I heard last night that David Aldridge (the teacher who shepherded me through GCSE Maths) was sacked this week following a long suspension.

If you’ll pardon the pun, it does not add up.

The Case In Brief

Back in December 2005, it was alleged that Mr. Aldridge had physically assaulted a pupil. He was arrested and immediately suspended from teaching at Olchfa School. In February 2006 South Wales Police confirmed that Mr. Aldridge would not face any criminal charges in connection with the allegation.

Is The System Broken?

A system of checks and balances is in place to ensure that children in our schools are protected from any kind of physical or psychological abuse. The chain of responsibility extends from every school employee through the governing body of the school, through the UK courts, right up to the European courts.

In this case, that system has failed, it is only the nature of that failure that is not yet clear.

The possible descriptions of the failure are as follows:

1. Scenario 1: If Mr. Aldridge did assault the pupil as alleged, then the system failed because the pupil was not protected in the first place. This failure was compounded because Mr. Aldridge continued to be employed for the eight months after February 2006.
2. Scenario 2: If Mr. Aldridge did not assault the pupil, then the system was a partial success, because he was suspended whilst the police investigation was carried out, but it later failed because he was not re-instated when no charges were brought.

There can be no middle ground because our criminal justice system is based on the fundamental principle that the accused is innocent until proven guilty.

What’s shocking to the casual observer is that Mr. Aldridge has not been proven guilty, he’s not even been charged, yet he’s been sacked.

That’s not justice, that’s the system failing.

My Recollection

I was a pupil in Mr. Aldridge’s class for approximately two years. He was my deputy head of year too. His approach was so laid back and non-confrontational that I can barely find anything to say about the bloke.

As a rebellious teenager he gave me nothing to rebel against, somehow leaving his own personality out of the classroom and letting the subject speak for itself. Mr. Aldridge never larked about, never needed to use silly rhymes about SOH-CAH-TOA in order to drill the means of calculating the length of an unknown side of a right-angled triangle, he just communicated: he taught.

I achieved my highest GCSE grade under the tutelage of Mr. Aldridge.

Press Coverage

I’ve had to do a quick catch-up and found that the case has been covered by the press on numerous occasions.

1. 2006 Nov 08 – SWEP Sacked teacher fails in appeal
2. 2006 Oct 20 – SWEP Union’s hope over axed teacher case
3. 2006 Oct 17 – BBC News – School sacks suspended year head
4. 2006 Oct 17 – icWales – Suspended maths teacher is sacked
5. 2006 Oct 17 – SWEP Assault claim teacher sacked
6. 2006 Oct 06 – SWEP Teacher still on suspension
7. 2006 Aug 23 – SWEP No end in sight for suspended teacher
8. 2006 Feb 09 – icWales Teacher won’t face assault case
9. 2006 Jan 01 – Guardian Unlimited
   Teacher is arrested after assault claim

Public Reaction

There have also been several letters to the South Wales Evening Post editor:

1. 2006 Nov 06 – Katie Collis Let’s help Mr. Aldridge
2. 2006 Oct 31 – Kathryn Gray Sadness at school sacking
3. 2006 Oct 19 – Katie Collis Questions to be asked
4. 2006 Oct 19 – Simon Davies A very fair man

Petition

There is also an online petition to “Reinstate Mr Aldridge at Olchfa School!”.