London teacher sacked after joking about ‘whacking’ pupils if they failed a test

This feels unnecessary harsh if it was clearly a joke especially for someone who’s dedicated 35 years of her life to teaching our youth

We have far too many experienced and qualified teachers.

So personally I’m in favour of reducing their numbers over minor cases which just required a 2 min clarification instead.

Alternative headline:

> Headteacher finally found a formal way to get rid of an underperforming and/or troublesome teacher.

Clearly an assumption, but have seen it elsewhere in recent years at my partners school when a new head came in. She managed to get rid of the ‘bad eggs’ that had been around for a few years… wife says school environment has never been better.

ITT: people who are fine with teachers threatening kids.

I remember getting in trouble while teaching for using light sarcasm and dry humour with kids. Some schools seem to have no issues with it, while others take a much firmer stance against it. Personally, I find kids understand and get it in 90+% of cases and you just need to be a little over the top when you use it, just to make the joke obvious to them. I wouldn’t do it with the very young kids, however KS2 is more than old enough to get a joke.

Fuck, I lecture in college. We’d all be sacked within a week.

If the kids knew this was a joke – it shows how good a relationship she has with her students. It’s unfortunate one didn’t get it, but there was a communication barrier there – if anything, there was a lesson on communication and culture for the student, once things were understood.

Turning us into robots, ignoring humanity, and behaving to rigid standards or get the sack for the most whimsical reason does not improve education.

Education is all political – with a small p and a big P.

Genuinely, only go into it if you are able to find work out of it.

This reminds me about how my old physics teacher jokingly threatening to ‘bang us one’ if we didn’t do our homework.

Another teacher could have explained “she was joking, but she won’t do it again”

And everyone could get on with their lives without pretending anything devastating has happened.

The teacher could still have a job

the kid wouldn’t be reminded every day of its part in the sacking of a teacher

Teachers could speak with confidence in class, safe in the knowledge that there can be an adult resolution to minor mistakes on their part.

I can only imagine the fact that the sacked teacher didn’t show remorse or will to improve might be a factor here.