A Campaign for Teachers, Union Members, Parents & Policymakers
The TRA is imposing lifetime bans on the basis of single witnesses, recovered memories and historical allegations — with no criminal conviction, no due process, and no meaningful right of appeal. This is happening to teachers across England right now.
The Problem
The Teaching Regulation Agency was established to protect children and uphold professional standards in teaching. Those are wholly worthy goals. But the evidence is now overwhelming: the TRA has become a dysfunctional regulator whose processes cause immense harm to teachers — many of whom are entirely innocent — while doing demonstrably little to improve child safety.
In 2024, a former TRA employee broke their silence to allege that the agency had "forgotten it was investigating real people." Staff were reportedly encouraged to "push back" when insufficient evidence was found. Prohibitions were celebrated as organisational successes. Accused teachers were openly mocked in the office.
"One teacher was in a coma and two senior managers made jokes in the middle of the office about what vegetable we should call him that day, like Mr Parsnip. It was so inappropriate."
— Former TRA employee, speaking anonymously to The Guardian, August 2024"We have had members who are suicidal, who are self-harming, or whose marriages have fallen apart from stress. It is easy to wreck someone's career with impunity because no action is taken against individuals making false or vexatious complaints."
— Patrick Roach, General Secretary, NASUWT"I thought the TRA was for paedophiles or people who hurt children. I never dreamed I'd end up here."
— A headteacher with 20 years of service, who took three schools from 'inadequate' to 'outstanding', speaking to The ObserverThe Scale
The TRA received nearly 1,700 referrals in 2023–24 — a rise of more than 60% in a single year, driven in part by an online referral portal that invites complaints from members of the public with minimal checks. More than 1,000 of those referrals were dismissed within three days — meaning they never should have been accepted in the first place.
Yet the 625 teachers whose cases took more than six months to resolve suffered months of professional limbo, reputational damage, and severe personal stress — even when no case was ultimately found to exist. The NAHT has formally designated the TRA a "failing regulator." Multiple unions launched judicial review proceedings in 2025 over concerns about discriminatory referral patterns and the TRA's persistent refusal to collect equalities data.
The TRA's online referral portal allows any member of the public to make a complaint against a teacher with minimal safeguards against malicious or vexatious use. Over 1,000 referrals in 2023–24 were dismissed within three days — demonstrating they had no substantive basis. There are currently no meaningful consequences for those who make false referrals, creating what the NASUWT has described as the ability to destroy a teacher's career "with impunity."
Two teachers have been waiting more than eight years for their misconduct cases to conclude — spending the better part of a decade in professional limbo, unable to work freely or clear their names. Schools Week has described the impact as "shattering." In one case, the TRA admitted breaching a headteacher's human rights after six years of investigation — and then prohibited her from the classroom anyway. This is not an edge case. It is a systemic feature of how the TRA operates.
The TRA's annual expenditure rose to £16 million in 2024 — 35% higher than the previous year — as the agency struggled with a backlog of its own creating. A single headteacher's case consumed nearly £400,000 in TRA expenditure, revealed through a Freedom of Information request. This is public money spent on a regulatory system that professional bodies have declared to be failing. There is no independent oversight body capable of holding the TRA accountable for this spending.
Multiple teaching unions have argued in judicial review proceedings that non-white teachers are significantly overrepresented in TRA misconduct referrals. The TRA has persistently refused to collect equalities data — making it structurally impossible to identify, measure or address discriminatory patterns in how it selects cases for investigation. This refusal to collect basic equalities data is itself a concern under the Equality Act 2010 and is a central ground in the unions' judicial review application.
Case Studies
The following cases illustrate that the TRA's failures are not unique to any individual situation. They reflect deep structural problems in how the regulator operates — problems that affect teachers of all backgrounds, seniority levels and career histories.
Pepe Hart, a nationally celebrated former headteacher of the year, broke the usual secrecy surrounding TRA cases by blogging critically throughout her five-year investigation and live-tweeting her five-week hearing in 2022. The TRA spent nearly £400,000 on her case, confirmed through a Freedom of Information request. She was ultimately prohibited. Her case attracted national attention and became one of the key catalysts for the current campaign for TRA reform.
Schools Week revealed that at least two teachers have been waiting more than eight years for their misconduct cases to conclude. In one case, the TRA formally admitted breaching the headteacher's human rights after six years of investigation — and then prohibited her from teaching regardless. The "shattering impact" of these delays has had "potentially devastating implications" for all those involved. Neither teacher has been able to work freely or clear their name for the better part of a decade.
