A RELIGIOUS EDUCATION teacher who swore at her pupils, showed them her tattoos and told them not to get married so they could "sleep around", has been banned from the classroom for at least five years.
Education secretary Michael Gove called 27-year-old Catherine Reynolds a "disgrace to the profession" after a disciplinary panel issued the ban yesterday.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The panel also learned that she told her class about a sex show involving a horse she had seen in Amsterdam and referred to parents as "retarded" on her Facebook page.
After attending a parents' evening at the school she took to the social networking site again, describing the event as "the most f***ing horrendous evening of my life".
Other offences included regaling her pupils with her first-hand experience of the morning-after pill, a relationship with an older man and binge drinking. The panel also found she surfed the internet when she should have been teaching RE, The Sun says.
Reynolds began teaching at Saddleworth School in September 2008 and "initially showed herself to be good at her job," the paper says. But two years later she posted some "wholly inappropriate" comments on Facebook and the school began to get complaints about other aspects of her teaching.
There was some support for Reynolds on Twitter today from people claiming to be her former students and others who wished they had been. "I wish Catherine Reynolds had been my RE teacher instead of Reverend Smith," tweeted one user.
-
How will the new Repayment Assistance Plan for student loans work?the explainer The Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) will replace existing income-driven repayment plans
-
In the Spotlight Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been at odds with US forces
-
Music reviews: Ethel Cain, Amaarae, and The Black KeysFeature "Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You," "Black Star," and "No Rain, No Flowers"
-
English literature: is it doomed?Speed Read Arts and humanities courses are under attack thanks to a shift to ‘skills-led’ learning
-
Are UK classrooms a new political battleground?Speed Read Government has issued new guidance on political neutrality in schools
-
Kathleen Stock resigns: the ‘hounding’ of an academic on the front line of transgender rights debateSpeed Read Sussex University students claim ‘trans and non-binary students are safer and happier for it’
-
How 100,000 ‘lost children’ disappeared from UK school systemSpeed Read Experts warn that vulnerable pupils may be recruited by gangs after failing to return to education post-lockdown
-
Why is the government planning to cut arts education funding by 50%?Speed Read Proposal described by critics as ‘catastrophic’ and ‘an attack on the future of UK arts’
-
Schools do not spread Covid-19, multiple studies findSpeed Read Reports from Germany, Norway and the WHO conclude schoolchildren are not vector of infection
-
Universities must consider refunding students hit by Covid disruption, regulator warnsSpeed Read Institutions under investigation as thousands of undergraduates remain locked down amid coronavirus outbreaks
-
Coronavirus: will UK schools have to close again?Speed Read Thousands of teachers are self-isolating - but the government is determined not to order new closures
