Mr M J Holland v Great Academies Education Trust — 2025

The claimant, a mathematics teacher employed from 5 November 2018, was summarily dismissed for misconduct on 27 September 2023 after complaints made by pupils in March, July, November and December 2022. The tribunal found that a March 2022 management conversation had already told him to be mindful of his comments to pupils and to keep interactions professional. It accepted that he later made or admitted a number of comments, including calling a pupil “Hideous H”, telling a pupil that a male teacher was someone “she could do better” with, referring to a Muslim pupil as “Z the Nun”, using “dumb blonde” type language, and asking a pupil about the absence of a safeguarding photograph.

Applying section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Burchell line of authority, the tribunal held that Phil Smith had a genuine and reasonable belief in misconduct based on a reasonable investigation. It relied on the student incident reports, parental complaints, the claimant’s admissions, and the disciplinary and appeal material. The tribunal noted concern about David Waugh’s role in the investigation and that CCTV footage referred to in relation to one allegation was not shown to the claimant, but found that this did not make the overall process unfair because the CCTV was not determinative and the key findings rested on other evidence.

The tribunal concluded that the dismissal was within the band of reasonable responses and therefore not unfair. It also said that, if the dismissal had been unfair, the claimant would have been fairly dismissed anyway under the Polkey approach and any compensatory award would have been reduced by 100%, with no basic award on a just and equitable basis because of his conduct. Harj Kilshaw upheld the dismissal on appeal by letter dated 27 November 2023.