THE headteacher at Woodroffe School has rebutted claims he will be leaving due to comments made about Brexit and is “mystified” by parent complaints.

Richard Steward hit headlines in the Daily Mail earlier this week, which reported that the headteacher of the Lyme Regis school was leaving following parent complaints after he told pupils that Brexit would ban Santa Claus.

However, Dr Steward said he had been thinking about taking early retirement for some time, with the school’s governors and senior leadership team aware of his decision to leave at the end of the academic year before Christmas.

He said: “The recent article in the Daily Mail is responsible for the impression that the announcement was sudden.

“They conflated my letter to parents explaining that I planned to retire with an absurd complaint about an assembly I did before Christmas. There was actually no connection between the two.”

The article stated Dr Steward joked that imports of Christmas trees and wine would be stopped and there would be no more turkeys due to a lack of eastern European farm workers.

It also reported Dr Steward suggested that it would be the last decent festive period pupils would have before Britain withdraws from the EU in March, as well as featuring complaints on the assembly from parents.

Dr Steward added: “The complaint about the assembly was quite mystifying. The assembly in question was a light-hearted, tongue in cheek affair which pondered Santa’s reaction to Brexit. It was by no means political, it was simply good fun.

“Staff and students alike enjoyed it and the vast majority recognised that it was done with all good intentions – to make students’ last day of term enjoyable and to send them home with a smile.

“Two parents, who are named in the Mail article, and who were obviously not present at the assembly, chose to complain directly to the Mail. They didn’t bother to contact the school. How could they regard an assembly which wondered whether Rudolph would need a pet passport as anything other than humorous is beyond me.”

One parent has disputed she contacted the Daily Mail and instead was approached by the newspaper.

Dr Steward said that since the article appeared in the Mail, he has received dozens of letters of support from parents, colleagues and pupils who were “shocked by the mean spiritedness of the parents”.

A letter was sent to parents earlier this month announcing the Dr Steward’s retirement as head of the secondary school.

He added: “I have chosen to take early retirement because I think now is a good time to do so.

“The school is in an excellent position and it is time for someone new to drive it forwards to further success.

“Woodroffe is an outstanding school, it regularly achieves the best GCSE results in the county, it is staffed by a superb team of specialist teachers, and it offers an unrivalled extra-curricular programme.

“After what will be 16 years in charge, it is time to move on.

“My task now is to make sure whoever is chosen to replace me is fully supported by the community.”