Mouth tape teacher given senior job ban
A former assistant headteacher who stuck tape across a pupil's mouth was today banned from holding a senior position in any school for the next five years.
A former assistant headteacher who stuck tape across a pupil's mouth was today banned from holding a senior position in any school for the next five years.Carolyn Greig was appointed to the post at Bourne Grammar School, in Bourne, Lincolnshire, in September 2005, but resigned last April after a series of allegations were made against her.
At a General Teaching Council hearing in Birmingham, a disciplinary panel found five of the seven allegations to be proven, four of which amounted to unacceptable professional conduct, it ruled.
The allegations related to seven separate incidents at the high-performing school between September 2005 and December 2006 and were outlined during the two-day hearing in five video statements made by pupils. The panel told Mrs Greig, a mother-of-one, that taping up a child's mouth in a physics lesson, tucking in a male student's shirt at the front of a class and throwing a pen which hit a student all amounted to unacceptable professional conduct.
So too did sending an email to colleagues at the school making unsubstantiated claims about the headteacher, it said.
Mrs Greig had admitted pulling two "scuffling" male students apart by their collars but the panel ruled this did not constitute unacceptable professional conduct.
Yesterday, Mrs Greig admitted putting a piece of sticky tape across a boy's lips after he repeatedly shouted out during a lesson, but said she had done so as a joke. The incident brought the boy to tears in the classroom.
The panel told her: "It is common ground that you did it as a joke. However, while we view this as being towards the lower end of the spectrum of misconduct, it cannot be acceptable behaviour by a teacher, who is in a position of authority, and in your case you were in a senior position."
Mrs Greig was also told that, in calling a student to the front of the class and tucking his shirt into his trousers, she had "seriously demeaned him".
Mrs Greig had denied the allegation, claiming to have touched the student's shirt but left him to tuck it in himself, but the panel said the pupil's video evidence had been "convincing", adding: "He gave a clear description of your actions in tucking in the shirt.
"It was plainly an event that caused him considerable embarrassment and distress; this was still evident even at the time of interview. We did not find your evidence on this matter convincing, there were inconsistencies."Mrs Greig admitted throwing a whiteboard pen across the classroom, accidentally striking a female student – Pupil E – in the face.
Referring to the incident, in September 2006, she told the panel she was throwing the marker to another student for him to write on the board, but missed and later apologised to Pupil E.
Allegations that Mrs Greig had stuck a piece of cardboard over the mouth of a sixth form student and chased another pupil around a science laboratory were not proven.
Imposing the Conditional Registration Order, the panel said: "We are satisfied that your misconduct is sufficiently serious to require a Disciplinary Order and that a Reprimand would not be adequate in all the circumstances."
Mrs Greig is also required to attend a classroom management training course in the next nine months.
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Thursday 18 March 2010
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