Teacher banned from classroom after swearing at pupil and pushing him against wall

A teacher has been banned from the classroom indefinitely after he called a pupil a “little s***” and pushed two students.

Police launched an investigation into mathematics teacher Christopher Clarkson last year following the incident, and he was subsequently dismissed from The de Ferrers Academy in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, that March.

A Teaching Regulation Agency misconduct panel heard how the 44-year-old followed a pupil into a building corridor and took hold of his hood in October 2024.

In a written statement, Mr Clarkson admitted: “I followed, told them to stop, but they kept going. I reached out and grabbed his coat, he turned around and shouted 'Don't f****** touch me'”.

He said he then shouted: “Don’t swear at me you little s***’,” adding that there “was a lot of swearing back and forth from the student and myself”.

Mr Clarkson then grabbed the student by the collar and pulled him towards him, before pushing the pupil up against the wall.

The student told police at the time of the investigation: “He grabbed my tie and [was] swinging me around. He has a drink in his right hand and swinging me in his left hand. He got hold of my tie near where the collar is, holding it tight… it was proper forceful. I couldn’t do anything.”

In an incident report, the student added: “Then Mr Clarkson grabs me by the front of my shirt/coat near my neck and starts swinging me around and during this he swings me into the wall and the doors and I bang my head.

“I'm moving backwards, he is moving forwards. I go into the door and the wall.”

The panel said the student was “panicking” at the time of the incident, and was affected by what had happened because he didn’t expect a member of staff to act the way Mr Clarkson did.

Mr Clarkson then pushed another student after walking away from the incident, the panel said.

The other student stated: “I saw [the pupil] getting pushed around by the teacher and the teacher was swearing at him and after that, the teacher walked off. As he did, he grabbed me and pushed me.”

The panel said Mr Clarkson had been “shaken and remorseful” following the incident, but concluded it amounted to misconduct of a serious nature which fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession.

He has been banned from teaching indefinitely, but can apply for his prohibition order to be set aside after five years.