British IT teacher gets three-year ban after boozing with students at strip club during school trip to Costa Rica An IT teacher at an English private school has been banned from teaching for 36 months for "unacceptable professional conduct" that included getting drunk and visiting a strip club with one or more pupils. The case of Richard Glenn, employed by Longridge Towers School in Northumberland, was heard by a professional conduct …
It is scary...
Back in the late 1970's the school put on a production of the play "The Dark of the Moon" - language as scripted, costumes also as per stage directions and thus including nudity.
Also, we had sixth form vs. staff darts matches in a local pub with all consuming alcohol - although not to excess.
Today, it would seem both activities would be front page news, as would a teacher throwing chalk at a boy not paying attention and talking to his mate in class...
17 years olds drinking with their teachers has much to commend it. Less likely to get bladdered and the kids see that drinking sensibly can be fun.
I used to drink at a sailing club. Barman was a teacher who knew how old we all were. Never any problems and much better than cider in the car park.
I was in the local with a mate, drinking a beer at the bar and he started talking about what his dad was going to give him for his 18th birthday!
I kicked his shin, then asked, "what did you get?" The barman just carried on, as if he hand't heard anything.
Another time, I was with the Police Cadet Corps at a sailing school. I was a 16 year old instructor's assistant. We all trundled off to the pub and I ordered a beer. I got served.
A police woman next to me ordered a beer as well and was refused. She stated she was 24, the barman said he didn't believe her, she produced her police warrant card and he still didn't want to serve her! In the end, her CO vouched for her and she got served...
>A police woman next to me ordered a beer as well and was refused. She stated she was 24, the barman said he didn't believe her
If this was from the 70's & 80's then I would half-expect that behaviour from a barman: the young lady was clearly with men and her superior - they should be gentlemen and be buying her drink.
17 years olds drinking with their teachers has much to commend it. Less likely to get bladdered and the kids see that drinking sensibly can be fun.
I certainly remember that growing up in a culture of prohibition inculcalted a desire in my generation to get drunk. Hence, a fondness for cheap and disgusting Thunderbird, White Lightning, etc.
I also remember trying to take my younger brother into a pub with me for a breather during Christmas shopping and be refused entry – he'd have only got and wanted a soft drink. Because I'd already been to the continent a few times where in many countries it's perfectly normal to see whole families in bars, this really jarred and still echoes discrimination againts families, though I think things have improved a bit since then.
That said, I think recent research indicates that young adults are particularly sensitive to alcohol so moderation really should be observed.
"17 years olds drinking with their teachers has much to commend it. Less likely to get bladdered and the kids see that drinking sensibly can be fun."
I guess it depends on the teacher. A couple of chill pints, emphasis on the "sensibly" part, sure. Getting blackout drunk and threatening to kill your students, probably not so great. Having a casual drink with your students after work might be frowned upon these days, but there are thousands of school trips like this one happening all the time (OK, maybe not right now) and it would be very naive to assume that no drinking happens. You just don't hear about the vast majority that don't result in a teacher being sent home early for behaviour that goes way over the line.
My deputy headmaster bought us a few rounds in the pub on a sixth form trip in about 1990. Some of us were smoking in there too, which I remember because I won a pint of horrible cider by eating a cigarette.
Not a private school, and not exotic Costa Rica either. Physics trip to visit Sellafield. Which was fascinating. We did set the radiation alarms off though, which caused a modicum of shouting into phones and rushing about. My mate moved while being scanned as we were leaving the area where they open the spent fuel rods - and the machine retaliated by declaring him radioactive and setting off a surprisingly loud set of alarms. Either that or it just malfunctioned, but then they had to bring alternate testing kit and get approval to shut the alarms up and check they hadn’t accidentally irradiated a school trip. Which wouldn’t have been the best PR...
Maybe that explains the strip club visit? Cover-up! What really happened, that they’re trying to distract us from? This club has a no touching policy for all radioactive clients...
My old English teacher could target the earlobe of someone not paying attention in the back row with a stub of chalk. He received a lot of respect.
He would also clap out the board rubbers over misbehaving pupils' heads.
