Teacher sacked after shelf stacking warning to pupils
But yelling Sir beats job ban
A ROOKIE teacher was sacked after warning a nine-year-old lad he would “end up stacking shelves” if he did not focus.
Steven Walker also shouted at his class and punished two pupils by making them face the wall.
And during a game of dare called “girl touch” he told boys: “It won’t be long before you will want girls touching you all of the time.”
He was suspended weeks into his church school job, then sacked for inappropriate behaviour. A disciplinary hearing heard the former musician told a Year 5 boy he “would end up stacking shelves or making packing boxes” if he couldn’t do basic maths.
Mr Walker, 32, joined Queen Eleanor’s C of E School in Guildford, Surrey, late in September 2017 after a bout of septic arthritis. But he was cleared of serious misconduct when a Teaching Regulation Agency panel ruled his conduct, while inappropriate, had been “forgivable and explainable”.
Mr Walker, from Sunderland, hopes to return to teaching. He said later he had been on “heavyduty antibiotics” at the time and added: “It was stressful. I made some errors. I ought to have picked my words more wisely. I’m a decent and honest bloke who’s lost almost two years of his life because he made a mistake.”
The Good Shepherd Trust, for the school, said the allegations of fact against Mr Walker had been found proved and were a breach of official teachers’ standards. It expected its staff to be committed to “safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children”.