Five teachers have been removed from the register in the past 10 days, four of them having waived their right to a hearing before the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

A sixth teacher - Linsey Aitken - was reprimanded after the fitness to teach panel heard the primary teacher had pled guilty at Stirling Sheriff Court to driving over the legal alcohol limit with two youngsters aged between 12 and 16 as passengers. The panel also heard that her behaviour had been in response to personal and professional stresses, and that she had turned her life around. It decided a reprimand lasting 12 months was “appropriate and proportionate”.

At another full hearing, Brian Johnston - a secondary teacher of religious education - was struck off the register and referred under the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act for ministers to decide whether he should be barred from working with children. The panel heard he had pled guilty earlier this year to taking indecent photographs of children.

Four teachers were struck off under “removal with consent” procedures:

- Christina Newcombe, a playground supervisorauxiliary at St Margaret’s School for Girls in Aberdeen, registered as a primary teacher, admitted extracting the tooth of a junior pupil in breach of the school’s child protection policy. She also admitted to calling two pupils a “nincompoop” and a “numpty” respectively and grabbing a pupil by the clothing causing fear and alarm;

- Christopher McTiernan, a provisionally registered primary teacher, admitted that while working on a youth work project he had failed to maintain an appropriate professional boundary with a boy - cuddling and kissing him and rubbing his stomach;

- Susan Sloan, a primary teacher in Glasgow, accepted she had failed to meet the required standards in various aspects of her teaching, including failing to give the appropriate level of work to children of different abilities;

- Donna Renwick, a home economics teacher at Kelso High, admitted discussing answers to prelims and NABs with pupils prior to tests, and telling the SQA that pupils had passed unit assessments when they had not.

elizabeth.buie@tess.co.uk.