A science teacher who formed a “strong emotional attachment” with a Year 11 boy has been banned from teaching for life after she asked him to lie about their relationship.
Amber Shahid, 29, had been the boy’s form tutor in Years 9 and 10 before she failed to observe professional boundaries by calling him on the landline at his home and meeting him outside his house, a teacher conduct panel found.
The panel, sitting at the Teaching Regulation Agency in Coventry, was handed a log of events kept by the pupil which, on one occasion, stated: “She told me that I’m perfect but she knows that she can’t get me and she starts to cry and [I] comforted her.”
On another occasion he wrote: “I spoke to her for 20 minutes and I gave her a hug…Miss Shahid was sad, I was trying to make her feel comfortable, she was feeling sad about herself, she wasn’t thinking highly of herself.”
Ms Shahid was warned by her school - Queensbridge School in Birmingham - not to have any further contact with the pupil, and that allegations of misconduct were to be investigated. But she then showed him a document in connection with the investigation and told him to lie about the relationship, the panel found.
And when the pupil’s sister used a mobile phone to make a video of the pair in the teacher’s car, Ms Shahid tried to cover her face and drove off at speed with the door open.
But the science teacher denied that the meeting was pre-arranged and said she had pulled up in her car to assess any damage after hitting a bollard, and that the pupil came from nowhere and got into the car without permission.
Ms Shahid said she shouted at him to get out. She said she covered her face in the video because she was afraid it might be an acid attack. However, having seen the video, the panel formed the view there was no evidence of the teacher shouting at the pupil to leave the car.
The panel’s report states: “Both Ms Shahid and Pupil A appeared to be conversing calmly. The panel found it difficult to understand how Pupil A would be in the car with Ms Shahid unless this meeting was pre-arranged.
“The panel also noted that there were contradictory accounts of why Ms Shahid was parked on [redacted]. In her first account, Ms Shahid stated she hit a bollard and pulled over, whereas on her second account she stated that Pupil A and his sister found her on that road because she routinely drove that way.”
The panel heard oral evidence from a colleague confirming that Ms Shahid was “a developing teacher who had good potential”. But it found there was “a clear failure to observe professional boundaries” and that, although there was no evidence of sexual contact, there was “a strong emotional attachment between Pupil A and Ms Shahid”.
The report states: “The panel believed that Ms Shahid asking Pupil A to be dishonest on her behalf was in itself dishonest. By trying to persuade Pupil A to lie for her, Ms Shahid’s intention was clearly to deceive or mislead the school’s investigations.”
Ms Shahid, who denied all allegations of unacceptable professional conduct, did not attend the hearing. She is not entitled to apply for restoration of her eligibility to teach.
