A teacher conduct panel has found that leading headteacher John Tomsett was responsible for actions that “may have brought the teaching profession into disrepute”, after he admitted having a sexual relationship with a former pupil during the summer in which she received her A-level results.

However, the panel found it not proven that he was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct by having the affair.

It is possible that Mr Tomsett, a founder member of the Headteachers’ Roundtable, could now face being struck off from the teaching profession following the finding this morning of a Teacher Regulation Agency panel sitting in Coventry.

In his witness statement to the panel, he said he had currently handed over the running of Huntington School, near York, to his two deputy headteachers, including allowing them to front the Year 6 open evening earlier this month in “anticipation of his future potential absence.”

The TRA panel has heard this week that Mr Tomsett was in his first job, as an English teacher at Eastbourne Sixth Form College in the early 90s, when he had the affair with the pupil, aged 18.

The panel heard evidence from both him and her, including about how they kissed in his classroom on his last day in the job, and that he would later pick her up in his car and take her to local beauty spots where, on one occasion, there was “consensual oral sex and masturbation.”

On another occasion, while fully clothed, Mr Tomsett - nine-and-a-half-years her senior and married - lay on top of her “rubbing up and down and simulating intercourse”.

In his witness statement, Mr Tomsett also said he had the support of his wife of 30 years, describing her as a “remarkable woman, who passionately supports me.”

But he said: “Nevertheless, I feel a deep sense of regret that I have caused her, and no doubt in due course our family, considerable pain.”

The son of a postman and a cleaner, Mr Tomsett said he was the first in his family to go to university and that “teaching felt like a really privileged job, and it still does.”

Mr Tomsett, whose school was judged as “outstanding” by Ofsted last year, said it was “not uncommon” for teachers and sixth-formers to have relationships in the early 90s, but said he now realises that such a relationship would be “imbalanced” and “wrong.”

And he said that, in the past 18 months, he had dealt with two safeguarding issues concerning young male teachers and female sixth-form students. 

The panel found that had the public known about the relationship at the time, it would have brought the profession into disrepute.

However, the panel did not find it proven that he was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct, or that he brought the profession into disrepute by failing to maintain professional boundaries by engaging in an inappropriate relationship with the pupil while he was her A-level English teacher at Eastbourne Sixth Form College.

However, they said some of his actions were “unwise, ill-judged and unprofessional”.  

The panel will now refer the matter to the Department for Education who will decide whether or not Mr Tomsett will be struck off. 

Mr Tomsett also told the panel he sits on an expert committee for initial teacher training behaviour management.

The Headteachers’ Roundtable is a non-party political group operating as a thinktank, exploring policy issues from a range of perspectives.

Mr Tomsett has been a regular contributor to Tes over recent years.