Wednesday 10 November 2010

Speechless Teacher wins £156,000 settlement

The scary education story of today is the part-time teacher, Joyce Walters who received a combined £156,000 out of court settlement from Hillingdon Council because she lost her voice through through shouting in her class room.

Joyce taught English part time at Harlington Adult education centre since 2005.

The scary part of this story is not the huge payout but the precedence this may cause with other potential legal cases in education.

Many local authorities and school governing bodies will be raising their eye brows at Hillingdon's decision to settle out of court for a combined payout of £156,000.

Joyce claims she was forced to raise her voice because of the size of classes and nearby Children's play area.

I wonder how often primary and secondary teachers suffer from the same problem?

Hopefully most teachers have strategies not to raise their voices too often in class but I hope this is not the start of schools being encouraged to complete risk assessments of teachers vocal effort.

I believe this story reflects a move in this country to move to a compensation culture which has plagued America for years.

The story was covered in detail by both the Guardian & the Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8120373/Teacher-given-150000-compensation-for-losing-her-voice.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/09/teacher-lost-voice-compensation-hillingdon

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