Amelia's mother, Kayley (r), says strict school policies resulted in her daughter becoming ill

UK: Parents & Pupils Took on “Cruel” & “Authoritarian” Devon & Cornwall “Athena Academy Schools” – & Won! (4.8.2026)

And Zara says her autistic daughter Hannah, who has hearing difficulties and attends Ilfracombe Academy, was repeatedly removed from class because her needs were not recognised.

“Behaviour is just put down to persistent defiance and bad behaviour, and they’re punished for it,” she says. “It’s never recognised as being linked to their disabilities.”

Athena told us that children with special educational needs are “not routinely sanctioned for behaviours associated with their needs”.

A lot of the anger we heard in Devon and Cornwall is, we were told, down to the lack of accountability.

Academy trusts do not have any supervision from local councils, meaning only central government can intervene.

One of the biggest weaknesses of the trust system is that it complicates the complaints process, says education journalist Laura McInerney, who co-founded Teacher Tapp, an app designed to track educators’ wellbeing, classroom practices, and opinions on education policy.

If parents are not satisfied with a specific school’s response, she says, they have to contact the trust, which could be miles way, and which “you may or may not hear from in anything other than a letter”.

The government says parents can take complaints about academy trusts to the Department for Education.

Across England, there is growing concern about punitive disciplinary practices in schools.

Dad - Torbay Hospital 1.2.2026

Paignton: Hadleigh Court Care Home – Care Quality Commission [CQC] Latest Report – “Requires Improvement” – Do Not Send Your Relatives Here! (7.2.2026)

The now “all White” staff took exception to my father’s daughter in law being “Chinese” – and his two grand daughters being of mixed heritage. As old and disabled as he is, my father would get up, wash, get dressed, and order a taxi to my mother’s home to see us (here, my father expressed the will-power that saw his father land in the first wave of British troops on D-Day – and survive) – as he did not want Gee, Mei-An, or Kai-Lin subjected to the normalised racism that was now rampant in the home. As my father stood his corner – a semi-paralysed man in his 80s – the Manager of Hadleigh Court issued him with an Eviction Order – laughably asserting that he is “racist”! Recently, on a routine hospital check – the Manager of Hadleigh court refused for my father to be allowed back into the home. Hadleigh Court was assisted in this by the equally corrupt Torbay Social Services – so nothing new there. As a result of all this, my father is in Torbay Hospital with Social Services refusing to let other care homes take him – as we are a family “prone to complaining”! And that is where things stand. South Devon is a fairly backward area and so the impoverished masses are easily controlled by a few rich people and their Authoritarian lackeys. They do not like the workers standing up to their oppression – but standing up to oppression is what we do best. Do not allow your loved one to be plunged into the dungeon that is Hadleigh Court under this current Manager and staff regime. Hit the capitalists were it hurts – in the purse. It is the only pain that matters to them – as they do not care about the very real pain that their greed and racism inflicts on us. Still, we do not want sympathy from others – as we are all in the same boat – and we certainly do not want your money. We, instead, express our solidarity to every worker who is currently suffering oppression and violence at the hands of the capitalists – an oppression that has not been reduced under the rule of a right-wing Labour government. My mother – Diane Wyles – who is in her late 70s, is bravely fighting a rear-guard action against the corruption of the UK Authorities. Whave each other – tha is all that matters!

Chernobyl: Remembering the Selfless Bravery of the Soviet Red Army and the Soviet Engineers! (28.4.2023)

In our “Socialist” world then – which hah not yet been cut into competing National entities with pointlessly competing pseudo-histories – the wonderful people of a beautiful country simply saved the lives (and guaranteed future existences) of vast territories that were in trouble – without dividing it according to (Bourgeois) Nationality (or national-tongue). It’s scary to imagine the consequences – if something like this happens today!