A parents’ revolt and new head at the Selly Oak primary in £400k of debt

The bell was just about to ring at Raddlebarn Primary School when a meeting of the parent-teacher association heard an unusual request. 

It was mid-September 2025 and the Friends of Raddlebarn had gathered for their first chat of the school year. That afternoon, about ten people were sitting around the table in a school office, where discussion had centred on an upcoming event to welcome new pre-school children and their families. The group, which included Alex*, had decided to run a tuck shop selling samosas and other refreshments. The snacks would be paid for out of PTA funds which, the school’s website states, are raised throughout each year and then reinvested into “fun things” for Raddlebarn’s approximately 394 pupils.

Alex — not their real name — recalls that, just before the meeting was due to end, a soft voice piped up. It belonged to the school’s headteacher, Angela Lowry. She wanted to know if the PTA could also pay for a training course for her therapy dog, Hazel. Lowry (and Hazel) had just returned to work from a six month absence. It was the second extended period of absence the headteacher had taken within the past year and a half. The first, between January and June 2024, had followed the publication of a damning report into financial irregularities at the school. The course for Hazel, she explained, was to ensure the dog was ‘safe to work with children again’.

Alex was taken aback: “I was thinking: ‘Why [should that come] out of the fundraising that the Friends of Raddlebarn have worked really hard to raise? That should be going towards stuff for the kids.’” Later that day, another PTA member sent Alex a message: “Did you think that was weird? Did that make you feel uncomfortable that she asked for that money?” It did, Alex confirmed.

Alex disclosed this information to The Dispatch in the wake of an article we published on 24 September 2025. It was about the little school, its mammoth £400,000 of debt, and a group of former governors who had challenged Lowry about her management of school finances. Among concerned parents, The Dispatch story spread quicker than an outbreak of head lice, appearing on Facebook and in private group chats. “My WhatsApp is on FIYAH,” one of them texted me that day.