Emma Kelly

Introduction

Emma Kelly is a former primary school teacher whose career ended over the falsification of national curriculum test data. In December 2022, the Secretary of State for Education prohibited her from teaching indefinitely after a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) professional conduct panel found she had caused the maladministration of Key Stage 2 writing assessments — passing off heavily guided work as independent pupil work — dishonestly, to unfairly improve assessment outcomes. The cheating surfaced because letters written by eight pupils in her Year 6 class were near-identical to one another and to a model letter Kelly had assembled from a Louis Sachar novel .

Background Information

Kelly was born on 26 September 1993 (teacher ref 1588337; TRA reference 18162). She began her newly qualified teacher (NQT) year at Colburn Community Primary School in North Yorkshire in September 2016, teaching Year 4, and moved to Year 6 in September 2017 — the cohort whose Key Stage 2 results depend on teacher assessment of writing. Her colleague Individual D, whose case was heard jointly with hers, had worked at the school since 1 September 2010. The panel noted Kelly’s previous good history: witnesses described her as keen in her newly qualified role and said she had a successful first year, though no character references were submitted .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

The allegations concerned the academic year 2017/18. On 18 May 2018, the school was informed it had been selected for external moderation of Key Stage 2 English writing. On 15 June 2018, during a Governor Cross Curricular visit, Witness A identified concerns about the Year 6 pupils’ English books, and two local authority officers then investigated on behalf of the Standards and Testing Agency (STA). On 16 July 2018, the STA told the school the integrity of the writing assessment judgments was not secure and annulled the Key Stage 2 English writing outcomes for every pupil in the cohort. On 26 October 2018, after considering further evidence, it advised that certain pupils would receive no results for the Key Stage 2 tests at all — no overall standard for English grammar, punctuation and spelling, English reading or mathematics. Kelly and Individual D both resigned on 31 December 2018 .

The panel’s key evidence centred on work begun on 21 May 2018 by eight pupils, based on the novel “Holes” by Louis Sachar. The task was to choose a character and write a letter home to the character’s mother. On 23 May 2018, Individual D emailed Kelly a paragraph discussing the counsellors at Camp Green Lake; the same paragraph appears in a letter that Stanley, the novel’s main character, writes to his “mum”. Kelly said she had assembled the letter herself to celebrate the pupils’ work. The panel disbelieved that innocent explanation: it found “significant and striking similarities” between each pupil’s work and Kelly’s letter, in the order and topic of paragraphs, their structure, phrasing, punctuation and vocabulary. Pupil C’s letter opened “I’m writing to you to confess: Camp Green Lake is dreadful.” Kelly’s version opened “I am writing to tell you the truth: Camp Green Lake is horrific.” Every pupil’s letter had five paragraphs in the same order on the same topics, and the final paragraph tracked the National Curriculum word list for Years 5 and 6, drawing on words such as environment, dehydration, equipment, desperate, conscious, immediately, muscle and stomach .

On that evidence, the panel found Kelly had provided support amounting to excessive scaffolding and then passed the work off as independent for assessment — the single established date being 21 May 2018. Allegation 1 was proved. Her claim that assessment guidance gave teachers discretion was rejected: she had attended training on the guidance, which states that writing is not independent if modelled, heavily scaffolded, copied or paraphrased. Finding she had knowingly breached it and could personally gain through improved results, the panel applied the standard of ordinary decent people and found her conduct dishonest and a lack of integrity: Allegation 2, seeking to unfairly improve assessment outcomes, was also proved. The allegations were not admitted, and particulars about indicating answers during tests and providing prohibited equipment had been discontinued for insufficient evidence .

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel found the proven conduct amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute, breaching the Teachers’ Standards on upholding public trust and acting within statutory frameworks. It noted that public confidence in the profession could be seriously weakened if such conduct were not treated with the utmost seriousness, and that Kelly’s dishonesty and the violation of pupils’ rights weighed heavily — one pupil told investigators, “When I would do work by myself with my own ideas Miss Kelly would sometimes tell me to stop and look at the example of the board and use that.” Kelly attended the hearing, represented by Mr Simon Harding of The 36 Group Chambers, and did not accept the findings; the panel saw no evidence of insight or remorse and was not reassured the conduct would not be repeated. It recommended a prohibition order with immediate effect and a four-year review period .

Current Status

On 8 December 2022, decision maker John Knowles, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, imposed a prohibition order that takes effect from the date it is served. Miss Emma Kelly 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 13 December 2026 — four years from the date of the order — and such an application is not an automatic right; without a successful application, the indefinite prohibition stands. She also has a right of appeal to the King’s Bench Division of the High Court within 28 days of notice of the order .

Impact on Their Career/Life

The ban ended a teaching career roughly six years after it began; Kelly had already resigned from Colburn Community Primary School at the end of 2018, while the investigation was still running. Because the finding rests on serious dishonesty, rehabilitation runs through the TRA: she must wait until December 2026 even to apply, and a fresh panel would then decide whether the prohibition should be lifted. The annulments also erased the entire cohort’s writing outcomes, so her pupils carried a real cost for the inflated assessments. The published decision remains a permanent, searchable record that she tampered with national assessment data .

Sources

• Department for Education, “Miss Emma Kelly: Professional conduct panel outcome” — source