Head Teacher Guilty Of 'Humiliating' Nursery School Pupils

Head Teacher Guilty Of 'Humiliating' Nursery School Pupils

A head teacher who humiliated and manhandled children as young as four was found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct.

Eirios Hall, 59, subjected nursery pupils to a shocking reign of terror that reduced children who were little more than toddlers to tears.

Infants would burst into tears in panic when they learned the bad tempered school head teacher was due to take their class.

Hall faced 14 allegations including that her behaviour at Ardwyn Nursery and Infant School, Welshpool, amounted to unacceptable professional conduct.

A litany of shocking allegations were detailed to a professional panel at the General Teaching Council for Wales hearing in Cardiff.

On Friday it found seven of the allegations she faced were proved outright and a further four were partly proved. She was cleared of two.

Hall mocked, grabbed and angrily shouted at pupils in the school she ran for more than a decade.

She mocked a child with a speech impediment telling him to "speak properly" and angrily manhandled another for dropping a spoon on the floor during lunch.

The allegations centred on a specified period in autumn 2009 when four whistleblowers reported her behaviour to the authorities.

Hall was suspended in 2010 pending an inquiry at the school and was dismissed from her job in the summer of 2011.

The former head teacher, who celebrates her 59th birthday today, has since been forced to put her home in Welshpool up for sale.

The professional panel heard that the on-going case against her has left her isolated and unable to communicate with former friends and colleagues.

"She has already lost her job as a result of these incidents and that has had the effect that she has lost her livelihood," her lawyer Robert Vernon said.

"She has had a long and successful career. She has spent a significant period of time in education and until now has enjoyed an unblemished record."

He added that: "People speak about her in glowing terms. The loss of her job represents a huge loss to the education system."

Vernon addressed the panel as it adjourned once more to discuss what sanction Hall would face.

The panel's powers range from a simple reprimand which would allow her to continue teaching to a prohibition order banning her from the profession.

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