Alexandra Slay
Introduction
Alexandra Slay is a former English secondary school teacher banned from teaching indefinitely in April 2026 after a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel found she gave pupils her personal mobile number and email address, exchanged thousands of over-familiar messages with them, gossiped about staff and pupils under code names, invented an army career with war-zone tours and near-fatal injuries — and then failed to log safeguarding concerns about those same pupils. The panel found every allegation against her proved.
Background Information
Miss Slay (teacher ref 3847757, born 13 April 1992) joined Epsom and Ewell High School in Epsom in December 2016 as a Teacher of Mathematics and became Head of Year on 26 May 2023. Her training record included a Designated Safeguarding Lead certificate obtained on 8 July 2023 — weeks before the events that ended her career.
Her case was heard at a virtual TRA hearing, in public and recorded, from 8 to 10 April 2026. Slay “was not present and was not represented”; with no response from her, the allegations were not admitted. The date of determination was 10 April 2026.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated vs. alleged. No criminal proceedings are reported: the school referred the matter to the police, and on 18 September 2023 the police informed the school “that they would not be continuing their investigation”. The findings below are regulatory findings, on the balance of probabilities, by a TRA panel that found all of the allegations proved. Slay was absent and unrepresented, so made no response to the allegations.
The case broke open on 16 August 2023, when Individual C raised concerns with the school about Slay’s communications with Pupil A, found on Pupil A’s phone: texts with a contact saved under a name including “Slay”, carrying Slay’s personal mobile number, indicating Slay “had been injured whilst fighting in combat”. After referrals to the Local Authority Designated Officer and the police, Slay attended a school disciplinary interview on 3 October 2023. She resigned on 9 November 2023; a disciplinary hearing went ahead in her absence on 16 November, and the TRA referral followed on 19 December 2023.
Between 2019 and 2023 the panel found she gave her personal mobile number and/or email address to Pupils A, B, C, I and J and sent inappropriate, over-familiar texts, emails and letters to ten pupils. One text to Pupil A asked: “What is intimacy look or feel like to you? (Be careful with this one)”. Emails shared details of her personal life — relationships, emotional state, personal trips — and gossip about other pupils and staff under code names; letters were marked “For your eyes only”, one inside an envelope reading “To be opened at 21:37pm”.
The most extraordinary strand was the invented army life. The panel found Slay “appeared to have fabricated a narrative to pupils which involved her having a role in the army, where she would often take trips to war zones, undertake training and/or be involved in conflict”. While supposedly deployed, Pupil A received updates signed “Lt. D Blackburn” reporting that “Cpt. Slay sustained two rounds to her abdomen and lost severe amounts of blood” and that her vitals had “flatlined”. Emails about another trip were signed “Lt. L. Franklin”, and Slay told Pupil B: “I have told my CO about the code name ‘Cakes’ so he will use that due to the sensitivity of it all”. She admitted in her disciplinary interview that the stories were fabricated: “I made up the lie to feel that I belong, was a part of the world.”
The scale was striking: the investigation counted 2,547 emails between Slay and Pupil C alone, plus 1,175 with Pupil A and 645 with Pupil B, much of it sent late at night, at weekends and in holidays. The fabricated injuries caused real distress: pupils had, in Pupil A’s words, “been a wreck the past few days tbh worrying about you”. The panel found relationships with pupils had become “more akin to friendships”, and that she failed to report multiple safeguarding concerns via CPOMS or to the designated safeguarding lead, at a school whose culture was to log “everything” because staff were “not judge and jury”.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The panel found the conduct amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute. It accepted context — Slay struggled during Covid and developed “an over-reliance upon pupils” — but stressed that she “still knew what she was doing and deliberately initiated inappropriate communications and developed inappropriate relationships with several pupils”, and favoured a shorter review period to avoid a sanction being “overly punitive”. It recommended a prohibition order with a two-year review.
Decision maker David Oatley, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, agreed on 13 April 2026, giving considerable weight to “the lack of evidence of full insight and remorse and the risk this creates of repetition”. He concluded that “a 2-year review period reflects the seriousness of the findings and is a proportionate period”, and prohibited Slay from teaching indefinitely.
Current Status
Slay “is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England”. She may apply for the order to be set aside, but not before 21 April 2028, and there is no automatic right to removal.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Slay resigned from Epsom and Ewell High School in November 2023, and the indefinite prohibition forecloses teaching in England unless a future panel sets the order aside after April 2028. Her one statement in her own defence, at the school’s disciplinary interview, was regret: “I am sorry for everything I have done. It was not my intention to harm or cause them stress.”