Education bosses have refused to release a school validation report following a Freedom of Information request.

The validation report for Rushen Primary has not been published while those for 12 other schools have.

Rushen Primary’s report will be of particular interest to parents with children there - as the school’s head teacher and deputy head were seconded to other duties just days after the inspection visit.

In its response to the FoI request submitted by Media IoM, the Department of Education, Sport and Culture said the report will only be published once the validation process is completed.

Parents were informed by the DESC on Monday July 1 this year that Rushen Primary’s head Suzanne Owens and deputy head Miss H Wardman had been seconded to other duties in the department. This was done with immediate effect.

Just days before, on June 27 and 28, the school had been inspected as part of the new validation quality assurance process.

Simon Murphy, head teacher of Scoill Phurt le Moirrey, has taken on the additional role of leadership at Rushen until further notice.

A spokesperson for the DESC subsequently confirmed that 16 schools and two educational services that were included in the initial pilot have all been inspected - and 12 reports have been published.

In its FoI response, the department said the information is held with a view to it being published at a future date. ‘In these circumstances, it is reasonable that the information be withheld from disclosure until that time,’ it said.

Listing factors in favour of withholding, it said disclosure would ‘undermine consultation between the provider and Rushen Primary School’, ‘information could be misinterpreted and therefore mislead the public’, and the ‘matter is live and ongoing’.

The external validation visits are being carried out by Etio - formerly known as Tribal Education Services.

Following completion of the pilot, all other schools and educational services will follow on a three-year cycle of validations, beginning in January.

The DESC spokesman said: ‘The parent information following the external validation visits can be found on the individual school website or the department website for educational services.

‘Parent information for the other schools and educational services which had not been published yet, will be published once the external validation process is complete.’

The pilot included QEII, Castle Rushen, St Ninian’s, Ballakermeen, Rushen, Peel Clothworkers’, St Mary’s RC, Kewaigue, Victoria Road, Onchan, Laxey, Cronk y Berry, Scoill yn Jubilee, Marown, Willaston, Andreas, Thie ny Shee educational services and English as an additional language.

Two schools inspected on the days before and after the external validation of Rushen have published the resulting parent information reports.

Marown School had its external validation visit on July 1 and the report was published on July 18. St Ninian’s was visited by the validation team on June 24 and 25 and its report was also published in July.

Willaston school was only inspected this month, and its report has not yet been published.