CULL HITS TEACHERS
EXCLUSIVE
A RECORD number of teachers are being booted out, with 68 barred in the last six months.
But the Campaign for Real Education warns the toll represents “a drop in an ocean” of bad teachers.
At least 438 have been ousted by the National College for Teaching and Leadership since 2012, an average eight a month. In 2011, just 33 were axed.
Reasons for the latest 68 dismissals include having sex with students, attacking parents, being drunk, fraud and falsifying exam results.
In the past month, a Sussex woman teacher has been banned for life for trying to kiss a pupil’s mother and touch her breasts during a drunken visit to her home.
A 47-year-old teacher in Hartlepool was barred for posing as a boy on Skype to send messages to girls boasting about his private parts. The campaign’s Chris McGovern said: “General incompetence is finally being acted on but parents should be less concerned about the increasing prohibition orders than by the number of unfit teachers still in the classroom.
“The former Chief Inspector of Schools Sir Chris Woodhead, who died last year, estimated that there were around 15,000 incompetent teachers.”
The Education Department said: “Where teachers are guilty of professional misconduct we have tightened guidelines so it is easier to keep them out.”