A trainee teacher’s career is in tatters after he was banned from the classroom for making inappropriate comments and a sexual gesture.

Ieuan Bancroft was less than three months into the job as a trainee languages teacher at Freebrough Academy in Brotton, North Yorkshire when the allegations arose.

He was suspended before making it to the end of his first term.

A misconduct panel heard that when Bancroft was asked by one person, referred to as Individual A, why he wanted to become a teacher he replied, “I like kids” and made a masturbating gesture with his hand.

Individual A told the panel his tone of voice suggested he was joking but they felt it was an inappropriate thing for a teacher to say.

Bancroft denied making the gesture, saying he talks with his hands a lot and one of his hand movements “may have been misconstrued”.

But, the panel concluded that making the statement and hand gesture together was inappropriate as it implied there was a sexual connotation to his comment even if it was meant as a joke, and ruled his conduct was of a sexual nature but not sexually motivated.

The 26-year-old teacher, who did not attend misconduct hearing which continued without him, also used inappropriate language talking about pupils.

The Northern Echo: Mr Bancroft taught at Freebrough Academy in Brotton.Mr Bancroft taught at Freebrough Academy in Brotton. (Image: GOOGLE)

The hearing was told Bancroft said “that kid should go and kill themselves” about one pupil while in a car with a colleague and said he didn’t like one pupil who he thought was a “f***ing c**t”.

He also said in the staffroom that the “kids could do with a good beating” and that he could “knock them out as they need to behave and grow up”.

Bancroft denied that he had ever said or suggested student behaviour should be met with violence or physical punishment, but the panel said any statements inferring a physical threat against a pupil would amount to inappropriate conduct even if they were made in a moment of frustration.

The misconduct panel said he “fell significantly short of the behaviour expected of a teacher” and that he “did not demonstrate treating pupils with dignity”.

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It said it was unclear what, if any, support he’d had to assist his classroom management and professional conduct and behaviour, and that this may have prevented him doing repeating his actions, but said his actions were deliberate.

His future as a teacher was left in tatters after the panel banned him from teaching for at least two years.

After that time he will have to appeal the ban if he wishes to re-enter the classroom of any school or sixth form college again.