Alastair Grandison

Introduction

Alastair Grandison was a teacher at St Dominic’s School, an independent special school on Malthouse Lane in Godalming, Surrey, whose brief tenure there ended within five months of his start date. In October 2026 a professional conduct panel of the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) found proved, on the balance of probabilities, that he had sent one colleague up to 13 sexually explicit photographs alongside degrading messages via Instagram and email, and had sent another colleague late-night and in-hours WhatsApp messages of a sexualised character — both unsolicited, and both admitted in his response to the regulator. The panel found his conduct amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute. Grandison, who was not present and not represented at the hearing, was prohibited from teaching indefinitely, with a five-year review period before he may apply to have the ban set aside.

Background Information

Grandison, born 3 March 1975 and registered under teacher reference 040257, commenced employment at St Dominic’s on 6 June 2022. On 13 October 2022 he sent inappropriate WhatsApp messages to Colleague D; on 5 November 2022 he sent the messages and explicit photographs to Colleague A. He was suspended on 9 November 2022 and the matter was referred to the TRA on 3 April 2023. The panel — Ms Mona Sood (lay panellist, in the chair), Ms Elizabeth Kitcatt and Ms Amanda Godfrey (teacher panellists), with Ms Lara Small of Birketts LLP as legal adviser and Mr Tom Lambert of QEB Hollis Whiteman presenting for the TRA — convened virtually on 4 March 2026 and 12 to 13 October 2026, sitting in public and recorded. Grandison admitted the facts of all four allegations in his response to the notice of referral dated 18 July 2024; the panel nevertheless heard oral evidence from the colleagues before making its findings.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Banned from teaching — explicit photographs and sexual messages to colleagues found proved. A TRA panel found that Alastair Grandison sent a colleague up to 13 sexually explicit photographs with degrading commentary, and sent another sexualised messages at midnight and during her working day — all unsolicited.

On 5 November 2022, beginning at 6:10pm on the Saturday, Grandison sent Colleague A a series of Instagram messages accompanied by explicit photographs — up to 13; Colleague A confirmed the investigation report’s descriptions of the photographs were accurate. Grandison admitted in his 14 December 2022 statement to the school that “on the 5th November I sent indecent pornographic images to Colleague A via Instagram and an email to him via my work email account”, and accepted the images were “unsolicited”. Colleague A said the messages made him feel uncomfortable and panicked, were not typical of their in-person conversations, and that he did not want the images on his phone. Witness C described the chat as including “misogynistic comments about disciplining [REDACTED] and training [REDACTED] for anal sex”.

Five weeks earlier, on 13 October 2022, Grandison had messaged Colleague D on WhatsApp — a number she had given him purely for work purposes — at 00:37am: “So has anyone ever said to you that it’s a massive shame that [REDACTED]”. At 12:27pm that day, during school working hours and after she had told him she needed to get work done, he wrote “Yikes! Actually, I like it when you get serious and tell me off. Not sure why exactly…”. Colleague D said the comment made her “skin crawl” and reported it to her line manager the same day; her statement recorded that “the messages were certainly unsolicited”. Witness C had given Grandison an informal warning and clear expectations after this exchange — yet a short time later he sent the messages and photographs to Colleague A. The panel found his behaviour had the hallmarks of the offence of revenge pornography, while noting it was not required to find whether such an offence had been committed.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel found Grandison breached Teachers’ Standards on observing proper boundaries and showing tolerance and respect for others, and contravened several school policies, including the Dignity at Work Policy and the IT Acceptable Use Policy. It rejected his justifications — first his sense of humour (“I’m new to the school and I was trying too hard to make friends and get colleagues to like me by being funny”), later a claim he had been drunk on alcohol combined with anti-depressants, for which it saw no supporting evidence. It found the messages highly offensive, discriminatory and derogatory towards women, considered the content of those to Colleague A morally reprehensible, and found only limited evidence of genuine remorse or insight. Dismissing sexual harassment as “just banter”, the panel noted from statutory guidance, risks normalising abuse. It recommended prohibition with immediate effect, tempered by the facts that the messages spanned a short period and no pupils were harmed or at risk — hence a five-year review period.

Current Status

Decision maker David Oatley, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State on 15 October 2026, imposed the prohibition order, giving considerable weight to the lack of full insight and remorse and the risk of repetition, and to the finding of sending sexually explicit photographs to a colleague. Mr Alastair Grandison “is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England”. He may apply for the order to be set aside, “but not until 2031, five years from the date of this order at the earliest” — not an automatic right, and without a successful application he remains prohibited indefinitely.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Grandison’s teaching career at St Dominic’s lasted barely five months before his November 2022 suspension, and the prohibition order forecloses any return to the classroom in England for at least five years — and permanently unless a future panel accepts he has developed the genuine remorse and insight this one found missing. The panel had no evidence of his ability as an educator and no evidence of prior friendships with the colleagues involved; it weighed his pattern of unsolicited, degrading messages as a deep-seated attitude leading to harmful behaviour. No conviction appears in the decision, which rests on the panel’s civil-standard findings. No further public professional role for Grandison is recorded.

Sources

• Department for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Alastair Grandison” — source