Ashley Atkin, 38, had only been employed to teach Year One for a month when colleagues noticed her ‘unsteady’ on her feet and stinking of alcohol during a star-of-the-week awards assembly at Horn’s Mill Primary in Helsby, Cheshire
A teacher has been banned from all classrooms in the UK after turning up to a primary school assembly stumbling and reeking of booze. Year One teacher Ashley Atkin, 38, was meant to be presenting an award to a youngster at Horn’s Mill Primary in Helsby, Cheshire, but was so inebriated she couldn’t get up to hand it to them.
Her colleagues were left stunned when recent-hire Atkin entered the assembly hall with her students but sat away from the class. She was tasked with presenting the Big Cheese prize for their star-of-the-week pupil, but had to ask another teacher to do it.
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A Teaching Regulation Agency investigation found Atkin had been intoxicated on school grounds in October 2023. Outside of school, she had been banned from driving after being caught twice over the legal limit, driving on the wrong side of the road, a couple of months prior in July 2023.
At a disciplinary hearing, a colleague said: “When [Ms Atkin] stood to take to children in [to the assembly] she seemed to have trouble with her dress round her feet and was unsteady. She moved slowly and gingerly.” The teacher confessed that she had drunk a bottle of white wine, with an extra glass, before going to school.
Her colleagues noted a “pungent smell” they felt was linked to drinking, which hung in the air after she was escorted from the building. Atkin resigned from her job before the investigation was finished, but the panel ruled she had been unable to teach due to the impairment of alcohol and she was found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute.
She has been banned from English and Welsh classrooms indefinitely. Atkin cannot reapply to the profession for two years and has 28 days to appeal the ruling.
Panel chair Melissa West said: “Ms Atkin was teaching on 20 October 2023; she went to work, on her evidence, having drunk a bottle and a glass of wine during the early hours of the morning.
“She was seen to be staggering in the school, her eyes were glazed, and she appeared drunk. Ms Atkin was unprepared to start the school day and unable to lead her class in the assembly to be seated. She was deemed by a witness not to be in a fit state to work and was escorted home.”
Mrs West added: “The panel was satisfied that the conduct of Ms Atkin fell significantly short of the standard of behaviour expected of a teacher in that she presented at work after consuming alcohol and smelling of alcohol and for safeguarding reasons could not be left in charge of her class for the day.”
