Teachers: Private Life

(asked on 1st December 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information his Department holds on the number of incidents of teachers having relations with students in each of the last three years.


Answered by
Robin Walker Portrait
Robin Walker
This question was answered on 9th December 2021

Education is a devolved matter, and the response will outline the information for England only. English law is clear that it is an offence for a person who is in a position of trust and is over the age of 18 to engage in a sexual relationship with a person under the age of 18. Such activity is also likely to lead to barring by the Disclosure and Barring Service and, where the individual is a teacher, prohibition by Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA). The TRA, an executive agency of the Department for Education, operates the teacher misconduct arrangements on behalf of the Secretary of State as regulator of the teaching profession in England. The TRA considers allegations of the most serious cases of misconduct to decide whether a teacher should be prohibited from teaching work in England.

Teachers are expected to demonstrate consistently high standards of personal and professional conduct within and outside school, which includes observing proper boundaries appropriate to a teacher’s professional position. Whilst we do not hold the data requested, we do hold data, shown in the table below, on the number of teachers prohibited from the teaching profession for sexual misconduct in England. This data includes cases involving children and/or adults, as well as students.

2018-19

2019-20

2020-21

Total Prohibited for Sexual Misconduct in England

7

8

6

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