A self-styled education guru has stepped down as chair of governors at a leading grammar school amid a KentOnline investigation into claims she lied about having a PhD from Cambridge.

Gilda Scarfe, who held the role at Simon Langton Boys’ in Canterbury and is hailed as a leading global voice on mental toughness in the classroom, professes to have a doctorate in psychology from the famous university.

Until recently, the 56-year-old even had a personal website called gildascarfephd.com, trumpeting the credentials that have earned her lucrative talking spots at conferences across the world.

But our investigations have revealed there is no record of her having achieved a PhD from Cambridge.

After being confronted with our findings, mention of the doctorate was deleted from Mrs Scarfe’s LinkedIn CV before her entire profile was later taken down, along with her personal webpage and her account on X, where she posted under the handle @gildascarfephd.

She has also since resigned as chair of governors at The Langton and from her role as a director of the Canterbury Academy Trust, which oversees the large city school of the same name.

Mrs Scarfe, who has carved a career out of trying to build mental resilience in youngsters through her company, Positive Education, told Langton bosses she was stepping down because of “work commitments”.

Her resignation came just days after KentOnline asked serious questions about her supposed academic qualifications.

They centre on claims on her now-deleted LinkedIn profile that she had studied psychology at PhD level at Cambridge - an achievement that would have made her a doctor of philosophy.

But extensive investigations have uncovered no evidence to support this claim.

To have completed a PhD Mrs Scarfe would need to have written a thesis, which would be published in Cambridge’s online library, iDiscover, and the British Library’s Ethos system.

But among the hundreds of thousands of doctoral theses across both platforms, there are no results for the name Gilda Scarfe, or alternatives using her maiden name Jianu, her birth name Corina, or her current partner’s surname.

Searching just “Gilda” on Ethos returns 24 results, with the only psychology-based thesis by an unconnected woman named Gilda Palti, in 1998, who secured her PhD from the University of Bristol.

The University of Cambridge told KentOnline it “does not respond to third-party requests for degree verification” - but our investigations have established there is no record of her thesis.

Sources within its psychology department say they have no knowledge of Mrs Scarfe or her supposed thesis, which is reported on multiple websites to have been on “the conceptualisation and application of mental toughness in education”.

Those same voices admit it would be unlikely for the department to supervise a thesis of that nature, and a search of its title in both iDiscover and Ethos also returns no results.

KentOnline emailed Mrs Scarfe on October 24, asking her why there was no evidence to support her claim she has a PhD from Cambridge.

“It's shocking that Gilda Scarfe has been allowed to be intimately involved in educating children and young adults in the city for so long...”

Later the same day this qualification was removed from her LinkedIn profile.

After receiving no response to our enquiry, we emailed Mrs Scarfe again the following day, noting that she had deleted the reference to her Cambridge doctorate.

Within hours her entire LinkedIn profile had been removed.

KentOnline contacted Simon Langton’s head teacher, Ken Moffat, who on October 31 told us he was unaware if the PhD claims were true.

Mrs Scarfe was out of the country at the time, speaking at a three-day education conference in Dubai.

Dr Moffat said: “Obviously, academic qualifications are not a requirement to be a governor at all, so we don’t routinely check in the way we do with employed staff.

“Gilda is abroad with work until mid-November and difficult to contact, but this is a conversation we can have when she comes back.”

By Monday of this week, Mrs Scarfe had returned home to her five-bedroom detached house in Canterbury.

KentOnline knocked at the £700,000 property to put the findings of our investigation to her, but she declined to comment, only saying that she had resigned from her role as chair of governors at the Langton.

Dr Moffat confirmed her departure the same day, and on Tuesday sent an email to parents informing them Mrs Scarfe had stepped down, adding: “I understand that Gilda will be spending much of the next year working in the Far East and wish her well.”

Jon Watson, the CEO of the Canterbury Academy Trust, also confirmed Mrs Scarfe quit her role as a board director on Wednesday last week - less than four months after taking on the position.

“We understand that she will be spending much of the next year working abroad and wish her well for the future,” he told KentOnline.

