Revealed the outspoken spokesperson for Beccles Free School

Tony Callaghan
Spokesperson for the Beccles Free School

At the end of January the Chair of Governors of the Seckford Foundation wrote to Jeremy Rowe, Headteacher of Sir John Leman High School and said that his use of Twitter "is not worthy of a headteacher who expects to be taken seriously..." and went on to say that "The future education of the children of Beccles is a serious subject. It should not be trivialised by comments on Twitter."


One of the four original proposers of the Beccles Free School who has acted as a spokesperson for the group is also very fond of discussions online about the future education of children in Beccles.

Tony Callaghan writes regularly in the TES forums. In fact if you have a few hours free I recommend that you sit down with a cup of tea and go to: http://www.tes.co.uk/searchResults.aspx?area=staffroom&author=511247  you will find literally thousands of posts on a wide variety of subjects. Some of these posts express quite interesting views on a wide variety of issues including the education of children in Beccles.

Recently Callaghan who is a controversial figure in the forums posted this about the free school:

In it he accuses "neighbouring schools" of offering "micky mouse subjects to play the league tables system". Quite an accusation and completely without foundation as far as I can tell.

But this is an extremely polite and coherent post by Callaghan's standards. The nature of some of his posts has led other users to suggest that he has regularly had something a little stronger than a cup of tea before writing them.  Here is an example:

Other posts seem somewhat disrespectful in their attitudes to female contributors:

And Callaghan seems to have been carrying out his own consultation on free schools, not in a newsagents this time but in the golf club bar with the Darts Team of the Dog and Partridge public house:

Then there is the suggestion that parents will choose free schools to "protect their children from feral youths" at their "local comp" complete with resident police:

Callaghan is also quoted in the TES admitting to using scare tactics to prevent incompetent teachers being sacked when he was a union official:

Headteachers must be monitored in their dealings with such colleagues. Many heads are frightened to follow disciplinary procedures for fear of adverse publicity or being out-manoeuvred by unions. As a union official, I have used scare tactics myself to prevent incompetent teachers being sacked.

There seems to be some inconsistencies in Tony's own background story. He was previously a head teacher at a St Bedes Roman Catholic Middle School in Bedford. Sometime after he left the school was closed down. Callaghan claims due to the diocese running out of money but eventually after he had left the school was in fact put into special measures due to several years of poor performance and closed for the same reason.

He posts frequently from Florida boasting about how he retired early having received an "enhanced pension". Although bizarrely he not only opposed the recent teachers strike on pensions but also speaks on behalf of the tax payer's alliance.

He was until recently a school governor but actually spoke to the press condemning his own Head for taking part in the 2010 SATs boycott.

This has led other commentators to challenge him on the TES forums:

And another commentator is concerned about the impact of his posts on the free school bid:

It seems incredible given this behaviour by one of the original proposers of the school that the Seckford foundation sees fit to attack the Head of Sir John Leman High School for his much more serious discussions on Twitter. The pot calling the kettle black does not begin to describe this. As a Church of England foundation maybe Seckford can relate better to this:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? (Luke 6:41 KJB)

If Callaghan really wishes to support the free school bid perhaps he should disconnect his own broadband line.

Second Post: Beccles Free School a grammar school education "just for middle class children"