English miss dodges being struck off
AN ENGLISH teacher who falsified exam results has avoided being struck off.
Caroline Grieve altered National 5 results for 40 pupils at Dumfries High.
She said she was “drowning” in work and didn’t want the youngsters to be punished for her “mess or mistakes”.
After a disciplinary hearing, the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) let her off with a reprimand.
Grieve admitted passing students’ exam coursework when it was a fail or the evidence was incomplete.
But she denied she was dishonest in doing so.
The results were then passed to the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
Giving evidence at the GTCS hearing in Edinburgh, Grieve, 30, said: “I felt like I was drowning in my workload. I was not a rational person.
“I was so disorganised I didn’t know what I had and didn’t have.”
The hearing was told the discrepancies were found by a quality improvement officer from Dumfries and Galloway Council.
In a statement, investigating officer Sheelagh Rusby said: “I asked why she had marked the work as a fail but then entered it as a pass.
“She said she didn’t want pupils to miss out because of her mess or mistakes.”
Grieve’s actions were discovered shortly after a new principal teacher of English, Claire Harrison, arrived at the school in January 2015.
She told the hearing: “Grieve had been open that she struggled with time management and organisation.”
Harrison said Grieve lacked rigour and “struggled”.
But she added that she did not believe she had deliberately tried to “dodge or manipulate anything”.
In their ruling, the panel said: “The dishonesty was in the past. The mitigation was substantial.
“The respondent’s rehabilitation had been thorough. She showed insight and contrition.”
The panel were told Grieve was suspended in September 2015 but returned to Dumfries High in January last year.