David Hicks
Introduction
David Hicks is a former physics teacher at Downside School, a co-educational Catholic boarding and day school in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Somerset, who was prohibited from teaching indefinitely after a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel found he threatened two pupils during a science lesson and punched a wall close to their heads. On 5 February 2025, responding to disruptive behaviour, Hicks told Pupil A “I am the alpha male”, “I would really like to punch your face in” and “once I start hitting you, I won’t stop”, pushed him against a wall and put a hand on his face; minutes later he told Pupil B “how far do you think you can push me?” and weighed aloud whether he would prefer two years in jail for hitting him or three for beating him β before punching the wall beside both boys’ heads in an area where they were isolated from the rest of the class. Hicks admitted most of the allegations, denied two that were nonetheless proved, did not attend the hearing, and on 24 September 2026 David Oatley, deciding on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education, prohibited him from teaching indefinitely with an eight-year review period β set-aside not before 1 October 2034.
Background Information
Hicks was an experienced teacher β the panel noted as much β with no prior disciplinary or regulatory proceedings in a career that brought him to Downside School as a physics teacher. The incident that ended it unfolded on 5 February 2025 during a science lesson, in response to what he saw as disruptive behaviour, and was logged on the school’s online safeguarding system, MyConcern, the same day; Pupil A gave his account to Witness A on or about 7 February 2025, and Hicks gave his own summary on MyConcern and sat an investigation interview on 27 February 2025. In that interview he described himself as “very angry”, as someone who does not “tolerate heat very well”, and said that in an “emotionally fraught situation” his “rationale(sic) mind doesn’t compute” β which the panel read as a self-description of a short fuse prone to irrational or erratic behaviour under stress. He was not present and not represented at the virtual hearing of 24-25 June and 21 September 2026, which took place in public and was recorded.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Regulatory findings, contested in part. No criminal charge appears in the published record. The findings below are a TRA panel’s conclusions on the balance of probabilities: most were admitted by Hicks, two were denied and proved against his denial, and the panel’s account is drawn from pupil and staff evidence heard in his absence.
On the panel’s findings, Hicks confronted Pupil A over his behaviour, grabbed him by the jacket β denied but proved, with the panel preferring the pupil’s clear, contemporaneous account over Hicks’s β pushed him against a wall, placed a hand on his face telling him to look at him, and told him this was “dumb insolence” and that “I am the alpha male”. The threats escalated from there: “I would really like to punch your face in”, “once I start hitting you, I won’t stop”, and β the panel found β warnings that one day he would snap, that nobody would be able to stop him, and that Pupil A should hope an adult was nearby who could drag him off. Hicks then punched the wall close to Pupil A’s head. When Pupil A went to the toilet, giving Hicks an opportunity to calm down, the pattern resumed with Pupil B: grabbed by the shoulders, asked “how far do you think you can push me?” and “what would happen if I hit you?”, then the jail arithmetic β “if I hit you, I would go to jail for two years. If I beat you, I would go to jail for three years. Which one do you think I would prefer?” Pupil B answered “the second one”; Hicks replied “yes you’re right”, denied saying it, and the panel found otherwise. He punched the wall close to Pupil B’s head too. The panel found both boys were afraid, isolated from the rest of the class outside the classroom environment, and that a reasonable person would be shocked a teacher could behave that way.
The panel weighed a clean prior record, some remorse, his self-report to employers shortly after the conduct, and limited insight against the aggravating fact that the conduct continued after the chance to de-escalate, spanned two pupils, and that other methods existed which he chose not to use. It recommended prohibition with immediate effect β but with no review period, on the ground that his non-engagement meant he had failed to demonstrate sufficient insight and remorse. Oatley accepted the seriousness and the significant risk of repetition but came to a different view on the tail of the sanction: both incidents happened on one day, within a short period, by a teacher with no prior proceedings, so an eight-year review period β not a lifetime without hope of review β was the proportionate outcome.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case stayed inside the TRA’s published record β no press coverage of the incident, the hearing or the ban has been identified, and Downside School’s handling of it surfaces publicly only through the decision itself: the MyConcern logging, the allegation report form of 7 February 2025, and the suspension machinery that referred him on. Within the profession the consequences were total and immediate: a prohibition order with immediate effect, issued on the SoS’s behalf on 24 September 2026, bans him from any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. Because he did not engage with the proceedings, there is no public statement from Hicks beyond the admissions and denials recorded in the paperwork.
Current Status
As of the September 2026 decision, Hicks is prohibited from teaching indefinitely. He may apply for the order to be set aside from 1 October 2034 β eight years from the date of the order β and no earlier; the application is not automatic and a fresh panel would weigh whether the risk of repetition the current panel found significant has gone. Oatley’s departure from the panel’s no-review recommendation was reasoned, not lenient: the eight-year wait is among the longer review periods the regulator sets, reserved for cases where the behaviour was grave but the record offered mitigating context. There is no public record of Hicks working in education since the order.
Impact on Their Career/Life
An experienced science teacher’s career ended not over competence but over threats of violence delivered to two boys inside a single lesson β the panel found both incidents happened on one day within a short period of time, in which Hicks told pupils, in effect, that he had imagined hitting them and priced the prison sentence he would serve for it. The published decision now anchors his name permanently to the “alpha male” lesson at a Catholic boarding school, and the 2034 review date means the ban outlasts the entire secondary schooling of the pupils he taught that day. His non-participation to the end is itself part of the record: the panel found the absence left insight and remorse undemonstrated, and the SoS priced that in years.