A PRIMARY school teacher who helped pupils during a maths test has been found guilty of unprofessional conduct.

Nathan Proud, formerly a teacher at Thomas Walling Primary School, Blakelaw, Newcastle, was given a conditional registration order, which bans him from monitoring at any future exams.

Mr Proud gave year six pupils inappropriate guidance and assistance during a Key Stage Two maths exam in May 2002.

The General Teaching Council of England's conduct committee, in Birmingham, yesterday found that Mr Proud had made comments to pupils about rubbing out answers and changing them.

However, an allegation that he directly told pupils the correct answers and to erase incorrect answers was not upheld.

Mr Proud had said he instructed the children, in a general fashion, to rub out incorrect answers first rather than writing the corrections over the top, so the answers would be legible for the exam markers.

Andrea O'Neill, the school's former deputy headteacher, told the hearing that Mr Proud admitted reading through the test papers with the class before the start of the exam.

He also told headteacher Helen Walker that he may have instructed a pupil to check answers in boxes Y and X, to make sure they had not confused the two.

Mr Proud, who was not present at the hearing, suggested that pupils had confused the post exam debrief, where he told them the correct answers, with the test itself.

The committee felt there was not sufficient evidence to uphold the allegations that Mr Proud had told the pupils answers during the test, or that he had told one pupil to move the decimal point in an answer.

But the committee was convinced that he had coached the children prior to the test by reminding them about the internal angles of a triangle.

Ms Walker told the committee that Mr Proud was under stress to meet unrealistic targets set by the Local Education Authority.

She said: "He had a challenge on his hands to raise the maths standard in the school, although I felt he wasn't being pro-active, I did everything I could to alleviate his stressful situation."

Mr Proud thought he was being bullied by the headteacher, and initiated a formal grievance against her.

"The day he was suspended he entered the allegation of bullying," said Ms Walker, who now works as a school improvement advisor.

"I thought, 'the cheek of it', it was in total response to his suspension."

Mr Proud was suspended in August 2002, and sacked for gross misconduct in May 2003.

Mr Proud no longer teaches.