Robert MacCallum

Introduction

Robert MacCallum is a former PE teacher and head of Year 12 at William Hulme’s Grammar School in Manchester who was prohibited from teaching indefinitely after a Teaching Regulation Agency panel found he took a former pupil — a vulnerable student he had mentored throughout her time at the school — on a night out, kissed her, arranged and paid for a hotel room, and had sexual intercourse with her, then lied to his school about all of it. MacCallum, who was present and represented at a contested five-day hearing, denied the relationship was inappropriate; the panel found the core allegations proved on the evidence, and decision maker Alan Meyrick imposed the ban on 11 November 2022, overriding the panel’s two-year review recommendation upward to five years.

Background Information

MacCallum joined William Hulme’s Grammar School on 1 September 2008 as a PE teacher and head of Year 12, and was the head of year for Pupil A throughout her time at the school. Pupil A later described the relationship as creating a situation of dependency, and told the panel that MacCallum would pull her out of lessons to talk in his office, arranged for her timetable to be amended so she worked with him instead of attending class, guarded her from disciplinary consequences, and once told her, “I just want to wrap you up in bubble wrap and protect you”. The school first received a third-party complaint from another former pupil raising concerns about the relationship; the LADO initially accepted MacCallum’s account of a chance meeting, its advice recorded as, “Although not illegal, it feels uncomfortable”. After Pupil A herself disclosed the relationship, the school opened a second internal investigation; a disciplinary hearing followed on 16 October 2020 and his employment was terminated by mutual consent on 31 October 2020, with the referral to the TRA logged the same month.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Proved at a contested hearing. MacCallum denied an inappropriate relationship and gave evidence in his own defence. The panel disbelieved key parts of his account and found the hotel-night allegations, the surrounding dishonesty and the concealment from his school proved on the balance of probabilities. The findings are adjudicated facts, though no criminal charge arose from the case.

The panel found that on the night in question MacCallum met Pupil A, then a former pupil but still a person to whom he owed the trust built as her head of year, stayed drinking with her, told her she was pretty and kissed her; that he then suggested a hotel because her home was not an option, booked it and paid for it; and that sexual intercourse took place — a finding it made on Pupil A’s “consistent and measured” evidence, expressly preferring it to his account of sitting in the room all night as “somewhat implausible”. Around it, the panel found a sustained cover-up: confronted by his school, MacCallum denied any affair, claimed he had merely “bumped into” her in a bar by chance, and denied having her phone number or texting her — while a message screenshot showed him communicating with her and thanking her for suggesting “an inaccurate version of events”, and his own admission in an investigation meeting that he regretted having “not been totally open” and had “keep important facts” from his employer. Allegations about gifts, cards and 1:1 contact during her schooldays were not proved, and the panel set them aside; what remained — the night, the dishonesty within the education setting, and the failure to disclose — it found amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel heard testimony that MacCallum was a respected, popular member of staff, with references describing him as dedicated and empathetic, and a statement from his long-term partner saying she had forgiven him and trusted his version of events. It concluded nonetheless that his misconduct “did affect the wellbeing of Pupil A”, that his actions were deliberate, and that his regret at being caught — he described his dishonesty as flowing from “fear of the potential consequences” and damage to his personal relationship — did not amount to full insight. MacCallum characterised the hotel night as merely “inadvisable”; the panel disagreed, as did the decision maker, who called the abuse-of-trust finding particularly serious.

Current Status

MacCallum is prohibited from teaching indefinitely with immediate effect from the 11 November 2022 order. The panel recommended a two-year review period; Meyrick rejected that as insufficient weight to the vulnerability of a pupil who had described the relationship as creating dependency, and set a five-year review — he may apply to set the order aside no earlier than 17 November 2027, and an application is not an automatic right. Without a successful application he remains barred from teaching in any school, sixth-form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England.

Impact on Their Career/Life

An eighteen-year career that survived one LADO investigation collapsed when the person at its centre disclosed what had happened; the decision records the discipline as mutual-consent termination in October 2020 and the ban in November 2022. The case is the regulator’s illustration that the pupil-teacher relationship does not expire at the school gate: the panel accepted the contact occurred after Pupil A left the school, and barred him anyway, because the relationship was “rooted” in the trust and dependency his head-of-year role created. The upward override of the review period is its second lesson — dishonesty toward the employer converted a post-employment relationship case into one the decision maker treated as carrying a longer road back than the panel proposed.

Sources

• Teaching Regulation Agency (GOV.UK), “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Robert MacCallum,” Nov 11, 2022 — source