At college, a friend of mine got in a fight with another student, who threatened to call his father, my mate and I (witness) were ushered into the lecturer's office. He sat us down, then said, "the guy's a tosser, just ignore him. I'll deal with his father. Now, who wants a drink? Fag* anyone?" He then produced a bottle of Glenfiddich and a pack of B&H from his desk drawer.
* To our cousins across the water, Fag is English slang for cigarette. So, it is quite normal to bum a fag off someone (borrow/request a cigarette).
"teacher throwing chalk at a boy not paying attention and talking to his mate in class."
Chalk? You went to a soft school then - ours used to lob wooden board rubbers at us; we got adept at ducking beneath those flip top desks. The teacher who threw a chair at a pupil was reprimanded though.
>Chalk? You went to a soft school then...
Probably, but from what you said it seems even your school had degrees of reprimand:
Words
Chalk
Board rubber
Chair...
Just that in these times some would think that a board rubber (that could do some real damage) was excessive compared to a piece of chalk...
Yep I was regularly attending a local hostelry from the age of 15/16 under the wind of the older guys from my local air cadets.
All very sensible really when you think about it, we got introduced to drinking under supervision and we never got wasted or did anything stupid.
The local landlord (RIP) was well in on it to the point where he's come and give us a bottle of (awful) fizz on our 18th birthdays, even though we'd been going to his place for a number of years.
This sort of thing is missed these days in the world of box ticking rules. There is no tolerence for being gentle introduced to the adult world. One day you're a kid, the next you can drink all you want.
As for this teacher, he sounds like a bit of an arse but he was probably well liked by the pupils he was in the club with. However, sharing a room with a female staff member that isn't your romantic other, that's doesn't sound very clever at all.
Quote: "as would a teacher throwing chalk at a boy not paying attention and talking to his mate in class..."
Reminds me of a physics class I was once in, first class of a new term, teacher I'd not had before so didn't know me, got a board rubber (the wooden things), thrown at me for not paying attention, I was doodling in my book (knowing me probably animated stick figures in the corner of the book).
I caught it, threw it back instantly, teacher had to duck, I then answered the question he'd posed on the board, correctly. I'd already figured it out, so was doodling in my book as I was bored, waiting for the next question. I was never one to volunteer answers back then!
Yup, I ended up in detention, but it was worth it, I was the cool kid for a while, well till the end of that day anyway!
I remember being at school and a mate getting the wooden board rubber thrown at him. Luckily he'd raised the lid of his desk and it ricocheted off. The desired silence then ensued.
Also remember going to the pub with teachers on a school camp and being allowed to buy a 5 litre container of cider from one of the local farms. The good old days.
I remember teachers beating the crap out of students when they wernt drunk. Fairly sure Fifi (a french teacher) DIDNT drink - but he did have a violent streak to him...
Beafer (the French head of department) was regularly hung over in class - he never hit anyone - but was deadly accurate with a duster...
Brilliant Dave Allen sketch. :-) No I went to a state secondary school. Student beatings were commonplace in the 60's and 70's. Thankfully, they are no longer allowed. The headmaster at my school was determined that there were to be no atheists at his school and all the pupils were to become Christians if he had to beat it into each and every one of us. Curiously, such enforced indoctrination has backfired in the UK with church attendances falling and religion viewed as irrelevant by the majority of the population.
"Corporal punishment had just been banned but some habits die hard." My schooldays were just at the end of the corporal punishment era - not that most of the teachers would have cared either way, they were definitely of the flog 'em mindset. We had a PE teacher (who also doubled as maths and geography stand-in for some reason) who liked to set the boys off on endless circuits of the gym, complete with obstacles, on the way. If you stumbled or fell over he would pull you up by the ear or nipple. We got our own back by picking up his car ( a mini) and putting it inside the fives court on our last day.
> why did the pupils go?
They most likely did this for a dare: At this age they are overeager to prove they are manly and adult...*roll eyes*
Besides, vacations in distant lands always have a disinhibiting effect: People, especially younger ones, tend to do things they would be ashamed of at home.
>> why did the pupils go?
It seems two of the older sixth formers went in first and he followed with a group of others.
