The High Court has upheld a Teaching Council finding of poor professional performance against a primary school principal who waited 19 weeks before informing the parents of a vulnerable child about an allegation concerning the child’s teacher.
The anonymised principal, identified as L, challenged both the March 2024 finding and the sanction of admonishment imposed by the Teaching Council’s disciplinary panel.
The case arose from an incident on February 5, 2019 involving a nine-year-old, pre-verbal child with autism. A special needs assistant alleged that the class teacher removed the child’s ear defenders without warning and shouted at him while directing him to finish a jigsaw. The SNA reported the matter to the deputy principal and later put the allegation in writing.
The principal carried out an internal investigation and concluded that the allegation was unproven. He did not tell the child’s parents about the complaint until June 26, 2019, after obtaining legal advice and advice from the Irish Primary Principals’ Network. The parents later complained about the delay.
The Teaching Council found that the 19-week failure to inform them amounted to poor professional performance. It held that prompt communication was particularly important because of the child’s vulnerability and inability to communicate verbally.
In judicial review proceedings, the principal argued among other things that the disciplinary panel lacked sufficient expertise because no primary school principal sat on it, that expert evidence should have been obtained, that reasons were inadequate, that there had been excessive delay, objective bias and reversal of the burden of proof.
Mr Justice Barr rejected each ground. He stressed that judicial review examines whether a decision was lawfully reached, not whether the High Court would have reached the same conclusion.
The court also rejected the argument that confidentiality requirements in a disciplinary circular prevented the parents being informed. It held that the panel was entitled to regard the principal’s failure as a serious departure from expected professional standards.
The admonishment remains in place. Final orders and costs were left for a later hearing.