Sheppey has been rocked with news that head teacher John Cavadino has stepped down as principal of the Island's Oasis Academy.

The announcement was made to parents in a letter home on Monday, the first day back to school after the Easter holidays, written by Kirstie Fulthorpe, the Academy's regional director for London and the South East.

Tina Lee, the associate principal of the Minster (East) campus has been named as interim principal until a permanent replacement is found.

The letter said: "For a short time, Mr Cavadino has been away recovering from a health concern.

"He has long known that his passion is to be in the classroom with his students and has therefore made the difficult decision to step down from his position as principal of Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey to take up a teaching role at another Oasis academy in Croydon."

The former Head of English joined the 1,512-pupil secondary school in 2013 as part of its original staff and took over as head in September 2016 when he replaced David Millar.

This will be the sixth change in leadership since the former Minster College was converted into a £54 million academy in 2009. It was taken over by Oasis Community Learning in January 2014.

In March last year, school inspectors from Ofsted said Sheppey's only secondary school was still "not good enough" and improvements had not been made as quickly as needed.

In June, Mr Cavadino confirmed the Academy was "restructuring" support staff.

In September, he announced boys and girls were going to be taught separately in GCSE English lessons after girls scored higher than boys.

Last year, 267 pupils sat exams and 125 (47%) achieved at least five A* to C grades –the same figure as the previous year.

When Mr Cavadino took over as principal he said: "I look forward to leading the school in the years to come."

Pupils are aged from 11 to 19.

The process of finding the next leader of Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey is already under way.

The academy says advertising for the post will start shortly.

A spokesman for the Academy said today: "Mr John Cavadino has resigned his position as Principal of Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey for personal reasons.

"Ms Tina Lee, Associate Principal at the Academy has become Interim Principal with immediate effect.

"Oasis Community Learning would like to thank Mr Cavadino for all his hard work for both his students and staff.

"Throughout his time as Principal he has shown characteristic care and compassion for all our young people.

"Already an integral part of the senior leadership team, Ms Lee has the expertise, experience and knowledge to continue to drive up progress and deliver improvements to teaching and learning across the school.

"We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate our steadfast commitment to making Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey the ‘Good’ or better school that the students so richly deserve.

"With Ms Lee as Interim Principal, we have the resources and plans in place for the Academy to continue upwards on its sustainable journey of improvement."