What isn't mentioned in the report is Longridge Towers School is a mixed school (I looked it up as I thought being private it would a boys only school...), so do we assume he was out with "the boys" or was his group mixed...
Before I continue I will say out loud that I feel the same as you do about this topic - even now as a middle aged adult. But seeing as you and I both read The Register we are probably a small bit like Roy and Moss from the I.T. crowd and so not really a benchmark for typical strip club clientele ;-)
Depends a lot on their background and their relationship with the teacher. IT could be pretty "cool" and this was probably their first trip in the big wide world so the heady call of the "exotic" too strong to withstand, especially after a couple of pints. We all have to learn, at some point, how shabby and disppointing these places are.
who suffered an instant seizure, had to be resuscitated on the spot and evacuated immediately by air ambulance, and since has suffered life-long nightmares as well as a loss of income, insta account, and constant bullying from feral cats while shopping in supermarkets.
That's not the best one!
exposing your naked body to the female leader of the trip in your shared hotel room.
The report doesn't make any comment about these 'teachers aka "role models" sharing a room when they weren't married in a relationship - in fact we know that the male teacher was married - I wonder what his wife made of this disclosure...
Personally, if you are sharing a room, it is a given, you can expect to see the other occupiers in various states of undress.
My partner's (she's been an HR director) question to the lady in these circumstances is along the lines - how hairy and big was he? if they can't answer they weren't looking and so didn't see anything.
>I took that comment about a shared room to refer to communal bathrooms or something on site.
Para 1.f: "exposing his naked body to the female leader of the trip in their shared
hotel room."
Is, I think unambiguous.
However, the report is very poorly researched and written and reflects poorly on the competence of the TRA to actually investigate cases of professional misconduct.
Talking to my teenagers, for their school trips, the accompanying staff (including married couples) were allocated to single-sex rooms/dorm's.. So I suggest the fact this didn't happen raises questions about the ethos of the school about what it considers normal and in this instance clearly failed in their duty of care to their teacher in putting them in a questionable accommodation situation.
Personally, I think he may have grounds to appeal, however I doubt being a private school teacher that he is a member of a union...
In another recent case, also originating in 2019, an indefinite prohibition. And yes, there is an IT angle: ... he was rumbled by the school's IT system....
We didn't make it to South America. Instead we got taken to the worst performance of 'The Tempest' in theatrical history. I was a suburban innocent, but the girl in the seat next to me was from a London school, and girls mature faster than boys. When the lights went down, her hand strayed. It was very educational.
Some time after I left, one of our teachers made her point by waving her underwear in an assembly. I think she got a ticking off for that. She had a biting wit, the looks and style of a model, & a unique, often terrifying personality. She was my teacher for two memorable years in a class of about half a dozen students. Those years expedited my passage through puberty at quite a rate, leaving me with a moth/flame attraction to the sort of ladies that boys' mothers do not approve of. No names, no pack drill.
The 80s were wonderfully inappropriate. I doubt comprehensives today are quite as much fun. I feel sorry for the kids - a pandemic hammering their futures, no decent holidays and an education filled with puritanical woke sermons.
If anyone finds a working Tardis/pimped Delorean on ebay, can you drop me off in 1982. Even with an internet filled with unlimited free pr0n, the 21st century still managed to defy logic and be bollocks.
I'm sure you lot remember the teacher strike of 1985. Teachers including the deputy head (that are wanting more pay and always had new cars in the parking lot) always ended up at the Savoy at lunch time, and so was 20 of us of the sixth form, paying for the plonk and Guinness for the old leeches. No shandy for us. Good times.
One assumes that he was on the trip as a "responsible adult" to provide "pastoral care" for the classes. I am guessing (based on my kids going through VI Form) that he was a Form Tutor for one of the classes in the year group.
Now in my opinion he was at work, representing the school during the trip. Clearly there will be periods of time off but common sense should be telling him that doing something as blatantly stupid as this was going to end in disaster. If the pupils were Upper VI then some could conceivable have been 18 but he should have known what was what. To go out drinking at a strip club was just stupid beyond belief and he should certainly be looking for employment outside of education. Whilst he can reapply I cannot really see how any school would want to risk taking someone with this history back on again.
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