THE Department for Education appeared yesterday to blame head teachers for allowing sex offenders into the classroom by claiming that it was their duty to check supply teachers’ criminal records. Teaching leaders reacted with amazement, saying that they had never heard of the policy.
John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “You are employing possibly as many as 100 or more supply teachers in a year often at very short notice. It can be that you phone at 8.30 in the morning and they are in at 9.15. The faultlines in the system are not with head teachers.” He aaded that heads expected recruitment agencies to make checks. “That’s part of the service that we pay for.”
The Government appeared to have prepared a co-ordinated media response to gaps in child protection exposed by the case of William Gibson, a sex offender who was cleared to teach by Ms Kelly last January.
Mr Gibson was thrown out of three schools when his record for indecently assaulting a 15-year-old pupil emerged.
He found a more forgiving approach from Step Teachers agency, whose director, James Newman, says that he “undertakes not to discriminate against an application on the basis of a conviction”. Step Teachers placed Mr Gibson with a school in Bournemouth, which also suspended him.
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The agency had not told the school that he was an offender, saying that it was forbidden by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) from divulging details. The Home Office confirmed that CRB checks cannot be disclosed to third parties. But a spokeswoman said: “An organisation can ask the person being supplied to bring with them their copy of the CRB check.”
A DfES spokesman said: “Both the school and the supply agency should carry out those checks. The head can ask the individual concerned to show their enhanced disclosure.”
The Times asked when that advice had been given to schools. “Heads have been aware of our longstanding guidance,” the spokesman added.The advice could not be found on the DfES website yesterday.
Last night it emerged that two years ago an education authority in East Sussex raised concerns with the DfES about “inappropriate behaviour” by a deputy head, Nigel Jackson, from Seaford. He continued working, and yeseterday he pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a 15-year-old girl and was remanded in custody.
David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, accused Ms Kelly of misleading the Commons after The Times disclosed that people with convictions for child offences and who were on List 99 had remained free to work in schools. Ms Kelly told MPs last week that List 99 “bars them for life from working in schools”.
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“The Times has shown that List 99 is not a lifetime ban but Ruth Kelly told the House of Commons the opposite,” Mr Willetts said.