A teacher was sacked after telling pupils that being LGBTQ+ is a sin and transgender people are just confused.
Glawdys Leger, who taught at Bishop Justus Church of England School in Bromley, was reported to the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) after a parent raised concerns about her inappropriate in a religious education class.
Ms Leger, who mainly taught languages, was sacked from the school following an internal investigation.
However, the TRA have now decided that she will not face any further action and can return to teaching at a different school.
The pupil said Ms Leger had been telling a story about a man who gave up being gay to become a Christian as it was not right.
Ms Leger told a misconduct panel that she does not dislike LGBTQ+ people but that she does not agree with “LGBTQ+ ideology”.
She also told the panel that same sex marriage and having an active sexual relationship outside of marriage is a sin.
In her evidence to the panel she talked about gay people who chose celibacy so they can “serve God first”.
Ms Leger said she made the comments because she had concerns about LGBT content in PowerPoint slides she had been provided with for the lesson.
Describing a meeting she had about her concerns with the school chaplain, she said: “I remember leaving and saying that this was going too far now and that I am going to tell them (my pupils) the truth.”
She later told her class that she would need teach a later lesson because it included LGBTQ+ content she could not support for religious reasons.
After hearing evidence from Ms Leger, a pupil and the pupil’s mum, the TRA panel concluded on the balance of probabilities that she made the following comments:
- Being LGBTQ+ is ‘not fine’
- LGBTQ+ is a sin
- That god should be before LGBTQ+
- People will always be seen by God as their birth gender
- That transgender people are ‘just confused’
But Ms Leger provided character references, describing her as “a kind, genteel and decent individual wjo would never deliberately cause harm or insult to another human being and most definitely not a young person”.
The panel concluded that Ms Leger’s comments did not derive from a lack of tolerance.
Instead, the panel said Ms Leger had just expressed her person belief and failed to understand that her position of influence as a teacher could have a disproportionate impact on all pupils in the class.
It subsequently decided that Ms Leger should not be banned from the profession.
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