UK Teacher sacked for misgendering reaches settlement

[JustAnotherDinnerLady]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-53650010

^"Joshua Sutcliffe said "well done girls" to a group that included a pupil who identified as a boy while teaching at a school in Oxford in 2017.

It can be reported for the first time that both parties settled out of court.

[...]

A reporting restriction made during the employment tribunal prevented identifying anyone involved in media reports and details of the settlement have not been made public.^*

I remember this story when it first came out. I Googled it recently as I was curious as to the outcome. It seems that the teacher "won" in the sense that he got an out-of-court settlement?

Think the only winners in these situations are the lawyers £££

What a waste of time, money and wellbeing.

He does seem to be deliberately courting controversy and deliberately inciting it- in as much as I can read in this article.

I agree SD. He seems to be quite unprofessional. He needs to learn to leave his personal beliefs at the door when he starts work.

(not that I think he should have been sacked for misgendering).

I was also conflicted about this. He seemed to be using his position to make his personal points about a child and challenging the decisions the school had made about how the child was to be addressed.
Just as it is wrong that trans lobby groups are allowed to peddle their ideology in schools, equally teachers should not use the classroom to make their personal points about individual children and their circumstances.

He sounds like an arsehole.

I remember the original articles and it sounded like it wasn't a one off 'easily done' thing with the trans child but ongoing bullying essentially.

Off topic, but the last sentence of that report is pretty badly written -

The London school said Mr Sutcliffe resigned after being contacted by the BBC for comment, while the Oxford school declined to comment.

He resigned because he was contacted by the BBC?

I’m also conflicted on this one - obviously singling out a child in your care that clearly is below you in terms of hierarchy is not the way forward but I think that different beliefs should be promoted at schools. The big bad world has lots of different people with different opinions and combating black and white thinking and promoting debate (or at least a thought process) should be fundamental.

Also a school is a relatively safe space so if your beliefs are going to be challenged, surely it’s better to come in a school rather than on a Friday night in a pub toilet or dark train station toilet? A bit of a reality check.

We have a LOT of religious schools in England (don't want to assume about rest of UK). Belief with no basis is aok. In fact this guy says that as a Catholic he's not on board...

If you Google the stories from when this started, it's pretty obvious (to me) he was bullying this child.

Personally I have no issue with kids dressing etc as they feel comfy.

Bogs/ changing different story. A solution needs to be found that is sensitive to all the children.

He sounds vile.

Not a person I would want teaching my dc.

His twitter acount is quite revealing. Some of the people following him are far right wing/Trump supporters/evangelical Christians.