Maths teacher banned from classroom after sipping wine from plastic bottle during school day

Maths teacher Geeta Rana, of Morley Street, Stanton Hill, also reversed her Honda Civic into a colleague’s car at the end of the school day at Joseph Whitaker School in Rainworth on November 25 last year.

The 53-year-old was helped back into the school, and the police were called.

Ms Rana drank a “large amount” of alcohol during the night of Tuesday November 24 2016 and the early hours of Wednesday 25 2016 before attending work.

She continued to dink while at the school and the report states that: “At one point, she left a classroom due to feeling unwell, and subsequently fell asleep in the mathematics office, where she was found by a teaching assistant.”

When she tried to leave at the end of the school day she reversed her vehicle into one belonging to another teacher.

Ms Rana was then spotted by colleagues and escorted back into the school building and the police were called.

At first she tried to deny that she had been drinking when questioned by colleagues and put her hands over her mouth “in an attempt to prevent her colleagues from smelling alcohol on her breath”.

However, an empty glass “smelling of alcohol” was found in a locked cupboard in her classroom while bags of unopened alcoholic drinks were found in her car.

When tested at the police station, she gave a reading of 220 mlgs of alcohol in 100 mls of blood. The legal limit is 80 mlgs, putting her at almost three times the legal limit.

During an interview with police, she said she had two-and-a-half glasses of wine earlier in the day, then more before she left. She then admitted she had the wine in a water bottle in her desk.

A professional conduct report by the National College for Teaching and Leadership shows that Ms Rana admitted a number of allegations from November last year.

The allegations were that she:

Consumed alcohol, prior to attending the school premises and/or on the school premises;

Slept in another room in the school’s premises whilst she was responsible for teaching a class;

Took and/or stored alcohol in the school’s premises;

Was dishonest in that she informed the school that she had not consumed alcohol, on one or more occasions.

The report found that Ms Rana “fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession, particularly because it posed a risk to the safety and security of the pupils in her care.”

She has now been banned from the classroom for at least three years, when her case can be reviewed.

Ms Rana who has resigned from the school, was also convicted for driving under the influence at Mansfield Magistrates Court in March last year.