there was a need to 'improve the monitoring and evaluation systems of ESF primary schools'.
The South China Morning Post reported last week how Mr Lyden was to quit the 540-capacity Kowloon Tong school after its 'management systems' and 'attention paid to the progress of children' were criticised by an ESF-commissioned inspection.
He was to have stayed on until the end of the academic year, but has now been told to go at the end of December. ESF education officer Graham Ranger said the rethink took place after the foundation received a copy of the full report on Beacon Hill. 'We recognise that when a school has difficulties in leadership and management the quicker they are arrested the better.
'The seriousness of the weaknesses is something that concerns us,' he said, adding that the ESF was looking for improvements in the school 'within a two-year time frame'.
ESF chief executive Jennifer Wisker told parents in a letter yesterday that it was 'of paramount importance that measures are put in place to bring about the necessary changes in the school and establish a new interim senior management team pending the appointment of a new principal'.
She said Beacon Hill deputy principal Jonathan Straker was being transferred to Glenealy School for two terms and deputy principal Catherine Cox-Walliss was being appointed acting principal. Nick Manley and Kevin Rae, who was being seconded from Clearwater Bay School, would be acting deputy principals.