Hampstead headteacher tells police of pupil 'enchanted by anarchism' and tips off his chosen university

 
Anna Davis @_annadavis6 September 2013

A London headteacher today told how he spoke to police about a student and contacted the university he had applied to after he criticised the school on a blog.

Jacques Szemalikowski, head of Hampstead School, said he stands by his actions and wanted to “err on the side of caution” because he believed the blog showed the student’s “enchantment” with anarchism.

Kinnan Zaloom, 19, attacked the way Hampstead School was run on The Hampstead Trash website in a series of posts.

He accused the school of caring more about spending money on its own PR than investing in equipment for pupils, and compared senior staff at the school to characters in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

The blog was blocked from school computers and Mr Szemalikoswki wrote to Glasgow university, where Mr Zaloom hoped to study, to tell them about it. He also alerted the school’s on-site policeman.

Mr Szemalikowski told the Evening Standard: “I was concerned about the tone. I passed it to our safer schools police officer we have on site. I was erring on the side of caution. I dropped Glasgow university a line with a copy of it.

“It is quite unpleasant about teachers at the school. It is quite a diatribe and towards the end of it the tone changes. He talks about enchantment with certain ideologies.”

Mr Szemalikowski said the school believes in freedom of speech, but he was prompted to act by other students who alerted him to the blog.

Mr Zaloom, who did not get the grades to go to Glasgow university, will instead study mathematics at Portsmouth university.

He told the Camden New Journal: “They said I had brought the school into disrepute. I said that was their opinion, but nothing I had done was illegal so why such severe action?

“I was prepared to apologise for the language. But what worries me is if I had been a year younger they said they would have expelled me halfway through my A-levels, and that means they would have been prepared to ruin my education because they didn’t like my thoughts.”

Mr Szemalikowski added: “I am not an expert in these matters but I had training in how to look for things that might need a second opinion. I didn’t think it was illegal but the undertones towards the end made me think - does this need a second opinion?”

In his final post on the blog, which is now being continued by other anonymous writers, Mr Zaloom wrote: “This past year, I have become more and more enchanted by the ideology of anarchism and individualism.”

He added: “I am not hailing anarchism as the only way of life, just pointing out that any type of government has the risk of being corrupt and vile.”

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