Nathaneal Poultorak

Introduction

Nathaneal Poultorak was a special educational needs teacher at the Manchester Jewish School for Special Education, also known as T’mimei Lev, from 3 January 2019. In February 2021 a Teaching Regulation Agency professional conduct panel found proved that he hit a child, Child A, causing significant bruising and damage to her ear on or around 4 March 2019; that he hit another child, Child B, on one or more occasions; and that he was cautioned by the police for assaulting both children on or around 29 April 2019. The injuries to Child A were serious enough that she was admitted to hospital, where Poultorak made admissions about hitting both children. He attended the hearing unrepresented and admitted the allegations. Decision maker Sarah Buxcey banned him from teaching indefinitely — overriding the panel’s recommended five-year review period and imposing a ten-year one instead.

Background Information

The case broke through a hospital admission. On 4 March 2019, Child A was admitted to hospital having suffered an injury; Poultorak made admissions at the hospital in respect of both Child A and Child B, and the hospital referred the incident to social services and to the local authority designated officer. He was suspended from the school on 7 March 2019 pending investigation by the police, social services and the school. The police caution followed on 29 April 2019, and the school dismissed him on 17 June 2019 after a disciplinary hearing. At the regulatory stage he signed an amended statement of agreed and disputed facts with the presenting officer, admitted all three allegations in it and in his oral evidence, and the panel found them proved — supported by the police letter confirming the cautions, his admissions at the hospital, the school disciplinary meeting and the LADO meeting record. The panel noted the conduct took place outside the education setting but found the severity of Child A’s injuries and the admissions went beyond what might be described as reasonable chastisement and could affect his teaching role.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Cautions for assaulting two children in his care; one hospitalised with bruising and ear damage; admitted; banned indefinitely with a ten-year review — the decision maker overriding the panel’s five. Poultorak admitted hitting both children; the case proceeded on his admissions and the official records.

The panel found all three allegations proved on the agreed facts and his admissions. It found the offence of violence relevant under the Advice, and treated the severity of the injuries sustained by Child A — bruising and ear damage significant enough for hospital treatment — together with his admission at the hospital to hitting both children as taking the conduct beyond any chastisement justification. On mitigation, the panel received a character reference from a school where he had previously taught indicating a good history, but found insufficient evidence that the incidents were out of character; it found his actions deliberate with no duress. It noted he had cooperated with investigations at the time and proactively engaged with support services, but observed that he showed a lack of insight into the severity of the harm caused to Child A and the impact on the school and profession, showed no remorse during the hearing — though the LADO report recorded he had apologised to Child A — and did not fully understand the extent of his professional obligations as an unqualified teacher. No documentary evidence of steps taken since the incidents was presented.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel found a strong public interest in the protection of pupils given violence against Child A and Child B resulting in two police cautions, alongside public confidence and proper standards, and gave significant weight to the severity of the harm — injury and hospital treatment — and the involvement of the police, social services and the LADO. It recommended prohibition with a five-year review period, citing his cooperation with investigations and engagement with support services. Buxcey disagreed with that term. Weighing the actual bodily harm and inappropriate physical contact with children, the police caution, the lack of both insight and remorse, and the evidence that his actions were deliberate, she concluded a two-year-plus review at the panel’s level was not sufficient and imposed a ten-year review period instead — the longest single-term review the 2021 TRA stream produced for a non-custodial violence case. The published decision is the case’s main public record; the March 2019 hospital incident, the cautions and the ban all went unreported in the press, leaving the regulatory decision as the only public account.

Current Status

Poultorak is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. He may apply for the order to be set aside, but not until 20 February 2031 — ten years from the date of Buxcey’s order at the earliest — and an application is not an automatic right; a panel would decide whether the order should be lifted. The order takes effect from service, with a right of appeal to the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court within 28 days of notice. The panel’s determination is dated 15 February 2021, with Buxcey’s order dated 17 February 2021. The police cautions — accepted as the formal disposition for the assaults on both children — remain on his criminal record through the caution system, and his dismissal from the school preceded the regulatory case by twenty months. The prohibition applies across every child-facing educational setting in England regardless of qualified status.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case is a decision-maker-override precedent: the panel, balancing his cooperation, his engagement with support services and the apology recorded in the LADO report, landed on five years — and Buxcey’s substitution of ten years shows where the Secretary of State’s floor sits for violence against children whose harm required hospital treatment. The hearing record also captures the limit of late cooperation: his admissions at the hospital, at the school meeting and in the agreed facts simplified the case, but the panel found he demonstrated no insight into the severity of what he had done and no remorse in the room, and the absence of any documentary evidence of remedial steps in the two years between dismissal and hearing left the mitigation one-sided. For special education settings, the decision underlines that the regime’s scrutiny extends to conduct outside school hours and off school premises where the victims are children in the teacher’s care. For Poultorak, an unqualified teacher barely two months into the post when the March 2019 incident occurred, the ten-year review means the earliest possible return to the profession arrives in 2031, nine years after his last day in a classroom.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Nathaneal Poultorak” — source