In the case of Mrs S Smith v Cognita Schools Limited Suzanne Smith was a teacher based at St. Clare’s School in Porthcawl, an independent school owned and run by Cognita Schools Limited. In December 2020, she ordered a pupil out of her class for removing his covid mask to have a drink of water – just 38 seconds after the lesson began.
Suzanne Smith sent the child out as he didn’t ask for permission to take the face covering off and claimed that his actions had ‘presented a serious and imminent risk of danger’. However, she forgot about him and failed to check outside the classroom for almost half an hour during which time the teenager went to another part of the school, an employment tribunal heard.
The ‘aggressive’ teacher told a hearing that her strictness when it came to covid was due to her having a ‘clinically vulnerable’ son, who attended a different part of St Clare’s – and was advised to shield as a vulnerable person, having been previously treated for cancer.
However, the tribunal was told she and her family – including her vulnerable son – went on holiday to the Greek island of Kefalonia in August that year. Mrs Smith and her two children all returned to St Clare’s in September 2020 where her vulnerable son did not wear a mask, the tribunal was told.
A teaching assistant who had previously disagreed with Mrs Smith’s ‘methods of teaching’ including her ‘excessively shouting’ at pupils, raised concerns about her conduct. The tribunal heard she had forgotten Pupil J was outside the room and only went to check on him after ’24 minutes’.
She left her class to find Pupil J and returned with him to the class after 34 minutes. The issue was escalated and a meeting was held in which Mrs Smith became ‘aggressive’ .
She was suspended and dismissed after a subsequent disciplinary meeting in which it was judged she had created a ‘safeguarding and welfare issue’ by sending the pupil out and not checking on him. Judge Angharad Lloyd-Lawrie rejected Mrs Smith’s claims of unfair dismissal – adding she had tried to ‘mislead’ the school and the tribunal as to her level of fear of the pandemic.
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