“Boffin bullying” has become a feature of life at a high-achieving girls’ school in the inner city since it started to take part in the initiative, researchers have found. Now the school is plastered with posters urging pupils not to put up with verbal abuse and violence.

Scarce training funds are being diverted to help form tutors deal with bullying, which was never a problem before.

However, the school may have made matters worse for itself by taking 30 of the pupils designated able and talented on a special trip to Eurodisney. Their less able schoolmates left at home have made their disgruntlement clear.

The disclosure comes just a few days before the Office for Standards in Education is due to report on the gifted and talented programme.

Nigel Bennett and Alan Marr of the Open University stumbled upon the phenomenon of “boffin bullying” while conducting research on professional development for school leaders and managers.

Further disruption to the school’s pastoral system and staff training programme may now follow from its recent designation as a specialist school in the performing arts.

The researchers found that training was being severely disrupted both by recruitment problems and government reforms. In the nine schools studied, managers were having to spend a great deal of time supporting newly qualified and unqualified teachers and overseas recruits, with dramatic effects on training opportunities for other staff. Overseas teachers recruited through a major agency required what one deputy head called “pastoral and social services beyond the call of duty, as well as professional development”.

Specialist status was also distorting training because specialist staff needed promotion and professional development at the expense of teachers in other subjects. Three of the schools had specialist status and three more were applying for it.

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