A teacher who made remarks about vaginas and shot students with a staple gun has been banned from the profession for at least two years.
Joshua Brandon Lewis, a newly qualified mathematics teacher at Carlton-le-Willows Academy, Nottingham, was found by a professional conduct panel of the Teaching Regulation Agency to have committed a series of improper actions.
These included telling a student who had described a drawing as looking like her friend’s vagina: “If your vagina looks like that, you’ve got a problem.”
Mr Lewis fired the staple gun at some students and pretended to shoot others; pulled chairs away from students, causing them to fall; placed his foot on a student’s head; dragged a student along the floor; glued a piece of paper to one’s face and put another in a headlock.
In other incidents, the panel decided he had called students “twat”, “prick” and “retard” - though not “blockhead”.
However, panel members cleared him of having commented on a student’s breasts, twisted a student’s arm, thrown a whiteboard pen and prodded pupils with a metre ruler.
In December 2017, Mr Lewis was put on an action plan with continuing professional development, enhanced observations and mentoring.
Three months later, he was given a first written warning and his newly qualified period was extended for another term. Two months after this, he was suspended, and resigned.
He told the panel that two students were “constantly giggling” over a drawing and “making references to vaginas”. He added: “So I made the comment, ‘If yours is like that you have a problem’…on reflection, it was a stupid comment.”
The panel said Mr Lewis “had not initiated this topic of conversation” and his comment, while “wholly inappropriate”, was not malicious.
He admitted putting his foot on the head of a student who was lying in the floor and dragging another student along the floor, who suffered a large graze to his shoulder, adding he had “lost control of the situation”.
Students claimed Mr Lewis would fire staples at them from the gun, or pretend to, and the panel considered these allegations proven.
In the glue incident, a former student said Mr Lewis hit him on the side of his face with a piece of paper smeared with glue and refused to allow him to leave the class to wash this off. He said this was normal behaviour for Mr Lewis.
Witness statements by other students claimed Mr Lewis would cause students to fall by grabbing chair legs or by pulling chairs backwards. The panel found these claims proven.
A school staff witness called Mr Lewis “immature” and a teacher who often acted inappropriately, and said while his conduct was “unbecoming of a teacher” it was not “nasty” or “malicious”.
The two students involved in the vagina incident had claimed that Mr Lewis had told one of them “you have nice breasts”.
Panel members, though, found this not proven, since one had referred to “breast” and the other to “boobs”.
“The panel considered there to be an inconsistency regarding the exact word used by Mr Lewis when the comment was allegedly made… given the seriousness of the allegation, the panel took the view that had Mr Lewis made the comment, there would have been no discrepancies.”
It decided on the vagina comment that “a reasonable person would not consider Mr Lewis’ comment to be sexual” if aware of the context.
The panel banned Mr Lewis, but allowed for a review after two years, because he “may have the potential to be a more mature, well-trained, mathematics teacher”.
This was endorsed by Department for Education decision-maker Alan Meyrick.
