Mrs Susan Grady

Introduction

Mrs Susan Grady is a former teacher and pastoral support worker at Newlands Junior School in Nottinghamshire who was prohibited from teaching indefinitely in June 2023 after a professional conduct panel found she used unreasonable force against a vulnerable pupil during a behavioural incident, holding him by the wrist against the school’s own procedures. Grady attended her hearing, was represented by her union, and admitted holding the pupil’s wrist but denied dragging, lifting or pushing him, allegations the panel found not proven. Her case is the rare contested ban in which the panel found no doubt about her abilities as an educator, and it carried the lightest sanction of any prohibition order: a two-year review period the decision maker accepted in full.

Background Information

Grady worked at Newlands Junior School as a teacher and pastoral support worker. The incident occurred on 20 November 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she was managing her class alone: teaching assistants were absent, the pupil concerned, Pupil A, had not received his usual mentoring, and restrictions had removed the focused exercise and play opportunities that normally regulated his day. She described a pupil whose behaviour included rocking on chairs, banging tables, throwing items and hitting objects, often without understanding the impact of his actions. The panel heard her case at Cheylesmore House from 13 to 16 June 2023, with Mrs Grady present and represented by Mr Nicholas Kennan of Cornwall Street Barristers, instructed by the National Education Union.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Unreasonable force on a pupil. Admitted and found proved on a single particular; the panel found the allegations of dragging, lifting and pushing not proven. A regulatory finding, not a criminal case.

The panel found that on 20 November 2020 Grady used unreasonable force against Pupil A by holding his left wrist, in breach of the school’s behaviour management procedure and its managing risky behaviours procedure, admissions she made in evidence. Her account was that she took the pupil by the wrist to stop him returning to class and causing further disruption or harm after he had spent the afternoon shouting, dribbling water onto a worksheet, tapping a ruler across a desk and rocking his chair into another pupil’s table. The panel accepted her recollection as detailed and internally consistent, and found insufficient evidence that she dragged him, held him under his arms, or pushed him, noting a witness’s doubts about whether she could have lifted the child at all while holding open a heavy fire door.

The panel found she failed to safeguard the pupil’s wellbeing by the same act, and observed that strategies had been put in place to assist her with managing behaviours in her class which, by her own admission, she had not employed on this occasion. The incident was a single event on a single day, but the panel treated the breach of the school’s procedures and the use of force on a pupil as incompatible with continued teaching.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel found a strong public interest in the protection of pupils, but unusually also found a strong public interest in retaining Grady in the profession, since no doubt had been cast on her abilities as an educator and she was able to make a valuable contribution. It weighed the mitigating circumstances the pandemic context placed around the incident, the absent support structures, and her candour in admitting what she had done. It nevertheless concluded that a published decision not backed up by full insight did not satisfy public confidence, and recommended a prohibition order with a two-year review period. The decision maker agreed with the panel and adopted its reasoning wholesale, deciding that a two-year review period was proportionate and in the public interest in this case.

Current Status

The decision was made by Sarah Buxcey on behalf of the Secretary of State on 20 June 2023, following the panel’s determination of 16 June 2023. Mrs Susan Grady 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 prohibition order to be set aside, but not until 20 June 2025, two years from the date of the order, at the earliest; an application is not an automatic right to have the order removed, and without a successful application she remains prohibited for life. The order took effect from service on her, and she had a right of appeal to the King’s Bench Division of the High Court within 28 days.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Grady’s ban shows how the regulator treats physical force against pupils even when every mitigating factor points the other way: a teacher with undoubted ability, union representation, a single admitted act, and three of four force allegations found unproven still lost her career, because holding a child by the wrist against procedure crossed the line the profession draws absolutely. Her review window opened in June 2025, the soonest of any case in the TRA’s ban tier, and her admissions and the panel’s acceptance of her honesty give any application a stronger footing than most.

Sources

• Teaching Regulation Agency, “Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mrs Susan Grady” — source