Thursday 30 April 2009

Newham Council Suddenly Discovers Non-White Racism…

Not sure that anyone’s coming out of the court case over the teacher ‘poisoned’ by a pupil at an East Ham school covered in glory.

Certainly not the complainant, who doesn’t come across as ideal teaching material:
Although she recovered from the physical effects of the attack, she claims she was mentally scarred by it.

Miss Alexis, 52, is said to have been so scared of leaving her classroom when she returned to work that she once urinated in a wastepaper bin.
Nice!
She eventually lost her job at Brampton Manor School in Newham, east London, in August 2006 because of her poor attendance record, and so was unable to realise her ambition of being promoted to headteacher or department head, it is claimed.
That’s quite an ambition! Sadly, she doesn’t seem to have any, oh, what’s the word…?

Ah, yes! Skills:
She has since tried to set up a number of companies without any financial success.

The former teacher has now launched a claim for £700,000 in damages against the London Borough of Newham, mainly to cover lost earnings and pension entitlements.
Her hired mouthpiece is doing his best, describing her as the next best thing to having Mr Chips reincarnated:
Her barrister, William McCormick, told the High Court in London that she had been described before the poisoning as an "excellent teacher" and a "valuable member of staff".

He said her prospects for a successful career in education had been "very, very good" and denied that she was "swinging the lead" after the schoolgirl's prank, claiming she desperately wanted to return to the job she loved.
However, Newham council are taking a rather different view:
Arun Katyar, representing Newham, told the court it is "inherently unlikely" that she would have reached the heights of the teaching profession, and said colleagues will testify that she would have been held back by her "racism" and "poor grammar".
Well, well, well.

The girl who administered the ‘poison’ claims she did so because when she was putting on make-up in class, she was told by Alexis ‘You look like one of them white prostitutes on Green Street’.

This gets better and better, doesn’t it…?
Even if she had not been poisoned, the barrister claimed, "her days in the teaching profession were likely to be numbered".
So, why did you hire her in the first place? And is the school you are defending the source of any of her barrister’s reports of outstanding feedback for her teaching ability?

It’ll be interesting to see how this develops…

4 comments:

Mark said...

'So, why did you hire her in the first place?'
Because she's a 'twofer' ie ethnic & female, and thus had the HR team wetting themselves in excitement ?

JuliaM said...

That's certainly plausible.

Or they suddenly discovered her 'racism' and 'poor grammar' only after she decided to sue them for £700 big ones.

Hmmm, it's a puzzle :)

Rob said...

racism AND poor grammar? Would either one of these be enough (I am assuming that the 'racism' would be, as it is much more nebulous and so far harder to disprove).

If poor grammar really is a black mark against teachers it is going to be carnage in our schools.

Edwin Greenwood said...

Forgive me for wondering whether, had Ms Alexis been of the pallid persuasion, she would have been merely "held back" by her alleged racism.