Megan Lanning

Introduction

Megan Lanning is a former teacher of performing arts and music at Ripplevale School and College in Rochester, Kent, banned from teaching for life in April 2025 after admitting an inappropriate, sexually motivated relationship with a pupil. Over roughly a week in February 2024, Lanning exchanged Instagram messages and late-night phone calls with the pupil, told him she had feelings for him, sent him photographs of herself undressed, and gave him gifts — before reporting herself to the school’s headteacher and safeguarding lead. The Teaching Regulation Agency panel that heard the case found every allegation proved on her own admissions and recommended a prohibition order without any review period, a recommendation the decision maker accepted.

Background Information

Ripplevale School and College in Rochester is a special school and college serving pupils with special educational needs — the panel’s decision repeatedly describes Pupil A as a vulnerable individual. Lanning taught performing arts and music there from 3 January 2018 until 19 March 2024, meaning she had worked at the school for more than six years when the conduct surfaced. A former colleague who provided a character reference described her as dedicated to school performances, band practices and singing lessons, and said she had never had concerns about her conduct across their seven years working together. The pupil at the centre of the case — Pupil A in the decision — was a pupil at the school, and the conduct began days after a school-related event.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated vs. alleged. Lanning admitted all of the allegations in a signed statement of agreed facts, and the panel found every particular proved. There is no contested allegation in this case and no criminal charge; the findings rest on her own admissions.

The conduct began on the Friday evening after Pupil A left the school in February 2024. The pupil told investigators that Lanning first contacted him through Instagram, then the two began speaking on the phone; across roughly a week they had four or five calls, often into the night, and messaged daily. Lanning played him a song she had recorded on her phone, told him she had feelings for him, and later wrote in her submissions that she “just wanted to give [them] all of me and wanted [them] to think I was amazing”. During the same week she sent him two photographs of herself in a state of undress — in her own account to the headteacher, one showed her topless and in the other her lower half was covered by her hand in a way she accepted “could possibly be seen as her performing a sexual act” — and gave him gifts, including a card praising his songwriting. A colleague, Witness A, told the panel Lanning came to her saying she needed to report herself, having exchanged numbers with the pupil and developed strong feelings for him. Lanning’s written statement described feeling “wrapped up in one another” with the pupil.

The panel found the conduct was both of a sexual nature and sexually motivated: the undressed photographs were “inherently sexual in nature”, and applying the test from Basson v General Medical Council, it found she was pursuing either sexual gratification or a sexual relationship, with no plausible innocent explanation. In mitigation, Lanning described the affair as a lapse during a period of poor stress management and said she had since begun therapy and counselling; she self-reported the conduct the same week. The panel accepted her remorse as genuine — she called the affair “such lunacy” in hindsight — but concluded it was “an unforgivable lapse of judgment involving a vulnerable individual and an abuse of trust” at the more serious end of the spectrum, and recommended prohibition without a review period despite the mitigation.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Lanning was dismissed following the school’s investigation into her conduct. The panel noted that the pupil was still of school age when the conduct occurred and that she held a position of power and authority over him, findings that weighed heavily against any lighter sanction. In her submissions she wrote that she was “living in constant fear that it will come out in the newspapers” and that she felt “disgusted and repulsed” by her own actions. The school referred the matter to the TRA, which convened the professional conduct panel meeting in April 2025 — held in her absence on agreed facts signed the previous December — roughly a year after the conduct and after her dismissal. No criminal proceedings are recorded in the decision.

Current Status

The panel’s determination issued on 3 April 2025, and on 4 April 2025 Marc Cavey, the decision maker appointed by the Secretary of State, prohibited Lanning from teaching indefinitely with no review period and no entitlement to apply for restoration of her eligibility to teach. The order bars her from any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England, and because it carries no review window, she cannot apply to have it set aside at any point in the future. She retains a 28-day right of appeal to the High Court, which she has not exercised in any published record. She is one of the minority of banned teachers whose order expressly denies even the theoretical possibility of restoration.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A career that spanned six years at a single special school — with a character reference describing genuine commitment to vulnerable pupils — ended permanently in a single week of February 2024. Lanning told the panel the consequences had been “so hard to bear”, that she had begun working with a counsellor, and that she could see in hindsight how vulnerable Pupil A was; the panel’s acceptance of her remorse did not soften the outcome, because the sexual nature of the conduct and the pupil’s vulnerability outweighed it entirely. For the school, the case illustrates both the speed at which a boundary breach can escalate and the fact that self-reporting, while treated as genuine mitigation, does not shield a teacher from the severest tier of sanction where the conduct is sexually motivated. The lifetime, no-review ban places her in the same category as teachers who committed far more extensive abuse — a point the panel itself acknowledged when it described the case as isolated but unforgivable.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Miss Megan Lanning” — source