A teacher has been banned from the classroom indefinitely after she tried to pass off a piece of her own work as a pupil’s GCSE.
Gillian Hardman, 40, admitted that a sample piece of writing she had completed was included in Pupil A’s geography submission but insisted it was a mistake.
Nevertheless, a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel found Ms Hardman had been dishonest about her actions while working at Inscape House School in Cheadle, Greater Manchester.
Chair Marc Cavey said: ‘Ms Hardman stated that, on June 17, 2021, she created Word documents and had copied and pasted the work that had been completed earlier by Pupil A from Microsoft Teams.
‘Further, that in the process of copying and pasting, she had erroneously included the exemplar document that she herself had produced.
‘The panel did not accept that Ms Hardman had copied and pasted the earlier work of Pupil A from Microsoft Teams as a likely explanation.
‘Witness B and Witness C stated that they were granted access to both Ms Hardman and Pupil A’s Microsoft Teams accounts and that there was no evidence of this work on either account.
‘Further, that the IT department had confirmed that there were no documents that had been archived or deleted from Microsoft Teams.’
The panel said it was ‘satisfied’ in the likelihood that two out of three pieces of work submitted by Ms Hardman for Pupil A had been completed by her and not the child.
Ms Hardman also faced allegations of lying about the child completing a past paper under exam conditions in February 2021, when she had actually been working from home.
On top of this, she was accused of lying about the pupil’s work being moderated before submission deadlines.
Lastly the teacher told the school, a special educational needs and disabilities facility, she had stored exam papers in ‘accordance with the guidelines’ in a securely locked cupboard when this was not the case.
In total, five allegations were proven against Ms Hardman.
The panel decided to bar Ms Hardman from the classroom because ‘her behaviour fundamentally breached the standard of conduct expected of a teacher’.
Mr Cavey said: ‘Whilst there is evidence that Ms Hardman had ability as an educator and had 20 years experience as a teacher, the panel considered that the adverse public interest considerations above outweigh any interest in retaining Ms Hardman in the profession.
‘In this case, I have placed considerable weight on the panel’s comments concerning the lack of full insight or remorse. I am also particularly mindful of the panel’s findings of dishonesty.’
The decision means Ms Hardman will not be allowed to teach in any school, sixth form college, youth accommodation or children’s home in England.
She can apply to have this prohibition order removed in two years – on July 31, 2025, at the earliest.
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