A Glasgow teacher has been banned from the profession for putting pupils at a school for complex needs at risk of harm and allowing them to be degraded.
Fiona MacDougall was working at Linburn Academy in the south side of the city in 2016 and 2017 when she was found to have acted inappropriately.
By her own admission, the teacher allowed pupils to be sworn at by colleagues and failed to respond when they shouted, and shoved a pupil who didn't want to complete a puzzle.
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She also allowed colleagues to force a pupil to stand up and tell him that he was 'disgusting'.
It was also found that MacDougall had failed to follow moving and handling procedures and manually moved one pupil from his wheelchair into a sidelayer instead of using the required two-person hoist.
A panel heard that during the incident she instructed a placement student to check whether anyone else was nearby before making the move.
During an investigatory interview with a colleague of Glasgow City Council, the teacher stated that she had followed instructions from the school nurse and Physicare, a company that provided general advice about moving pupils, in respect of a pupil, when this was not the case
Following a hearing by the General Teaching Council for Scotland, it was concluded that MacDougall was unfit to teach.
Their reported explained: "The Panel were not aware of any previous concerns regarding the Teacher’s conduct. However, it was concerned that the conduct was not an isolated incident, rather the allegations involved a pattern of behaviour, breaches of a position of trust and the exposure of vulnerable pupils to potential and actual harm.
"The Teacher told the Panel she did not wish to return to teaching, but the Panel could not rely on such an assurance and nevertheless required to assess whether the Teacher is fit to be a registered teacher. The Panel was not satisfied that the Teacher is in a place to behave differently if presented with similar circumstances.
"The Teacher was responsible for vulnerable pupils and was in a position of trust but had allowed pupils to be degraded and put at risk of harm, and had been dishonest. The Panel agreed that the public would perceive the Teacher’s conduct as being very serious."
The panel added that they didn't feel that MacDougall was being deliberately misleading or dishonest but was 'rationalising' events to herself and 'viewing events through a prism of her health at the time, as well as issues with understaffing'.
They added: "The Panel felt that the Teacher’s dedication to her job came across, but that she was not able to demonstrate a great deal of objectivity, which impacted her reliability.
"The Teacher was responsible for vulnerable pupils and was in a position of trust but had allowed pupils to be degraded and put at risk of harm, and had been dishonest. The Panel agreed that the public would perceive the Teacher’s conduct as being very serious.
"The Panel found, for all the reasons set out above, that the Teacher fell significantly short of the standards and was therefore unfit to teach."
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