Bury College Employment Tribunal

Educational institutions rely on clear and consistent disciplinary standards to maintain professionalism, fairness, and trust among staff and students. When similar conduct occurs, staff should reasonably expect similar scrutiny and accountability. The events surrounding the dismissal of a maths lecturer raise significant concerns about whether Bury College applied its disciplinary policies consistently when two members of staff used the same derogatory word toward the same student but were treated very differently. The tribunal judgment confirms that the maths lecturer was dismissed after allegations that he used the word “retard” during a classroom interaction with a student in September 2023. The college treated the matter as gross misconduct and ultimately dismissed him without notice. According to the tribunal findings, the maths lecturer explained that the word arose during an exchange with a student who had used the term himself. The maths lecturer stated that he asked the s...

Bury College Principal, Charlie Deane, has openly supported the College’s Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), Sarah Walton, after she repeated the word “retard” directly to a student with a learning disability. This position is remarkable given the College’s own characterisation of the word. In formal proceedings, the College has described “retard” as “offensive,” “derogatory,” “inappropriate,” “bullying,” “harassing,” “alienating,” “hateful,” “unacceptable,” “not used in society,” “a hate crime,” “a disgusting word,” and “linked to a protected characteristic.” The College also acknowledged that its use would cause damage to a student. Despite this, when Walton repeated the word to a vulnerable learner, she faced no sanction, no criticism, and was instead fully supported by Deane. By contrast, another member of staff who repeated the word in a classroom context was vilified and dismissed. Deane’s backing of Walton exposes a troubling double standard. If the word is so damaging tha...

Bury College has taken radically different positions on the same word depending on who says it. When a tutor repeated back the word “retard” in class to a student who had said it in conversation, the College declared it to be “offensive,” “derogatory,” “inappropriate,” “bullying,” “harassing,” “alienating,” “hateful,” “unacceptable,” “not used in society,” “a hate crime,” “a disgusting word,” and “linked to a protected characteristic.”  But when the same word was repeated to the same student by the College’s own Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), Sarah Walton, the very officer tasked with protecting vulnerable learners, the College had no issue at all with it. No investigation. No sanction. No criticism. This was despite the fact that Sarah Walton knew the word had a damaging impact. The double standard is striking. One member of staff was vilified and ultimately dismissed for repeating the word. The other, the DSL, was fully supported and protected after doing the same thing. Thi...

Bury College has repeatedly described the word “retard” as “offensive,” “derogatory,” “inappropriate,” “bullying,” “harassing,” “alienating,” “hateful,” “unacceptable,” “not used in society,” “a hate crime,” “a disgusting word,” and “linked to a protected characteristic.” In its own assessment, the College acknowledged that the use of the word would cause damage to a student with a learning disability. Yet despite condemning the word in the strongest possible terms, Bury College itself chose to repeat it directly to a student with a learning disability. The contradiction is stark. On one hand, the College insists the word represents the worst kind of language, damaging, discriminatory, and wholly unacceptable in any modern educational setting. On the other, its own Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), Sarah Walton, repeated the very same word to a student with a learning disability, and she did so without any form of sanction or criticism. This raises serious questions about the College...