Teacher at Worcestershire school accidentally showed sex scene in DVD

May 13 2009 by Jane Tyler, Birmingham Post

A teacher accidentally showed a class of 11 and 12-year-old pupils in a Worcestershire church school a DVD of a couple simulating sex, a hearing of the General Teaching Council was told.

The scene, believed to be from the American crime drama CSI, showed a man and a woman cavorting naked on a desk.

It viewed during a lesson at St John’s Church of England Middle Foundation School, in Bromsgrove.

The teacher, Michael Collings, had been showing pupils a recording of the nature programme Planet Earth he had made which, when it finished, featured the raunchy scene for five seconds.

Two pupils complained and he was sacked after a 30-year teaching career.

Mr Collings, aged 56, from Redditch, was summoned before a GTC hearing in Birmingham to answer an allegation of unacceptable professional conduct.

This related to four incidents – using the school computer system inappropriately to download and watch music videos in the classroom; accessing an inappropriate website while pupils were present; viewing eBay during teaching time and showing a portion of a TV programme containing inappropriate images to a class of children.

Mr Collings did not appear at the hearing or enter any formal pleas, but the panel found the allegations proved in his absence.

They issued him with a Conditional Registration Order stipulating that any access he has to the internet when on school premises must be solely for the purpose of fulfilling his duties as a teacher.

Andrew Faux, the presenting officer, said: “The issues in this case are appreciating what is appropriate or inappropriate in a classroom.”

He told the panel how Mr Collings had worked at the school since 1978 until he was dismissed in 2007.

Head teacher Wendy Taylor said Mr Collings was on a final written warning given in May 2006 for inappropriate conduct.