Teacher who exposed classroom chaos faces being struck off

13 April 2012

A former teacher who went back to the classroom to make an undercover TV documentary exposing pupil disorder is to face a four-day disciplinary hearing.

Two years ago Angela Mason returned to teaching after an absence of 30 years, secretly filming scenes of appalling disruption and indiscipline for Five's highly acclaimed programme Classroom Chaos.

Scroll down for more

In the dock: Angela Mason exposed indiscipline in schools in her TV documentary

Now she faces being struck off by the General Teaching Council (GTC), the teaching profession's regulatory body.

This week she will appear before a GTC Professional Conduct Committee in Birmingham charged with recording children without their parents' permission and failure to promote the education and welfare of the pupils in her charge.

Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, Ms Mason said: "By gunning for me, the GTC is hoping this will act as a disincentive to anybody else from speaking up and exposing what's going on in our classrooms.

"The GTC is trying to strike down the messenger because they don't like the message. Instead of addressing the problems I picked up and exposed in the programme, they're pushing them to one side.

"One of the points raised against me is I filmed in one school on a Friday afternoon when the pupils are "notoriously restless".

"It just beggars belief. I was horrified by what I found. It was revelatory."

Working under the pseudonym of Sylvia Thomas, Ms Mason enrolled as a supply teacher and taught in 14 schools over a three-month period.

She faced, and secretly filmed, physical violence and obscenity-laden invective from pupils between the ages of 12 and 15.

Among the most shocking scenes was a full-scale classroom fight in which a 6ft boy wields a rubber truncheon as she cries for help.

In another, boys in a computer class are seen accessing hardcore porn sites. Her appeals for 'quiet' are met with clearly audible obscene replies.

Classroom Chaos was broadcast in April 2005 shortly before the last General Election. Its impact was so great that it pushed classroom discipline to the top of the Election agenda.

Ms Mason said: "The response was huge. I had letters from teachers saying, "Thank God you've told it how it is". We had a blog with thousands of comments.

"The feedback proved that this was a nationwide problem. The point of the programme always was to show that.

"We had a very clear policy not to name individual schools or individual pupils. I bent over backwards to protect their identity and resisted a great deal of temptation to name them at the time.

"By bringing these charges, the schools are naming and shaming themselves because the hearing will be open to the Press and public.

"It is frustrating that the GTC's focus is on me and the programme and that the schools involved seem to be in denial over the real problems that I filmed."

Ms Mason, who taught French and English during the Seventies before moving into broadcasting, received a formal notice of proceedings from the GTC last October.

It is understood that following the broadcast, three of the featured schools complained to the Department for Education And Skills (DfES). Their headteachers will be the principal witnesses in the case.

Ironically, one of the schools involved was so impressed by Ms Mason as a supply teacher before it discovered her journalistic status that it asked her back.

The DfES investigated the complaints before deciding there were no child safety issues, and referred the case to the GTC. The process has taken more than a year of committee meetings, paperwork and investigation.

Ms Mason said: "A Professional Conduct hearing has all the trappings of a court of law and all the costs that entails. We've had a firm of solicitors working for months and a barrister for four days.

"We have dossiers of documents, bundles of evidence and everything we're doing the other side must do as well. That's a vast amount of public money being wasted."

A conservative estimate would place the GTC's legal costs at £15,000.

The GTC was established in 2000 to register all qualified teachers to work in maintained schools and non-maintained special schools.

It is funded in large part by the annual registration fee of £33 but it also receives a grant from the DfES.

It will effectively be prosecutor and judge in the case against Ms Mason, with a presenting officer bringing the charges against her before a panel of three council members.

Ms Mason said: "I filmed without the children's permission or their parents.

"But I was scrupulous in ensuring their anonymity and the anonymity of the school and our defence is that this is massively in the public interest.

"The only way we could get this information was undercover. There is the implication I let things run on for the sake of the camera which simply isn't true and we will vociferously defend."

The GTC refused to comment. But a spokesman for Five said:

"We are totally behind Angie Mason's defence of these proceedings, which we believe to be ill-conceived and entirely missing the point of public interest and national debate that this film raised.

"She should not be disciplined but commended for the issues she brought out."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in