A teacher who manipulated video evidence of GCSE PE controlled assessments and doctored pupils’ logbooks has been banned from teaching for at least two years.

Elizabeth Basson, 37, was head of PE, and then head of academic PE, at Streatham and Clapham High School, in south-west London, from 2008 until her resignation in June 2017.

A report by the National College for Teaching and Leadership, published last week, said the case was triggered after she sent an internal email about the administration of GCSE PE controlled assessments, admitting that she deliberately made it difficult for the moderator to identify candidates in video footage.

Her email said: “I purposefully this year did not use numbered bibs… in an effort to ‘hide’ weaker performers in activities. This requires the moderator to ‘go looking’ for an individual, which may make spotting weaknesses harder.”

Ms Basson wrote that she had “bombarded the moderator with evidence”, submitting more than 12 hours of DVD footage that focused on higher level skills only, and removed the skills the pupils were weakest in.

She added that she had “manipulated” exam guidance on editing out unnecessary or repetitive evidence “to again elevate the girls [sic] level”.

The report says that she had also awarded marks to all candidates who did trekking, despite them only doing two nights camping instead of the required five, and doctored pupils’ logbooks by “fabricating and manipulating dates and diary entries, including changes made without candidates’ knowledge”.

Ms Basson admitted the facts of all the allegations, and that they amounted to conduct that could bring the profession into disrepute

‘Deep regret and geniune remorse’

The report says the panel regarded “the manipulation of public examinations as a very serious matter. This has a negative impact on public trust and confidence in the profession and the reputation of teachers.”

However, it also considered the fact that Ms Basson had made no attempt to hide her actions, and “on the contrary, she brought her misconduct to the school’s attention in her initial email to the school which triggered the investigation. Mrs Basson was very open about her conduct and accepted she had ‘taken risks’”.

It also heard evidence that it had been a period of “significant and ongoing stress” for Ms Basson, and that she “demonstrated a deep regret and genuine remorse”.

In a statement to the school, she had said: “It has been killing me inside to think that any actions, which I undertook, believing were in the best interests of the girls, will ultimately have a negative impact: for this I feel genuine remorse as it was the farthest thing from my mind.”

The panel recommended that she be banned from teaching, but that because she “was not a fundamentally dishonest person but one who had made a serious mistake”, she should be allowed to ask for the ban to be reviewed after two years.

The recommendations were approved by Alan Meyrick, who made the final decision on behalf of the education secretary.