Employment lawyer type advice needed please...

[Doowrah]

As an NQT primary school teacher employed one an initial one year contract I sent out a short letter to parents about a trip.On it was a small grammatical error. A group of parents then bitched about me on Facebook.The Head found out and told me, when one of the parents came in about it I said to her that I had heard it had hit Facebook. She then came into school to repeatedly moan about me and what she thought I was doing to her daughter's education. On top of this a mother who had Home Educated her child previously (I taught Year 2) didn't like it when I asked her to help her daughter with her writing at home. She came into school repeatedly and sent in two pages of A4 detailing her issues with me.

The school did nothing to support me and took against me I was put on gardening leave a week before the end of term. I am concerned that this has had a damaging effect on my ability to secure another job which I have not been able to do.I feel very persecuted by both parents and teachers, I am a good teacher with an exemplary record prior to this and even during this year the children I taught received excellent SAT results taking the school into the top 5 in the country. What rights if any do I have I am not a part of the NUT?

From what you have said you have few, if any, rights. You're on a one year contract so they can let you go for any reason. Was there something in particular you wanted advice on?

I suppose I feel unjustly treated because they appear to have taken a personal dislike to me rather than concentrated on my ability to do the job. I appreciate your taking the trouble to help me but in all fairness you are right there was nothing I could do about it.

There is nothing you can do. The school feel they have every right to let you go and because of your one year contract they have been able to do exactly that. When sending letters out to parents it has to be perfect word for word, you cannot afford for any parent to have reason to complain about basic punctuation spelling etc.
I would suggest making applications for future employment in another area if you feel that this experience may ffect your chances going forward.
Good Luck and i am glad to see i am not the only one on here on xmas day !

Even though they clearly don't want to keep you on past your one year, and they don't have to, that doesn't exempt them from grievance procedures if you feel you've been deal with unfairly. It does not sound like a school you'd want to continue working at anyway. Could you discuss leaving with a reference and you basically would leave it at that? You say you're an nqt but with a great prior record - bit confusing. Is there any "more" to their dissatisfaction with you as it seems you have been suspended?
I have sympathy for you but if you decide to teach and don't want to join a union, you're insane.

You are NQT and you have a one year contract. You have few rights. Move on with a god reference. They can 'let you go for any reason'.

Better to start looking for a new job.

Hi Yellowwiggle yes I am an NQT what I meant about a great prior record is that in all my jobs and PGCE placements I was deemed outstanding. Prior to this teaching I taught international students would you believe English for five years and never had a bother. Yes Millerpup it would seem you cannot make any errors despite having a zillion things to do and writing the damn letter in a minute without properly reading and checking it through! I am indeed looking for other jobs having seriously learnt my lessons from this experience. Thanks for all your good advice....