Maria Solera Marquez

Introduction

Maria Solera Marquez was a class teacher at The Village School, a special school in Kingsbury, London, when a member of the Brent special school nursing team reported in October 2020 that she had seen the teacher come at a frightened, non-verbal pupil with a pair of scissors “in a chopping action” to make him comply. The investigation that followed found the scissors technique was not a one-off — multiple independent witnesses described it — and that she had also used a second pupil as a tool, chasing and scaring him to make Pupil A obey. Suspended and then dismissed in February 2021, she admitted the allegations on agreed facts. On 10 May 2022 decision maker Alan Meyrick banned her from teaching for life, with a four-year review period — longer than the panel recommended — citing her lack of understanding of why the conduct was wrong.

Background Information

Solera Marquez worked at The Village School from September 2019 until her dismissal in February 2021. Pupil A was vulnerable and non-verbal, scared of scissors and of having his hair cut — facts she knew, the allegations stated. On 22 October 2020 Pupil A was due to be weighed as part of his health review but sat on the ground outside the classroom refusing to cooperate. The reporting nurse’s contemporaneous email recorded what happened next: “The class teacher Maria then came out with a pair of scissors in a chopping action towards [Pupil A], [Pupil A] got up as he seen the scissors as he appeared scared and ran into the classroom.” Another member of the nursing team and another teacher witnessed the incident and corroborated the account. A report on 23 October 2020 triggered her suspension, the school’s investigation, and her dismissal four months later.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Used scissors as a compliance tool against a scared, non-verbal, vulnerable pupil and used a second pupil to frighten him, at a special school; admitted; banned with a four-year review.

The allegation 1(a) she admitted was using scissors as a behavioural management technique on one or more occasions including 22 October 2020, knowing Pupil A feared scissors and haircuts and knowing he was vulnerable and non-verbal; allegation 1(b) was using Pupil B — chasing and scaring him — to force Pupil A’s compliance; allegation 2 was that this was done without parental permission. In her own interview she said the scissors were sometimes used as “a tool for [Pupil A’s] personal and best interests”. The panel found the multiple independent accounts compelling and treated the admissions, in the statement of agreed facts of 22 February 2022, as proof of all particulars. It found her conduct fell significantly short of the standards of the profession — dignity of pupils, safeguarding, statutory frameworks — and noted expressly that it did not rely on the school’s internal investigation findings, resting instead on the agreed facts and the witness evidence before it.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel weighed real mitigation: she expressed regret for her actions and their impact, and had a previous good teaching record. But it found she lacked full insight and failed to understand the seriousness of what she had done, particularly from a safeguarding perspective — and it was alarmed by one post-dismissal act: her decision to telephone the parents of Pupil A and Pupil B after the dismissal decision to explain her version of events, which the panel called a serious lack of judgment. Weighing “the serious nature of her actions and her lack of understanding of the consequences of her actions”, the panel recommended a review period longer than the usual two years — four. Meyrick agreed that prohibition was necessary to maintain public confidence, gave less weight to her contribution to the profession, and adopted the four-year structure: any application to set the order aside cannot come before 2026.

Current Status

Solera Marquez is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. The prohibition carries a four-year review period — she may apply for the order to be set aside, but not until 2026 at the earliest, and the decision warns this is not an automatic right; a panel would have to be satisfied the prohibition should lift, which the decision maker tied to her demonstrating that she understood the safeguarding concerns which led to it. Her dismissal from The Village School in February 2021 preceded the ban by fifteen months. The decision is published in full, including the nursing team’s email account and her own explanation of the scissors as being in the pupil’s interests.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case is the register’s clearest statement that in special education, fear is not a management technique: the gravamen was not injury — none is recorded — but the deliberate use of a vulnerable non-verbal child’s known phobia as leverage, and the conscription of a second child into the scheme. The four-year review, unusually long for an admitted case of this kind, was the system’s answer to her stated belief that the scissors served the pupil’s interests: the panel and the decision maker both located the risk not in the single October morning but in her failure to see anything wrong in it. Her calls to the parents after dismissal deepened that finding. For SEND settings, the decision documents the reporting pathway working from inside the health team — a nurse’s contemporaneous email, corroboration, suspension, dismissal, referral, and a published lifetime ban.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mrs Maria Solera Marquez” — source