A GOVERNMENT investigation into a dissolved trust responsible for running two schools in Colchester and Brightlingsea was completed last year.

A report detailing the findings revealed several breaches of the government's Academies Financial Handbook.

A timeline shows how the situation at Thrive Academy Partnership Trust played out over 18 months:

  •  March 22, 2018: Nardeep Sharma and Catherine Hutley are suspended for undisclosed reasons.
  •  March 28: Colchester Conservative MP Will Quince writes to Education Secretary Damian Hinds raising his concerns.
  • April 3: The Gazette learns Mr Sharma and Ms Hutley were on combined pay packets of least £275,000.
  • April 23: Philip Hurst, former deputy head teacher at Philip Morant, is parachuted in to provide the trust’s two schools with “leadership support for interim management arrangements”. Four new trustees are also appointed to the Thrive board.
  • May 3: MPs Bernard Jenkin and Will Quince meet two education ministers, Rt Hon Nick Gibb MP and Lord Agnew, to discuss their concerns over the situation.
  • May 14: Ofsted inspects Colne School and then Philip Morant School a week later but the findings are not published.
  •  May 23: Ofsted publishes a parent view report which reveals only 48 per cent of parents with children at the Colne School said their child feels safe there. Figures also show 34 per cent of parents strongly disagreed the school deals effectively with bullying.
  • June 4: Damning Ofsted reports are published for both schools.
  • June 13: Gillian Marshall, the head teacher of Colchester County High School for Girls, and Neil Gallagher, principal of Clacton County High School, are brought in to “scale up the level of support” at the Thrive trust until the summer holidays.
  • June 15: The trust’s schools enter a re-brokering process, meaning they will be taken over. The re-brokering process was voluntarily instigated by the trust’s board.
  •  July 18: It is revealed the schools will be taken over by the Sigma Trust. Mr Gallagher continues as interim executive headteacher at the Colne School and Scott Holder appointed as interim executive head at Philip Morant. It is revealed Miss Hutley has left her post. 
  • October 2018: Mr Sharma leaves the trust, seven months after being suspended
  • January 2019: Both schools are transferred to the Sigma Trust
  • October 2019: The Education and Skills Funding Agency publishes its report