An employment tribunal ruled favorably in the favor of a senior teacher who was sacked for restraint of a belligerent student who had recently been expelled.
She was asked to leave the school for “throwing objects at people and barging into them,” and Clive Kitchener, assistant principal of Goodwin Academy in Deal, Kent, was given the responsibility of seeing that she did.
Once the girl stormed out and refused to leave, the 55-year-old pursued her down a hallway, but she turned around and yelled “f*** off” before attempting to re-enter a doorway that was open.
Mr Kitchener tried to block her by putting his arms out and holding the doorframe with one hand but she walked into him and started ‘struggling’ to get through, the tribunal heard.
The pupil, who was described as ‘adult-sized’, then hit him five times in the head, breaking his glasses, and kicked at his leg and groin before walking off again.
The school’s management accused of Mr Kitchener of using unnecessary force and sacked for him gross misconduct without notice in April 2022.
He won back his notice period after an appeal but the decision to sack him was initially upheld.
Challenging his dismissal at a tribunal, Mr. Kitchener, who started teaching six years ago after a 23-year Army career, argued that he had not been trained properly on the use of force.
The chief executive of the academy trust, Stewart Gardener, argued that the student ‘could have spent the whole day at school behaving in that fashion and physical intervention would not have been justified’.
But the tribunal found that school bosses had never provided him with any training on correctly using force to restrain children.
The Thinking Schools Academy Trust’s failure ‘exposed him to risk’ which resulted in him being assaulted, it added.
Employment Judge Michael Atkins said: ‘Student A was felt to be a sufficient health and safety risk that she could be excluded from school.
‘[She] had been throwing objects at people and barging into them, de-escalation techniques had been tried and failed.
‘[Mr Kitchener] then lost his job because he did not have the tools to handle the situation that [The Thinking Schools Academy Trust] was supposed to give him.
‘It does not form any part of a fair procedure for [The Thinking Schools Academy Trust] to set him up to fail, and then fail to take proper account of their own failures.’
Speaking after the tribunal, Mr. Kitchener said the last 18 months have been a ‘difficult time’ but he was now back “doing what he loves” after getting a teaching job at another school.
A hearing to decide his compensation will be held later this year.