Rev Dr Bernard Randall, a school chaplain, was referred to the TRA after delivering sermons in a school chapel presenting Christian teaching as an acceptable worldview alongside other perspectives. He was charged with "conduct contrary to fundamental British values." His case was ultimately resolved in his favour — but not before severe professional and personal damage. He described the experience as feeling like the TRA itself was "an extremist organisation."
Jonathan Ullmer, a decorated headteacher who received an MBE for services to education, received a lifetime prohibition based solely on the uncorroborated account of one witness — a professional undercover journalist whose allegations emerged through therapy 25 years after the alleged events. No criminal charge was ever brought. The police took no action. The TRA subsequently lost the official hearing recording, making meaningful appeal structurally impossible.
A Case Study in Systemic Failure
Jonathan's case exemplifies virtually every systemic failure identified in this campaign. We highlight it not because it is unique, but because it illustrates with unusual clarity how the TRA's broken processes operate — and the human cost when they do.
A lifetime prohibition was imposed on the basis of one man's therapy-recovered account, delivered 25 years after the alleged events. Every sexual allegation — the findings upon which the ban principally rests — was wholly and entirely uncorroborated. The sole independent TRA witness confirmed only that time had been spent together.
The TRA lost the official recording of the public hearing — making meaningful appeal structurally impossible and potentially breaching Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The recording would have confirmed the complainant's oral acknowledgement that his allegations first emerged in therapy.
The panel chair acknowledged during proceedings that she had "no idea what goes on in schools" — yet was tasked with evaluating teacher conduct in a secondary school drama department in the early 1990s. A professional conduct panel must be capable of evaluating professional conduct in context. This one demonstrably was not.
Allegations that emerged in therapy — confirmed in the complainant's own oral evidence at the public hearing — were accepted without examination of the therapeutic methods used, the therapist's conduct, or the substantial scientific literature on recovered memory reliability. The therapist subsequently became a personal friend of the complainant — a potential BACP guidelines breach that went entirely unaddressed.
The panel acknowledged standards "were not explicit in the 1990s" yet proceeded to find misconduct on that basis, without commissioning any historical expert evidence. Behaviours that were common, accepted practice in 1990s arts education were judged by standards that did not yet exist at the time.
Our Eight Demands
We call on the Department for Education, Parliament, and the TRA itself to implement the following reforms. These are not radical proposals. They are the minimum required for the TRA to operate as a fair, credible, proportionate and accountable regulator.
The TRA must be subject to independent oversight equivalent to that governing the GMC, the Law Society, or the NMC. An executive agency of the DfE cannot credibly regulate itself. An independent inspectorate should have powers to review individual cases and systemic conduct.
All TRA hearings must be recorded and those recordings preserved for a minimum of 10 years — accessible for any appeal. The loss of a hearing record should automatically trigger the right to a fresh hearing. No determination should be permitted to stand without a reviewable record.
Panels must include at least one member with direct relevant expertise in the professional context under review. A panel chair who admits knowing nothing about schools should not be permitted to determine a teacher's career. Specialist expertise is not a luxury — it is a basic requirement of fairness.
Where allegations emerge from or are shaped by therapeutic processes, panels must be required to seek independent psychological expert evidence before relying on that testimony. Recovered memory evidence must be subject to the recognised legal scrutiny standards established in case law and academic research.
No teacher should wait more than 12 months for a hearing from the date of referral. Delays reaching 8+ years are not administrative failures — they are violations of the right to a fair hearing under Article 6 ECHR. Time limits must be statutory and enforceable.
Individuals who make knowingly false or vexatious referrals must face meaningful consequences. Currently, as the NASUWT has made clear, it is possible to destroy a teacher's career "with impunity." This imbalance of risk between accuser and accused is fundamentally unjust and must be corrected.
For cases involving alleged conduct more than 10 years prior, panels must commission independent expert evidence on the professional standards, culture and expectations that prevailed at the time. Retroactive application of modern standards without such evidence is both legally unsound and historically illiterate.
The TRA must collect and publish data on the protected characteristics of those referred, investigated and prohibited — as required under the Equalities Act and as demanded in multiple unions' 2025 judicial review. Without this data, discriminatory patterns cannot be identified, challenged or corrected.
Every one of these eight demands is grounded in a documented failure of the current system — not in abstract principle. Jonathan Ullmer's case alone illustrates demands 2, 3, 4 and 7, and in part demand 1. The cases of Pepe Hart, the eight-year cases and Rev Randall illustrate demands 1, 5 and 6. The unions' judicial review illustrates demand 8. These are not wish-list items. They are lessons drawn directly from real cases and the real harm done to real teachers.
Take Action
Whether you are a teacher, a school leader, a union member, a parent, a journalist or a policymaker — your voice matters. Use the form below to contact the campaign, share a case, or offer your support.