School Gate blog: should it be easier to get rid of bad teachers?

A teacher who seemed to be “acting or pretending” to do her job, and pulled faces at her pupils from behind their headmistress, has become the first person to be struck off the Scottish teaching register for incompetence.

Susan Barnard, 55, from Dunning, Perthshire, had admitted incompetence while teaching at three primary schools between 2004 and 2006.

She argued at a hearing of the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTC), however, that her incompetence had been temporary, brought on by a “dark period” in her life, and that she was fit again to do her job.

Until last month Mrs Barnard was teaching at Kippen Primary School, Stirlingshire, but a subcommittee of the GTC rejected her argument. Although she can apply for reinstatement in a year’s time, without references she is unlikely to work again.

Mrs Barnard, who trained in New Zealand, had held a number of temporary posts in Scottish schools from 1999, but problems surfaced as soon as she took a permanent position at Coupar Angus Primary School in 2004. She proved a “challenging colleague” who spoke about staff members in front of others, made sarcastic remarks towards staff and children and inappropriate comments about parents.

Things did not improve at Comrie Primary School, where she was redeployed in August 2005. Although the head teacher, Ruth Billingham, was briefed to assist in developing Mrs Barnard’s communication and control skills, within a month more difficulties had emerged.

During one music lesson, Mrs Barnard “decided to dance around the tables in the classroom, causing total disruption and mayhem”, said Robbie Burnett, the solicitor for the GTC, who presented an uncontested 40-page dossier of evidence against her.

On another occasion, when Mrs Billingham had raised her voice to quieten children down, Mrs Barnard had pulled “a scared face”, Mr Burnett said. “This caused the children to laugh, causing disruption and undermining the authority of the principal teacher.”

Members of staff and parents repeatedly commented on Mrs Barnard’s inability to communicate. She often adopted an insincere and sarcastic tone, made simple subjects unnecessarily complex, and even talked down to a child with special educational needs, saying of one child: “It’s amazing she gets anything done.”

She was dismissed by Perth and Kinross Council after a month at the third school, Arngask.

In her defence, Mrs Barnard said: “I have a style of interaction which does not include giving effusive praise. I don’t call them ‘honey’ or ‘babe’ or anything like that.” She went on to explain her behaviour by detailing a difficult personal history. In 1980, three years after qualifying, she was involved in a serious road accident that killed her boyfriend. She suffered a damaged retina and required five years of reconstructive surgery.

These injuries came back to haunt her at Coupar Angus, where she was required to look after a boy of 6 who was prone to tantrums and attacked her.

“There was the physical damage, and an attempt made to gouge out my right eye. That was physically and psychologically devastating,” she said.

“Looking back on that time, I can see it was a very dark period, a very isolated time. I was in a state of constant anxiety. I wasn’t able to find within me the resources needed to deal with that amount of stress.”

Mrs Barnard’s claim that her teaching had improved was bolstered by a school inspector’s report, but undermined by the failure of any professional colleague appearing in her support.

Allan Hunter, whose daughter was in Mrs Barnard’s Primary 7 class at Kippen Primary School, said that he was pleased by the outcome. “I found her very condescending. My daughter didn’t want to get out of bed in the mornings any more,” he said.

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