Teachers join school expulsion row

Staff at Queen Elizabeth's School, Mansfield, which expelled 15- year-old Sarah Briggs for publicly criticising classroom standards, have signed a letter of no confidence in the senior management team, including the head teacher Nicola Atkin.

Nigel de Gruchy, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, which has about two dozen members at the Nottinghamshire school, said the letter did not go as far as calling on Ms Atkin to resign but detailed a list of grievances. Sarah and her parents are to meet school representatives to appeal against the expulsion next month. Ministers have launched an inquiry into the affair. Kate Watson-Smyth