Teaching assistant slapped child on hand, hearing told

WOMAN FREE TO WORK IN SCHOOLS AFTER ‘ONE-OFF’ INCIDENT

- By ABBIE WIGHTWICK, DAVID POWELL

AN experienced school teaching assistant slapped a four-year-old pupil, described as young for his age, but is free to continue to work in schools, a professional standards hearing has concluded.

Leander Shaw was reprimanded for the “one-off” incident.

She was working in a “particularly difficult class” of children who had been “negatively impacted by the Covid pandemic” when she had a momentary lapse and struck the boy, the panel concluded.

Ms Shaw, who had an unblemished record at Ysgol Bryn Deva in Connah’s Quay, Flintshire, had asked to be moved to another class.

However that request had been refused, the Education Workforce Council (EWC) fitness to practise committee was told.

The teaching assistant, who was neither present nor represented at the hearing on September 22 to 24, described chaos in the classroom in comments read out to the panel.