Mrs Scarfe’s work has seen her given a platform at conferences across the world, including in Canada, the UAE, Nigeria and Turkey.

Before her personal website disappeared, it stated her desire to “facilitate change by translating cutting-edge research in positive psychology, education and leadership into practice”.

Earlier this week, the webpage was redirecting browsers to the site of the Mental Toughness Institute - a firm of which Mrs Scarfe is the only director.

“When we tell ourselves a certain story it becomes our reality...”

It offers courses to teachers, parents and pupils, saying its mission is to “help students and young people learn and develop strong skills in wellbeing by applying positive psychology and neuroscience”.

Now, her personal website is just a dead link.

Her personal Facebook page has also been deleted.

Refined Google searches show the first references to Mrs Scarfe as a doctor were in 2019.

In October of that year, GESS Leaders in Education - an exclusive invite-only club for leading educators - described Mrs Scarfe as a doctor with a PhD in the conceptualisation and application of mental toughness in education.

In the years since, there have been numerous professional references to Mrs Scarfe as a doctor or having a PhD - including on her own website, her X account and various conference websites, including GESS Dubai, where she delivered speeches last month.

In June this year she spoke at TedxCluj - an independently organised TED conference in Romania - and was presented on the event’s website as Dr Gilda Scarfe, with a master’s degree in education and a PhD in the conceptualisation and application of mental resilience in education.

In her speech, titled ‘Changing our perception of uncertainty’, she told the audience: “When we tell ourselves a certain story it becomes our reality.”

Online quotes attributed to the former executive head teacher of Langton Boys’, Matthew Baxter, suggest Mrs Scarfe had adopted a hands-on approach after joining the governing body in 2015, before later becoming its chair in 2021.

In a profile of her on the website of leading psychologist Lea Adams, Dr Baxter says Mrs Scarfe “convinced us of the need to integrate the Positive Action philosophy into the whole curriculum” and had held “highly effective” one-to-ones with parents, pupils, teachers and school leaders.

Parents at Langton Boys’ have been left shocked by revelations of Mrs Scarfe’s deceit and the impact she has been allowed to have on the school.

Claire Taylor, who has three sons at the school, said: “How has this been allowed to happen?

“This woman is leading our sons' school but now we know that the most recent part of her academic background is a farce.”

Another, who requested not to be named, described Mrs Scarfe as a “liar” and also questioned how she had been able to secure such a position.

“As a parent of a child at the Langton Boys and a Canterbury resident, it's shocking that Gilda Scarfe has been allowed to be intimately involved in educating children and young adults in the city for so long,” he said.

“I'm sure that other parents will be as concerned and disappointed as I am that our children were potentially exposed to someone who engaged in this level of deceit for years and years.

“How could this happen? How could the school let this person be on the governing body and then chair it while having false academic credentials?

“How have they let her be active in the school’s life? Why have they allowed her to influence school policy and practice?”

KentOnline asked Dr Moffat to directly respond to parents’ concerns that Mrs Scarfe was able to secure the position as chair of governors and have a direct impact on the curriculum of the school – without her academic credentials being verified.

We also asked him to respond to claims Mrs Scarfe has been the driving force behind the proposed academisation of the school – and whether her ‘Positive Action philosophy’ is still adopted in The Langton’s curriculum.

Dr Moffat said KCSIE [Keeping Children Safe in Education] safer recruitment guidance says schools are only required to ensure governors have an enhanced DBS [Disclosure and Barring Service] check and a Section 128 check – which shows whether a person is banned from being involved in the management and governance of schools. He said both of these checks were carried out.

“We have never checked governors’ academic qualifications as they are not a requirement for governance, in the way that they are for employed staff,” Dr Moffat added.

“Having worked on the governing body for a number of years, Gilda was voted as chair by her fellow governors upon the retirement of the previous incumbent.

“Gilda has been abroad for the best part of the past month, both on holiday and working, and resigned as chair before she came back to the UK and before any opportunity to have a conversation about her academic qualifications.”

Mrs Scarfe has been given many opportunities to respond to the allegations but has yet to do so.

A spokesperson for Kent County Council said: “The appointment of this governor and her involvement in school life was entirely a matter for the school.”