Between January and the start of August this year, the body charged with regulating the teaching profession announced decisions on the futures of just over 90 teachers. Outcomes have ranged from ‘No Order Made’ to indefinite prohibition from working as a teacher anywhere in England to prohibition with the opportunity to seek reregistration after a set period of time, although a return to the Register of Qualified teachers isn’t guaranteed. In passing, it should be noted that the term ‘teacher’ isn’t restricted in its use only to those on the Register: anyone can call themselves at teacher.
Men outnumbers women in those barred from teaching in these announcements, by around two to one, even though men are in the minority in the profession as a whole. The overwhelming majority of men barred from teaching were as a result of an issue to do with sex in some form or another; usually involving someone underage. More than 40 men were barred from teaching for this reason in announcements just in this seven-month period of 2022; along with just three women.
Two women were barred for misconduct associated with assessment. This low number may well reflect the nature of schooling and assessment since the start of the pandemic. Similarly, there were only two barring for financial reasons. There were however, a number of barring resulting from inappropriate behaviour towards pupils. This ranged from actual assaults to other behaviour seen to have crossed the line from what is acceptable.
Two teachers were struck-off for running an unregistered school, while there were a couple of cases of false references supplied by teachers in connection with job applications.
Not all incidents took place in or even involving schools. Teachers can be barred for incidents outside schools, including their use of social media and who they live with.
If you live with someone caught supplying drugs then you must tell the school authorities and your line manager straight away, especially if your premises is searched for drugs. Similarly, if you end up in court for almost any reason it is wise to declare the fact as soon as possible and indeed normally well before charges are brough if you are arrested and placed on bail. If you are remanded in custody, the school will likely know, as you won’t be able to turn up for work but you should still inform them.
Two issues arise from considering these judgements. Firstly, what about others working in schools that commit similar acts. Presumably, they are sacked for gross misconduct, but should there be a way of barring them from working with young people even if they are not professionals?
Secondly, there seem to be some areas where perhaps ‘sentencing guidelines’ might now help both panels and teachers to judgements. One such area is driving under the influence of alcohol. The small number of cases this year did seem to produce a range of outcomes. Aggravating factors might be ‘on school premises’ or ‘in the presence of children’ while mitigating factors could be ‘declared treatment started before the incident’ and ‘extreme stress in work and home life’. Clearly, letters of support do seem to swing the judgement about outcomes, and the weight of ‘being an excellent teacher’ should be signalled clearly in guidance.
The Secretary of State must sign-off panel judgements, with an appeal to the high court being the only further outcome. Should the Secretary of State, or in reality a civil servant, have this right of judgement of the panel’s decision or should panel outcomes only be subject to an appeal to a court?
John Howson 
Regarding this question: “….what about others working in schools that commit similar acts. Presumably, they are sacked for gross misconduct, but should there be a way of barring them from working with young people even if they are not professionals?”. Though they wouldn’t come under the remit of the TRA (which is for teachers registered on the DQT only), if they have committed such acts, they should have been reported to the police (and hopefully charged if serious enough) – which means any spent or unspent convictions would then appear on their DBS certificate when a certificate is applied for if the staff member was appointed to another school (as positions in schools give privileged access to vulnerable groups i.e. pupils, candidates are required to disclose all spent convictions and cautions under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exemptions) Order 1975 unless they are a “protected” convictions/cautions under the amendments made to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exemptions) Order 1975 (in 2013 and 2020) and, therefore, not subject to disclosure). This means candidates are required to disclose all spent and unspent convictions on recruitment monitoring forms other than those which are so “protected” – including driving offences (not including civil offences such as parking fines) but not youth cautions, reprimands or warnings (which is good, as I’ve supported teachers in the past where a slight misdemeanour as a youth followed by a clean record as an adult prevented them taking up a teaching post). Also, the rules on multiple convictions changed in November 2020 – the MoJ website has guidance on the filtering of “protected” convictions and cautions here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-guidance-on-the-rehabilitation-of-offenders-act-1974
Nigel thank you for your long and detailed comment. I agree entirely about youthful ‘cautions’. I wrote about the issue in the TES more than a decade ago and also pointed out that any offence might make taking the family to Florida challenging as it would require a visa. In raising the issue of TAs and others working in schools, I recognised that enhanced DBS should be adequate in most cases but as more para-professionals work in our schools is the present system adequate. I would be more sympathetic to the present system should the government make ‘teacher’ a reserved term like ‘engineer’ and most other professions. occupation
Agreed about reserving the term ‘teacher’ as I was just talking to a candidate who said they were a teacher but it turned out they were an ‘Associate teacher’ and not actually qualified (i.e. with QTS) and the role was more as an individual (1-2-1) tutor than a teacher in the wider sense.
Exactly makes my point. Thank you