A SCOTS teacher fighting to stay on the register claims he lost his temper and shouted at pupils for taking their phones out and trying to make TikToks during his lesson.
Steven Charlesworth was a maths teacher at Milne’s High School in Fochabers, Moray when the alleged incidents occurred in December 2018.
The 57-year-old currently faces being struck off the teaching register if the allegations are found proved by the three person panel in his ongoing General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) hearing.
Charlesworth is accused of shouting at a class of S3 pupils and asking them “Who the hell do you think you are?” and banging on a table which reduced some pupils to tears.
He is also facing allegations of acting in a verbally abusive and aggressive manner and refusing to leave the school which led to police being called.
The GTCS yesterday heard from Milne’s High School’s deputy head teacher Adam MacLeod, who heard the initial incident occurring.
He was asked by Mr Charlesworth – who is representing himself – about whether the pair had conversed about phone use and making TikToks in the maths classroom after the incident.
Mr MacLeod said: “Not that I recall [Mr Charlesworth mentioning that a pupil had been filming on their phone]
“I’m not sure that TikTok was a thing at that time but I know what you mean, there have been periodic incidents [of phone usage].”
Mr MacLeod then described how he was attending a business management class nearby when he heard a loud bang from a classroom down the corridor.
Mr MacLeod said: “The first time I heard the shouting and the banging I was immediately next door, I was in a business management room as part of a visit.
“[I heard] A loud noise, an unusual noise for a classroom, just a loud bang noise, I wasn’t sure.
“I speculated afterwards that it might have been Mr Charlesworth banging on the desk with his hand perhaps, it would be consistent with the noise I heard.”
The deputy head then told the panel how he came into the classroom to see what happened and spoke to pupils.
He said: “I stayed in the classroom for approximately 15 minutes maybe and spoke to several students about how they were feeling, made some observations of my own based on body language.
“I went down and had a short conversation with the head teacher about what pupils had told me and then I returned quite quickly, so maybe ten minutes max, five or ten minutes.
“I came back into the class and my plan was to try and get us all to the end of the class without overt attention being caused, the idea was to get to the end of the lesson and speak to you and then the head teacher.”
When the lesson finished Mr Charlesworth allegedly wanted to speak to the class but the deputy head stopped him as he felt it would be inappropriate.
Mr MacLeod said: “You’d asked me if you could speak to the pupils at the end of the class and I said I didn’t think it was a good idea and if you let me know who the issues were with and I could take it forward.
“It wasn’t my recollection of physically blocking anybody but I verbally made it clear what needed to happen.
“My recollection was that I said there’d been an identified incident and we needed to go and discuss that with [the head teacher] Mrs Cameron in her office and you should gather your things and come with me.”
The senior management team member claimed he then tried to calm Mr Charlesworth when they were in the head teacher’s office.
He said: “I think I was kind of on the lines of wanting to encourage you to sit with us and discuss the incident at the table, you didn’t want to do that and that’s my recollection of our chat at that time.
“She [Mrs Cameron] possibly could have said that [you should leave]. With respect you weren’t really wanting to listen and I think you were talking over both of us at points.
“Given the circumstances it could have been something she said [in relation to how you were being].
“It became clear that we weren’t going to be able to sit around the table so Mrs Cameron instructed you to leave the school and you didn’t take too kindly to that.
“We walked round to the front of the reception and you weren’t leaving, I said we’d get the timesheet sorted at another point but you wouldn’t leave.
“I think from my recollection she [Mrs Cameron] had tried and I tried and the noise level from yourself kept rising so we had to end the meeting and you had to leave.
“I recall Mrs Cameron reacting in a way that would be similar wording to that, you were causing a scene and not following instruction from the head teacher.
“I think it was something along the lines of you can’t tell me what to do but the wording of it, you were quite heightened I would say and quite angry.”
Patricia Cameron, who was head teacher at the time of the incidents, gave evidence earlier this week to the GTCS.
The 44-year-old former head described how she initially heard about the allegations from her deputy head.
She said: “He did supply work for us, there were initial concerns raised through parental complaints and how he was speaking to young people.
“Every term our leadership team would pop into classes to see how everything was going and from my recollection I don’t think Mr Charlesworth knew what was going on in his classroom.
“My deputy head Mr McLeod came to see me later to say there was an issue, he stated that he had heard shouting and had entered the class and could see pupils were visibly upset.
“They told him [my deputy] they didn’t feel safe in class.
“I contacted the local authority and they advised me to tell him [Charlesworth] to go home until the matter had been dealt with.
“Mr Charlesworth didn’t want to come down [to my office] as he wanted to speak to pupils in his class about their behaviour.”
Mrs Cameron was then asked by the Presenting Officer about her recollection of Charlesworth acting in a verbally abusive and aggressive manner towards her.
She said: “We were in my office and I invited him to have a seat. I told him that I would sit but he just preferred to stand by the door.
“He became aggressive and kept cutting me off [when I tried to speak] I told him the best thing he could do was to go home and call HR for more information.
“He kept asking for policies and procedures and refused point blank to leave, he was shouting at me by this point.
“He followed me out to the edge of the door and I told him if he didn’t leave then I would call the police, he told me to go ahead and call them.
“I was aware that the bell was about to go for lunch and he was unpredictable, I didn’t want anything to happen in front of pupils.
“He stated that he wasn’t leaving without a timesheet and when I said that I would post one out to him he just said he doesn’t do post.
“He said that pupils were badly behaved because of myself and other staff members.”
Charlesworth faces being removed from the teaching register if he is found to have breached parts 1.3, 1.4, 1.6, 2.3, 4.1 and 4.2 of the GTCS’s Code of Professionalism and Conduct 2012.
The hearing continues.
