ENGLAND’S General Teaching Council has struck off the first teacher from its approved register for gross misconduct - banning him from teaching for two years.

Secondary teacher John Cole, 54, was accused of swearing at pupils and trying to block performance-related pay rises for colleagues. He is the second teacher to be struck off by the council. Last month, a deputy head was struck off for two years for gross incompetence.

The three-member disciplinary panel found that Mr Cole had sought to undermine the school, his colleagues and the head by making allegations about the professional conduct of staff.

They found that the maths and religious studies teacher had “in the balance of probability” committed gross misconduct at the Grange school, Shrewsbury, Shropshire.

His case was referred to the GTC after he resigned last April while still facing an investigation by the school and local authority. He taught at the Grange for 10 years but is now unemployed.

He faced allegations of swearing at pupils, accusing head John Stokes of “lying”, handing a critical memo about the school to an inspection team, and reporting a colleague for an alleged exam breach.

The conduct panel, sitting in Birmingham, found all the allegations credible and issued a prohibition order from the register for two years - the minimum ban allowed under GTC regulations.

Mr Cole, who represented himself, told the panel that it was his “Christian duty” to speak out against wrong actions.

The hearing was told on its first day in January that he used words such as “wanker” regularly in front of pupils. He called one pupil a “shrimp and midget” and another a “stupid git”.

Panel chairman David Dewhirst said: “These epithets were totally unacceptable ... and should never be used by a teacher. The profession has a right to expect teachers to provide good role models to pupils.”

The committee also ruled that Mr Cole attempted to subvert the threshold assessments of fellow teachers by sending emails to the assessors, Cambridge Education Associates.

It found that, during an inspection in 2000, he passed a letter to the lead inspector in which he criticised the head and other colleagues. The fourth charge accused him of reporting a colleague for an alleged breach of procedures during a maths GCSE exam.

“The motivation was to undermine the head and his colleagues and to portray the school in a poor light,” the panel said.

The first teacher to be struck off, Jane Kershaw, was sacked after being found drinking in the boiler room of a first school in Wimborne, Dorset.

The GTC will hold two more disciplinary hearings for competence next month.