A seasoned educator, dismissed for not reporting her worries regarding a 12-year-old who became pregnant, has received nearly £250,000 after a tribunal ruled she was unjustly held accountable for an error made collectively.

Mary-Ann Pearson, 55, claimed that although she had noticed the student had put on weight, she had no idea that she was expecting.

The ‘dedicated, insightful, and compassionate’ teacher of business and social sciences faced accusations of neglecting to inform her higher-ups about the incident, leading to her termination due to gross misconduct.

However, an employment tribunal discovered that the staff at Greenwood Academies Trust were unaware of the student’s situation and highlighted ‘systemic and institutional safeguarding failures’.

Ms Pearson was awarded £248,184.38 in total for her claims, which included unfair dismissal.

During the tribunal in Bury St Edmunds, it was revealed that Ms. Pearson had an extensive teaching career spanning 31 years, 17 of which were at Greenwood, overseeing 38 academies predominantly in the Midlands.

She started working for the trust as a PE teacher in 2005, before becoming a business, computing and social sciences teacher in 2015.

Ms Pearson became the form tutor for a 12-year-old student referred to only as pupil A by the tribunal in September 2022.

Ms. Pearson was uninformed of a safeguarding referral made in June that year following an allegation that pupil A was meeting a convicted sex offender after school hours.

Ms Pearson also did not know that pupil A’s former tutor and other members of staff had raised concerns in the previous school year about her mental health, including her self-harming.

The tribunal heard: ‘Sarah Lightbody, head of safeguarding told the Tribunal that sensitive information around safeguarding is tightly governed and is only shared with necessary members of staff.

‘She said that because concerns had ‘died down’ and ‘tailed off’ in the summer, they were not considered to be current concerns to be passed onto [Ms Pearson] as the new form tutor.’

In January 2023, Ms Pearson called pupil A’s mother after the student swore at a teacher.

She had ‘observed that A had put on weight but did not consider that appropriate to comment on’.

Nonetheless, the two ended up speaking about pupil A’s health because her mother was concerned about stomach cramps she had been having.

Ms Pearson planned to speak to Ms Lightbody about the conversation, though she still ‘did not suspect or know that A was pregnant at this stage, just that there may be a health issue’, the tribunal heard.

Before she was able to do this, Ms Lightbody sent an email instructing staff not to contact pupil A’s mother about attendance.

Ms Pearson then asked to speak to the safeguarding head because she was concerned she had done something wrong by calling the mother.

Ms Lightbody had in fact sent the email that day because she became aware that pupil A ‘had been the victim of severe sexual abuse and was approximately 33 weeks pregnant, the father of the baby being a family member’.

In February 2023, Ms Pearson and Ms Lightbody had a conversation in which the business teacher was told about pupil A’s situation.

Ms Lightbody denied that she informed Ms Pearson of the pregnancy during that conversation.

The tribunal heard: ‘Sarah Lightbody says that she asked [Ms Pearson] when she had suspicions about A being a victim of abuse and that [Ms Pearson] said, since September 2022.

‘[Ms Pearson] categorically denies this and pre-existing suspicion or knowledge about A experiencing abuse and/or pregnancy.

‘She states that it was only after having been told of A’s pregnancy by Sarah Lightbody that she looked back in retrospect and started to piece together the information about poor attendance, sickness and weight gain – but only after being told of the pregnancy.’

The tribunal found that Ms Lightbody had, in fact, informed Ms Pearson of pupil A’s pregnancy in this conversation.

Ms Lightbody emailed Principal Todd Johnson after the interaction, and an internal investigation was launched.

This investigation was littered with procedural issues, the tribunal found.

Following a disciplinary hearing in April 2023, Mr Johnson found that ‘non-reporting of safeguarding concerns did happen and amounted to gross misconduct’, and he fired Ms Pearson.

In her appeal lodged a month later, Ms Pearson said: ‘The same guilt I felt in not putting all the pieces together could well and rightly be felt by all adults who had interaction with A either as core subject teachers who may have taught her at least three hours or more weekly, or the attendance team as A’s attendance had been below 90% since September.’

The tribunal found that Ms Pearson ‘had a good history of reporting concerns’ and ‘had also previously recorded a concern about a student who was pregnant’.

It said, having observed Ms Pearson give evidence, that she was ‘a conscientious, thoughtful and caring teacher who would not have failed to act if she knew or suspected her 12-year-old pupil was pregnant’.

Ms Lightbody said: ‘Without the suspicion of pregnancy being raised, opportunities to do this missed, and in my opinion, as a byproduct of the Claimant’s inaction, A went on to experience further life-altering sexual abuse and trauma.’

The tribunal said that opportunities were ‘only missed, because the safeguarding team failed to sufficiently act on what they already knew’.

Employment Judge Islam said: ‘The Tribunal rejects the suggestion that concerns about a 12-year-old with a history of mental health issues, including self-harm and concerns about possible interaction with a known paedophile are the types of concerns that evaporate over the summer holiday.’

The judge added: ‘The Tribunal was concerned with what appeared to be a total refusal by the [Greenwood] witnesses to consider and reflect upon, what were clearly systemic and institutional safeguarding failures in respect of A.

‘The reality is, all staff were oblivious as to what was really going on with A.

‘Rather than focus on remedying a collectively made mistake, unfortunately [Greenwood] has insisted on singularly blaming the failure on [Ms Pearson].

‘Whilst beyond the remit of our jurisdiction, we hope that lessons are learned for the future to ensure the safety of children within the Trust.’

The tribunal found that Ms Pearson had been unfairly dismissed, and other claims she made were also successful.

Ms Pearson said her dismissal for safeguarding concerns sent her to ‘breaking point’ – she has been on antidepressants since June 2023 – and led to her marriage breaking down.

The tribunal heard that at one point in her search for a new job in the education sector, she was ‘escorted off site by the headteacher after having to share the reason for dismissal’.

Ms Pearson was awarded £92,629 for financial loss, £36,341 for future financial loss and £22,277 for injury to feelings.