By Niamh Anderson
A MATHS teacher has been struck off after making a string of sexually-related jokes to his students in class.
Kenneth Dickson, who taught at Westray Junior High School, Orkney, was ordered before the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) for telling a string of inappropriate jokes which made his students feel uncomfortable.
Dickson was found guilty on nine charges that he communicated in an indecent manner in front of his students who were aged 12-15 in August 2010.
It is said he humiliated pupils by making sexual jokes in class and staring at the chests of his female students.
He also told a pupil that he would like a picture of her because she was “pretty”, it is claimed.
It was said female pupils in his class even decided to wear scarves because of his behaviour.
Dickson, who now lives in Motherwell, believed he had been unfairly dismissed and took his case to an employment tribunal, but judges rejected his claims earlier this year.
A 17-year-old boy who was in the maths teacher’s class said at the hearing: “Mr Dickson called me out of a computer class and told me that our principal wanted to see me. He said he (the head teacher) wanted me to take my trousers down and my top off so that he could rub baby oil on me.
“He started laughing and said it was a joke, but I didn’t think it was funny. I was really annoyed with him and didn’t speak to him all day.
“A few months later, we were all in the stairwell on the way to a class and he said ‘if we don’t hurry up we will be having a gang-bang on the stairs’.”
A 17-year-old described how Mr. Dickson was a laid back teacher with a good approach to teaching.
But two weeks after the maths teacher started teaching in the Orkney school, she said she began to feel uncomfortable about the jokes he made.
“I remember him picking on a boy in our class who was messing about on the floor. When Mr Dickson came in, he said ‘What will Mr. Forrester say when he sees you making love to the carpet? Stop having an orgasm’.
Other lewd comments used by Dickson in class included ‘If I catch you, you’re fucked,’ and ‘the boys will get a free circumcision.’
The teacher, who failed to appear at the hearing, was found “not proved” on three other charges of communicating in an indecent manner, and not guilty on a further two charges due to insubstantial evidence.
The Sub- Committee concluded that the Dickson “did not maintain appropriate professional boundaries with pupils in the classroom,” and that “his actions were fundamentally incompatible with being a registered teacher.”
According to the panel, Dickson “had failed to uphold standards of personal and professional conduct and he showed a lack of awareness that he was a role model to pupils.”
They also considered that no remorse had been displayed by the Respondent throughout the proceedings.
By Niamh Anderson
A MATHS teacher has been struck off after making a string of sexually-related jokes to his students in class.
Kenneth Dickson, who taught at Westray Junior High School, Orkney, was ordered before the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) for telling a string of inappropriate jokes which made his students feel uncomfortable.
Dickson was found guilty on nine charges that he communicated in an indecent manner in front of his students who were aged 12-15 in August 2010.
It is said he humiliated pupils by making sexual jokes in class and staring at the chests of his female students.
He also told a pupil that he would like a picture of her because she was “pretty”, it is claimed.
It was said female pupils in his class even decided to wear scarves because of his behaviour.
Dickson, who now lives in Motherwell, believed he had been unfairly dismissed and took his case to an employment tribunal, but judges rejected his claims earlier this year.
A 17-year-old boy who was in the maths teacher’s class said at the hearing: “Mr Dickson called me out of a computer class and told me that our principal wanted to see me. He said he (the head teacher) wanted me to take my trousers down and my top off so that he could rub baby oil on me.
“He started laughing and said it was a joke, but I didn’t think it was funny. I was really annoyed with him and didn’t speak to him all day.
“A few months later, we were all in the stairwell on the way to a class and he said ‘if we don’t hurry up we will be having a gang-bang on the stairs’.”
A 17-year-old described how Mr. Dickson was a laid back teacher with a good approach to teaching.
But two weeks after the maths teacher started teaching in the Orkney school, she said she began to feel uncomfortable about the jokes he made.
“I remember him picking on a boy in our class who was messing about on the floor. When Mr Dickson came in, he said ‘What will Mr. Forrester say when he sees you making love to the carpet? Stop having an orgasm’.
Other lewd comments used by Dickson in class included ‘If I catch you, you’re fucked,’ and ‘the boys will get a free circumcision.’
The teacher, who failed to appear at the hearing, was found “not proved” on three other charges of communicating in an indecent manner, and not guilty on a further two charges due to insubstantial evidence.
The Sub- Committee concluded that the Dickson “did not maintain appropriate professional boundaries with pupils in the classroom,” and that “his actions were fundamentally incompatible with being a registered teacher.”
According to the panel, Dickson “had failed to uphold standards of personal and professional conduct and he showed a lack of awareness that he was a role model to pupils.”
They also considered that no remorse had been displayed by the Respondent throughout the proceedings.
