Bucks teacher banned after grabbing child by neck in cloakroom

Tuesday, 20 February 2024 07:00

By Charlie Smith - Local Democracy Reporter

A Bucks teacher who grabbed primary school children has been banned from teaching for four years.

Mrs Joyce Miller said she ‘lost control’ while working with Year 4 pupils as a supply teacher at the William Harding Combined School in Aylesbury.

The 60-year-old – who has since retired – was barred from teaching until February 2028, following a professional conduct hearing.

Mrs Miller, who had no record of any previous misconduct, accepted a police caution in March last year for three offences of common assault against pupils A, B and C at the school.

The teacher of 24 years engaged in ‘inappropriate physical contact’ with the children on or around October 5, 2022, the panel heard.

The panel found that she grabbed pupil B’s shoulder and/or arm, grabbed pupil A by the shoulders and/or back of their neck, pushed and/or poked pupil C and grabbed and/or pushed pupil D.

The teacher was found to have grabbed the neck of pupil A – who was having a drink in the cloakroom – to ‘guide them back’ to the classroom.

In her police statement, Mrs Miller admitted that she thought she would be teaching Year 2, but arrived to find that she was teaching Year 4 at the school, which she had not worked at before.

“She described that she felt out of her depth and that she was struggling to manage the pupils and just lost control,” the panel heard.