Racheal Lockwood

Introduction

Racheal Lockwood taught at Our Lady and St Peter RC Primary School in Bridlington from January 2013 until March 2020. In June 2022 a Teaching Regulation Agency professional conduct panel found that on 15 October 2019 she told a vulnerable pupil she would like to punch him in the arm or face, threatened to stop him seeing his father by calling social services, pushed him in the stomach and rib cage, and pushed him backwards onto the floor. Lockwood admitted only the first comment and denied the rest; the panel, proceeding in her absence at the hearing, found every allegation proved. Decision maker Sarah Buxcey banned her from teaching indefinitely with a two-year review period.

Background Information

Pupil A was subject to protective arrangements when he joined the school, which is why the panel treated him as vulnerable; the school typically had only a small number of such pupils at any one time. The incident unfolded over an afternoon: witnesses described Lockwood becoming angry at the boy for his behaviour, asking him to come over while she sat at a table, and making the punching remark and the social-services threat. A colleague’s contemporaneous handwritten note recorded the events of the afternoon and was accepted as accurate; in oral evidence she demonstrated where Lockwood’s hands were placed — ribs and stomach — when she pushed him. The boy himself recounted being pushed and apologised to afterwards, saying he forgave her. Following the events, the school’s disciplinary process led to Lockwood’s dismissal and a referral to the TRA.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Denied, then found proved in her absence: physical push to the floor plus a social-services threat against a vulnerable child; two-year review.

Lockwood admitted the “punch you in the arm or maybe the face” remark but denied the social-services threat, the pushing and the fall, and denied the conduct amounted to unacceptable professional conduct at all. The panel found the two witnesses — Individual A and Individual B — straightforward and measured, without embellishment, and preferred their accounts and the contemporaneous note to Lockwood’s written statement, parts of which it rejected. It treated the threat to obstruct a child’s contact with his father by invoking social services as particularly serious misuse of institutional power, and found the physical contact — a push to the torso that toppled the boy backwards — proved as an assault in substance. Her absence from the hearing meant no challenge to the evidence, and the panel also weighed that she had effectively denied the allegations throughout, shown no insight, and expressed no remorse — all treated as aggravating.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel found all three public-interest factors engaged: protection of pupils, maintenance of public confidence, and declaring proper standards, with the case’s core described as inappropriate language and physical contact with a vulnerable pupil. Buxcey called the pupil a vulnerable primary school child in her own decision and concluded that a two-year review period was required; anything shorter would not maintain confidence, and a lifetime bar without review was not needed on these facts. The published decision is the case’s main public record; the 2019 incident and dismissal attracted no press coverage. The case sits in the physical-contact tier of TRA outcomes, alongside restraint and grabbing cases, distinguished by the vulnerability finding and the social-services threat.

Current Status

Lockwood is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. She may apply for the order to be set aside, but not until 1 July 2024 — two years from the date of Buxcey’s order, 28 June 2022, at the earliest — and a set-aside application is not automatic; a panel would decide whether the order should be lifted. The panel’s determination is dated 24 June 2022. She retains a right of appeal to the King’s Bench Division of the High Court within 28 days of notice of the order.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The case demonstrates how a single afternoon’s conduct, witnessed by colleagues and recorded contemporaneously, can end a nine-year career — and how denial without insight pushes a sanction upward, since the panel expressly listed her blanket denials and absence of remorse as aggravating. The social-services threat gave the case its distinctive severity: threatening a vulnerable child with losing contact with his father weaponised the child-protection system itself, which regulators treat as an abuse of position rather than simple misconduct. For Lockwood the arithmetic of the order means her earliest realistic return to teaching was mid-2024, six years after the incident and four after her dismissal — and only if a future panel accepted she had gained the insight absent from the hearing.

Sources

• Dept for Education, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mrs Racheal Lockwood” — source