A teacher downed alcohol in front her teenage students and called them “little s***s” just months after she was convicted for drink driving, a panel has heard. Alice Ashton, left her secondary school pupils shocked after turning a usually “boring” Personal and Social Education (PSE) lesson into a “mini rave”, complete with singing, dancing and chugging from a mysterious strong-smelling orange liquid in a water bottle. The teacher was struck off from Ysgol Bro Caereinion school in Welshpool, Powys, after her class raised concerns with other staff that she was drinking booze while advising children about the dangers of alcohol and drug consumption.
During a fitness to practice hearing, Ms Ashton’s students said she often taught “boring” classes about substance abuse awareness, but was noticeably more energetic on the day in question. “She was very, very close to us,” one 16-year-old said. “There was a slight alcoholic smell. She was very, very lively and quite animated and speaking with her hands. In other lessons, she was more reserved and quiet.”
They added that the staff member was “regularly taking swigs from the bottle”, which they initially assumed was orange juice, and got the class on their feet to dance the macarena, according to The Sun.
“We were not doing work,” the student said, adding that Ms Ashton “kept jumping up from her desk” and became increasingly “irritated” as the lesson went on, repeatedly calling the pupils “little s***s”.
One student bore the brunt of her drunken anger when he was sent out of the classroom for “annoying” his classmates and warned not to “snitch” on his teacher, the panel heard.
“She began to swear at him. She put her middle finger two to three inches from his face and continued to swear at him,” another teenager recounted.
While Ms Ashton, who had been convicted of drink driving just four months before the classroom incident, denied singing or swearing in front of her students, CCTV footage contradicted her version of events.
Lewis Harrison, presenting officer at the Education Workforce Council, said: “It is totally untenable to suggest the music being played is background music.
“The evidence is very clear that Miss Ashton did not remain at the front of the class. She invited pupils to dance.”
The disciplinary panel said Ms Ashton had shown no remorse or apology following the findings, but confirmed that she was now living in England and no longer worked as a teacher.
She has been struck off the teaching register indefinitely but could reapply in two years.
