Michelle Stant
Introduction
Michelle Stant is a former teacher who was banned from teaching in England for life in October 2025, after a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel found she had turned up at two special schools unfit to work, drunk alcohol on duty at the second, and then airbrushed the first school from her job application. A professional conduct panel sitting on 6 to 9 October 2025 found all five allegations against her proved and guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute; Stant, who neither attended nor sent representation, had admitted them in writing.
Background Information
Stant began teaching at Oakwood Community School on 29 October 2020, but resigned the same day as a November incident there; a planned TRA investigation into that incident was deferred. She next joined Friars Academy, part of the Better Together Learning Trust in Northamptonshire, on 4 January 2024, signing her application form on 16 December 2023. On 1 May 2024 she resigned from Friars too, hours after colleagues raised concerns and a first-aider tasted neat alcohol in her water bottle.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Alcohol on school premises at two schools, and a falsified job history.
On 25 November 2020, at Oakwood Community School, Stant drove her car into a gate and into a bollard in the school car park. A witness described seeing a woman clip the green front gate before the car continued into the car park; the panel matched that description to photographs of the damaged gate and bollard and found Stant was the driver. The panel found she knew, or should reasonably have known, she was unfit to drive that morning: Stant admitted in a 2021 email to the TRA that she recalled feeling “lost and extremely light-headed and unsafe to drive”. She phoned a colleague repeatedly that morning to say she had been sick and had collided with a taxi; that witness never saw her arrive at the school, but two other staff had to help her from her car into the building, where she was hyperventilating and unsteady on her feet. A small unopened bottle of red wine was found in her coat pocket, and although one colleague smelled alcohol on her, the panel was not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that she was under the influence of alcohol that day — only that she knew she was unfit to drive. She resigned from Oakwood the same day.
Nearly three and a half years later, on 1 May 2024 at Friars Academy, colleagues saw her stumbling and unsteady on her feet. A first-aider who had previously been a state registered paramedic was called to her at about 12:40pm and found her water bottle roughly a quarter full; the witness smelled the liquid, took a sip and confirmed it tasted like neat alcohol. A colleague’s contemporaneous note recorded Stant drinking from the same bottle during a lesson. The panel concluded she had brought the alcohol onto the premises herself, consumed it during the morning and then became under the influence while at work; it noted there was no evidence she had arrived under the influence, and set aside as unsupported her suggestion that the bottle had been spiked. She resigned later the same day.
The third strand was dishonesty. On her Friars application form, which warned that deliberately omitted information could result in dismissal, Stant left out Oakwood Community School altogether, writing in her supporting statement that she had “been working as a supply teacher in special schools, working as an online teacher during school closures as part of the NTP” instead. She also said nothing about the pending TRA investigation into the Oakwood incident. The panel accepted the form had no explicit box requiring that disclosure and that she had not been dishonest on that limb — but held that a teacher ought reasonably to have volunteered it, and that the omission showed a lack of integrity. Stant admitted the dishonesty allegation arising from the omitted job history, which the panel found proved.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The panel found the dishonesty was a deliberate attempt to conceal her Oakwood employment rather than explain why she had left, amounting to misconduct of a serious nature that fell significantly short of the standards expected of a teacher. It also cited her driving to work while unfit — conduct Stant herself had called irresponsible and dangerous, putting herself, the public and everyone at the school at risk of harm. The panel noted she had shown some insight and remorse and had engaged with the TRA throughout, but was “not satisfied that there would not be a future risk to pupils and/or members of the public”: in 2021 she had said her behaviour would never be repeated, yet in 2024 it was effectively repeated. It therefore recommended a prohibition order with a three-year review period, which decision maker Sarah Buxcey confirmed on behalf of the Secretary of State on 13 October 2025.
Current Status
Stant is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. The order takes effect from the date it is served on her, and she has a right of appeal to the High Court within 28 days of notice. She may apply for the order to be set aside, but not before 20 October 2028 — three years from the order at the earliest — and this is not an automatic right: a panel would have to consider and agree, and without a successful application she remains prohibited indefinitely.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The ban ends Stant’s teaching career in England indefinitely, extending beyond schools to sixth form colleges, youth accommodation and children’s homes. The panel did not accept that the incidents were out of character, was not referred to any character evidence, and placed particular weight on her dishonesty and the potential harm to pupils in concluding that the public interest outweighed any interest in retaining her in the profession. Because the case involved fraud or serious dishonesty — a category the panel said weighs in favour of a longer wait — both the panel and the decision maker settled on three years before any application to set the order aside, rather than the two-year minimum, to maintain public confidence in the profession.