Osman Barkat

Introduction

Osman Barkat is a former teacher at Brentfield Primary School in Neasden, London, who was banned from teaching for at least four years after admitting assaulting a pupil and other misconduct toward children at the school. Barkat pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm on Pupil A — an assault committed on 24 November 2020 — and was convicted at Willesden Magistrates’ Court on 18 February 2022, receiving a community order. He admitted before the Teaching Regulation Agency both the conviction and a string of earlier misconduct toward pupils; the decision maker, Sarah Buxcey, imposed an indefinite prohibition order on 11 December 2024 with a four-year review period, ruling that a lesser period “is not sufficient to achieve the aim of maintaining public confidence in the profession”.

Background Information

Barkat, born March 1990, worked as a teacher at Brentfield Primary School. The school had already dealt with local concerns about his conduct toward pupils before the assault: in February 2019 he shouted and swore at Pupil C and pulled Pupil C’s jumper, and further concerns about his conduct toward Pupils C and D were handled locally in 2019 and 2020. The November 2020 assault on Pupil A crossed the criminal line: Barkat was referred to a disciplinary hearing held on 28 May 2021, which concluded with his dismissal. He pleaded guilty at Willesden Magistrates’ Court and was convicted on 18 February 2022; sentence followed on 21 March 2022 in the form of a community order. The TRA panel convened from 12 to 13 November 2024, deciding the case on his signed admissions.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Admitted and convicted. The panel found proved, on Barkat’s admissions: that on 18 February 2022 he was convicted at Willesden Magistrates’ Court of assaulting Pupil A at Brentfield Primary School on 24 November 2020, occasioning actual bodily harm; and that in or around February 2019 he shouted and swore at Pupil C and pulled Pupil C’s jumper. He admitted the facts and that his conduct amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute.

The conviction needed no investigation at the regulator — Barkat’s guilty plea and the certificate of conviction fixed the facts of the assault, and his statement of agreed facts admitted the surrounding allegations from the school’s own history. The panel’s work was sanction. It found the relevant public-interest considerations engaged: the safeguarding of pupils, given a proven physical assault on a pupil and a pattern of mistreatment of younger children; the maintenance of public confidence; and the declaration of proper standards. It noted the Advice’s position that the commission of a serious criminal offence — particularly a conviction for violence against a pupil — weighs heavily toward prohibition, and that the earlier 2019 conduct toward Pupil C showed the assault was no isolated loss of temper. It first tested whether publication alone would suffice and rejected that: publication-only “would unacceptably compromise the public interest considerations present in the case”. It recommended prohibition with a four-year review period.

Public Reaction and Consequences

No press coverage attaches to the case; the published decision is the public record. The consequences ran from the criminal court through the regulator: the community order imposed at Willesden Magistrates’ Court in March 2022, and then the professional ban. Buxcey, adopting the panel’s recommendation on 11 December 2024, confirmed the four-year review period and stated that “a four year review period is required to satisfy the maintenance of public confidence in the profession”. Barkat is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. He retains a right of appeal to the High Court within 28 days of notice; the published record shows none was filed.

Current Status

Barkat is prohibited from teaching indefinitely, the order dated 11 December 2024 and effective from service. He may apply for the order to be set aside from 16 December 2028 — four years from the order — but this “is not an automatic right to have the prohibition order removed”: a fresh panel would then weigh whether the ban should lift, considering his conduct against the public interest at that date. Until any such application, the prohibition is total across England’s regulated education settings. His dismissal from Brentfield had already removed him from the classroom in 2021; the ban extends that consequence nationwide and into the next decade. The determination is dated 13 November 2024, with the decision maker’s order dated 11 December 2024.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Barkat’s case is the site’s clearest recent example of the regulator treating violence against a pupil as categorically ban-tier: a guilty plea, a community order rather than custody, and full admissions still produced an indefinite prohibition with a four-year gate. The decision shows how prior “local” resolutions resurface — the 2019 swearing and jumper-pulling toward Pupil C, handled internally without regulator involvement, became proved allegations that reframed the 2020 assault as a pattern rather than an incident. For schools, it is a case study in why local resolution of physical conduct toward pupils rarely stays local: the disciplinary file followed him to Willesden and then to Coventry. For teachers, it confirms that assault convictions arising from classroom conduct sit near the top of the sanction ladder, with the review window — not the ban itself — as the only variable an admission can influence.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Osman Barkat” — source