A former headteacher who got drunk and acted inappropriately with students has claimed they saw her behaviour as “light-hearted banter”.
Gillian Rew, who was the principal of Arbroath High, told a fitness to teach panel that she drank more than a bottle of wine while on a school trip with sixth year students in Lockerbie.
She also admitted making “inappropriate comments” and engaging in “improper contact” with S6 pupils during an evening disco at the adventure weekend in September 2014.
She told at the General Teaching Council for Scotland hearing: “I honestly don’t think they (the pupils) were uncomfortable. I think they saw it as a bit of light-hearted banter.”
Presented with witness statements from pupils, she accepted some of them may have felt uncomfortable with her behaviour.
One pupil after the incident said they were “all uncomfortable and awkward”. Another said: “I was shocked.”
“I am mortified,” Mrs Rew told the hearing. “I think the word mortified is actually not quite strong enough to describe my actions.”
She added: “Throughout my career I have always placed their care and welfare at the heart of my practice, but on this occasion, as child protection officer, I fell short.”
“The events were a real lesson about my lifestyle. It was a very difficult period, a very desperate and sad period in my life.”
She was sacked from her £74,000-a-year post before a police investigation was launched and later dropped.
Mrs Rew, who taught in Dundee for more than 20 years and now works for the EIS teachers’ union, admitted that she engaged in “inappropriate conversations with, made inappropriate comments to and had improper contact with pupils”, while under the influence of alcohol.
She said she had consumed about eight glasses of sauvignon blanc from a box and could not remember what had happened.
Rumours have been circulating on social media, but by admitting the charges the exact nature of her inappropriate behaviour is unlikely to be officially disclosed.
The 49-year-old admitted the charges against her, but denies she is unfit to teach and hopes to return to the classroom as a teacher.
Mrs Rew said she had been drinking too much amid marriage and family problems, but had taken steps, including counselling and alcohol testing, to avoid any repeat incidents.
She said she was also “experiencing difficulties with my senior leadership team”, some of whom she said were resisting her attempts at reform and were “behaving in a fashion which was hostile and undermining”.
On her decision to take wine on the school trip, she said: “I honestly don’t think that I was in a particularly good place to make proper cognitive decisions.”
Several of Mrs Rew’s former colleagues, as well parents and ex-pupils, attended the hearing to offer character references in support of her bid to return as a teacher.
Andrena Waghorn, headteacher at Craigie High School in Dundee, who has known Mrs Rew for 20 years, described her as “professional, committed and enthusiastic”.
The hearing, which will decide whether Mrs Rew can return to her career as a teacher, continues.
