Owen Puttock

Introduction

Owen Puttock is a former assistant headteacher at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (EGA) School in London who was banned from teaching indefinitely in January 2026 after a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel found he had lied on his EGA job application. While working at La Retraite School, also as an assistant headteacher, he was given notice and placed on garden leave in March 2023. During that garden leave he applied to EGA, omitting La Retraite from his employment history and claiming an academic year off to care for his child. The panel found the conduct dishonest and recommended prohibition.

Background Information

Puttock had spent some 13 years at Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy, which he left in October 2022. A contract dated 28 September 2022 records his appointment as assistant headteacher at La Retraite School from 1 January 2023. On 27 March 2023 the school gave him notice and placed him on garden leave; his employment ended on 31 August 2023. On 9 May 2023, while on garden leave, he completed an application for the assistant headteacher job at EGA, and he started there on 1 September 2023. He resigned on 29 May 2024, and the matter was referred to the TRA on 6 June 2024.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Admitted, dishonesty case. Puttock admitted both allegations in a signed statement of agreed facts, and the case was decided without a hearing at his request; there was no criminal charge. The panel still made its own findings and concluded the deceptions were deliberate and dishonest, though it did not adjudicate the underlying conduct concerns that ended his La Retraite job.

On 27 March 2023 La Retraite’s headteacher wrote to Puttock confirming the decision to place him on garden leave “with immediate effect”, taken because of “concerns about your professional conduct over the last few weeks, but which has now culminated in me receiving a formal complaint about you …”. On his EGA application form of 9 May 2023, La Retraite went unmentioned: under “Current Employment” he answered “None provided”, and under previous employment he listed only Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy, which he said he had left in October 2022 “to look after second born child”. Asked whether he had gaps in employment, he answered “No”, and his supporting statement said he had left Victoria Park “to enable me to look after my child for an academic year during her early development”. He ticked the box confirming the information was true and accurate.

The panel found he had deliberately omitted La Retraite “in order to avoid scrutiny of the reason(s) for his dismissal from La Retraite”, and had also falsely stated he was not working at any school between October 2022 and May 2023. Applying the test in Ivey v Genting Casinos, it found him objectively dishonest on four counts and “intentionally dishonest about his past employment during the recruitment process”, having made “a conscious decision to omit information from his employment history”. It also found the conduct lacked integrity. His explanation, that a previous HR professional had told him the short La Retraite role need not be declared, did not save him.

Puttock admitted the allegations in a statement of agreed facts signed on 18 November 2025 and countersigned by the presenting officer on 26 November 2025. Notwithstanding the admissions, the panel made its own determination, finding all particulars proved on the balance of probabilities. It concluded the conduct amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute, breached the Teachers’ Standards, and “seriously undermined the safer recruitment requirements set out in Keeping children safe in education 2023 which are in place to safeguard pupils’ wellbeing”. No offence from the regulator’s relevant list was engaged.

Public Reaction and Consequences

There was no hearing: the TRA agreed to Puttock’s request that the case be decided without one, and the panel met in private by virtual means on 19 January 2026. His employment consequences had already landed: he resigned from EGA in May 2024 and the school referred him to the regulator days later. In mitigation he said diagnoses, redacted in the published decision, had affected his judgement, but he provided no medical evidence, and he said he felt “profoundly regretful” without elaborating. The panel found no insight beyond the impact on himself, his reputation and his family, and did not consider that he “had shown any insight into the seriousness of the potential safeguarding consequences of interfering with schools’ safer recruitment processes by omitting information and providing knowingly false information”. It judged his dishonesty at the lower end, aware of no direct harm, but still recommended prohibition.

Current Status

Puttock is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. The decision maker, David Oatley, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, confirmed the panel’s recommended two-year review period on 20 January 2026. He may apply for the order to be set aside, but not until 7 February 2028 at the earliest, and that is not an automatic right: a fresh panel would decide. The order takes effect when served, and he has 28 days from notice of it to appeal to the High Court. The outcome was published on 23 February 2026.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A senior role in secondary education is closed off: prohibition bars him from teaching and, in practice, from the school leadership posts he held at both La Retraite and EGA. Any return requires waiting until 7 February 2028, applying to have the order set aside, and persuading a panel that prohibition should end, with no guarantee of success; without that, the ban is indefinite. The panel’s stated reason for the two-year window was to give him the chance to reflect on the seriousness of his behaviour and explore how to avoid repetition.

Sources

• Teaching Regulation Agency, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Owen Puttock,” published 23 February 2026 — source