A SACKED teacher, Georgia Rogers, who tried to sue her former employer on the grounds of unfair dismissal and disability discrimination has lost her case.
Miss Rogers was dismissed from West Grantham C of E Primary Academy, Grantham, in March 2022, for gross misconduct. The school is supported by the diocese of Southwell & Nottingham Multi Academy Trust.
The Lincolnshire school’s reasons for terminating her employment were related to safeguarding. She had instructed pupils on the last day of term in July 2021 how to do a dance that they had seen on the TikTok app, and recorded it for them on a school iPad. The children, aged between nine and ten, were legally too young for the app, which is for age 13 and above.
In addition, she had an exchange of “borderline unprofessional messages” with a pupil and her mother on the school’s Dojo online messaging service. Miss Rogers was suspended in September 2021 when evidence of these messages emerged, and her behaviour was investigated. The decision of the tribunal was published last month.
Miss Rogers disputed the school’s decision on the basis that she felt that it had “encouraged pupils to watch Newsround, which regularly featured articles relating to TikTok”, and that this “demonstrated that the school promoted the use of TikTok”.
The school considered her reasoning as not “capable of fundamentally changing our view that your dismissal was the correct and reasonable action for the trust to take”. Miss Rogers was dismissed for behaviour that “could be seen as condoning pupils to use a social media site that was not appropriate for 10-year-olds”, and her failure to raise it as a safeguarding concern. She later said that she was suffering from PTSD.
The Employment Tribunal Judge Victoria Butler described Miss Rogers as “undoubtedly a committed teacher who enjoyed her job”, and that, although the investigation of the TikTok allegations had been “flawed”, her claim of unfair dismissal was ultimately rejected, as the school had made a “reasonable response” in dealing with the behavioural concerns.
The school’s code of conduct for staff, last updated in March 2022, states that “Staff must report any safeguarding concerns immediately,” and “It is the policy of the academy that there will be no personal contact other than in certain exempted circumstances between staff and current/former pupils of academy age outside the normal academy work environment.”
Both the diocese of Southwell & Nottingham Multi-Academy Trust and West Grantham Primary Academy were contacted, but no one was available for comment.