Ceyhan Unluer
Introduction
Ceyhan Unluer is a teacher with more than twenty years’ service in Turkey and the UK who worked as a supply teacher through the education agencies Tradewind Recruitment and Connex Education. In November 2023, while subject to an open Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) investigation and a formal recommendation that she not work with children, she carried on taking supply assignments through Connex Education at school after school without telling either agency. When Tradewind asked her directly in January 2024 whether she was working with children, she said she was not. A Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel found that answer and the surrounding concealment fundamentally dishonest, and in May 2026 the Secretary of State’s decision maker prohibited her from teaching indefinitely. She cannot apply to have the order set aside until 2 June 2030 at the earliest.
Background Information
According to the TRA decision, Unluer signed an agency worker agreement with Tradewind Recruitment in June 2023 and taught at Willow Bank School from 20 June to 19 July 2023 and again from 5 September to 14 November 2023. She signed with Connex Education on 23 June 2023 but took no work through them until November 2023, when assignments took her to five schools in the North West: St Margaret Church of England, Holy Cross Primary School, Redbridge High School, Penketh Primary School and Woolston Brook. On 13 November 2023 the council received a referral of concerns about her; the LADO contacted Tradewind directly the next day, and Willow Bank School terminated her contract. She was referred to the TRA on 4 March 2024.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated vs. alleged. The findings below come from a Teaching Regulation Agency professional conduct panel applying the civil standard — the balance of probabilities — in a published regulatory record. They are regulator findings, not criminal convictions. Unluer did not attend the hearing and was not represented, so the allegations were treated as not admitted; the panel found them substantially proved. One particular — that she failed to tell Connex she had been working through Tradewind — was not proved, and parts of the published decision are redacted, including the substance of allegation 1.
On 21 November 2023 a “managing allegations meeting” took place, after which Tradewind advised Unluer she was “not to work with children whilst the investigation process was underway”. She carried on regardless: the panel found that after that meeting she worked further days through Connex Education — a four-day placement at Redbridge High School, a day at Penketh Primary School and an assignment at Woolston Brook in late November 2023 — without telling Connex about the LADO investigation or the recommendation. Her Connex contract required her to notify the agency of “any reason” she might not be suitable for an assignment. In late January 2024 she told a council witness she had “got caught” working against the LADO recommendation, calling it a “moral choice”. The panel accepted the LADO had notified Tradewind itself, so the non-disclosure finding centred on Connex.
Allegation 1 is redacted in the published decision. The panel found it proved but ruled it was not unacceptable professional conduct: it was “not a significant departure from the standards expected of the profession”, being a matter relevant to Ms Unluer’s “private family life” and “not directly relevant to her teaching role”. Nothing about its content appears in the public record, and nothing is implied here beyond the panel’s own words.
The decisive findings concerned what she said and withheld. On 22 January 2024 Tradewind asked whether she was then working with children or vulnerable adults; she replied “no, I just do online adult tutoring Psychology and Turkish”. The panel found that answer incorrect and knowingly false — by then she had been working with children through Connex since November 2023. Applying Ivey v Genting Casinos, it found her failure to tell Connex and the January denial “fundamentally dishonest”, the false statement “a calculated and intentional act designed to mislead” Tradewind; under Wingate it also found a lack of integrity, because withholding safeguarding-relevant information prevented the agencies assessing risk and undermined “the safeguarding framework that exists to protect children”.
Her explanations were that an appeal meant the matter was over, that she “panicked and went into survival mode”, and that she worked out of necessity, having “made a difficult decision to prioritise my family’s basic survival”. The panel accepted she was under some duress but found her actions “deliberate, as she intentionally concealed information relevant to her ongoing suitability to teach from her employer when directly questioned”.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The panel accepted the misconduct “occurred during an extremely difficult period of her life” and noted some evidence of her taking accountability: “I accept responsibility for continuing to work during that time, but I did so out of necessity”. Against that, she had safeguarding training and a psychology degree and “should have had a good understanding of the requirement to comply with the LADO recommendation”; no character references were provided; and she “did not display full insight”, creating a risk of repetition. Allegation 2(b) was found not proved. The panel recommended prohibition with immediate effect and a four-year review period, treating her deliberate concealment of continued work with children as a significant factor.
Current Status
The panel’s determination is dated 14 May 2026. Decision maker Stuart Blomfield, deciding for the Secretary of State on 15 May 2026, agreed prohibition was proportionate, giving considerable weight to the lack of full insight and the dishonesty finding. Unluer 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 until 2 June 2030 — four years from the order — and this is not an automatic right. She has a right of appeal to the High Court within 28 days of notice of the order. The outcome was published in May 2026.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The prohibition ends Unluer’s teaching career in England unless a future panel sets the order aside. Her Tradewind agreement had ceased on 14 November 2023 and her Connex agreement on 30 January 2024, and she told the TRA that teaching had never been just a profession but “a lifelong vocation”. The panel accepted she has the potential to contribute again if she learns from the findings, but concluded she did not fully understand the transferable risk she posed by continuing to work with children against advice. The published decision is a permanent public record.