This WA teacher was sacked over ‘choke holds’ she says never happened. Now, she wants change

A West Australian teacher says she feels horrendously let down and unsupported after being fired from her primary school job over what she claims were unsubstantiated allegations about her strangling children.

The woman, who asked not to be named, was in her second year of teaching and working at a regional Catholic primary school last year when the allegations arose.

The 33-year-old was shocked when she was told a parent had emailed the school concerned that their child thought they had seen the woman strangle a student.

This then escalated after the child was interviewed and said they saw the teacher do it multiple times over the course of the school year.

The allegation was that the children were being put into “choke holds”, to the point where they almost passed out and were “frightened”.

The woman, who taught year 6 pupils, said she was traumatised after being escorted from the premises in October last year following the complaint.

The school did not contact the police regarding the complaints.

An education assistant was present with the teacher in the classroom on all occasions, including when the abuse was alleged to have taken place, who the teacher said backed her story.

In a cruel twist, the woman took her case to the Fair Work Commission, but an application bungle meant the matter was dismissed before it could be properly scrutinised. The ordeal has spurred the teacher to push for changes in how complaints from parents are handled.

“I was devastated,” the teacher told this masthead.

“I loved those kids, I loved being a teacher. I couldn’t understand where this was coming from.”

A few of the children from the class, ranging in age from 11 to 12 years old, were questioned, which was the only basis upon which disciplinary action was taken.

“It’s like a silly rumour,” she said.

“It was very damaging. All that was made clear to me was the child that thinks they saw it, never actually said she’d seen it.”

She claimed the school’s principal even laughed off the allegations to start with.

“I was just in the staff room in a public area, and she goes, ‘I have to ask this’, and we laughed about how ridiculous it was,” the teacher said.

“She said, ‘Did you hurt this kid?’ and I said, ‘No’. And she went, ‘Yeah, didn’t think so. Let me go shut this email down’.

“She was telling me this is really common, she was telling me about things that have happened that she has witnessed over her teaching career. She told me not to worry about it.”

But days later, the woman was escorted from the school and suspended while an internal investigation was carried out.

“I was scared,” she said.

“Everyone loves a bit of work gossip, and I’ve got friends in the school, I thought people might start saying, ‘Did you hear that she has been investigated for physical abuse?’

“And whether they believe it or not, how embarrassing, then I’m going to be gossip. It was humiliating.

“I’d moved away from home for the job and this was my community. I felt humiliated because this was my support system, my life, I was away from my friends and family.”

The woman said she reached out online to other teachers to find out if anyone else had ever been falsely accused of serious misconduct.

More than 200 replies from teachers and former teachers recalled how similar accusations severely impacted their mental health.

Meanwhile, Australian researchers have estimated 50 per cent of graduate teachers quit their job in the first five years due to high-stress environments, excessive workload, lack of support and challenging student behaviour.

“I think in a school you’ve got three parties,” the woman said.

“You have teachers, you’ve got students and you’ve got parents.

“It’s a juggling act. You have to please the parents, you have to make the students feel welcome and you have to look after the teachers.

“But you can’t do all three at once.”

Data in the Teacher Registration Board of Western Australia’s 2024-2025 annual report reveals that of 180 complaints managed by the board, only 15 resulted in the cancellation of the teacher’s registration.

Due to a backlog, the teacher’s registration won’t be examined for another year.

After she was stood down, the woman reached out to the Independent Education Union of Australia to help get her reinstated and then to file an unfair dismissal application with the Fair Work Commission.

But commission documents show that her application was bungled by a senior employee, who filed it out of the 21-day required timeframe, ultimately seeing it dismissed by the registrar.

It was another blow to the young teacher, who was left with no recourse to hold the school accountable.

In a response to questions from this masthead, Independent Education Union of Australia WA branch secretary Rebecca Collopy said the woman’s application was dismissed because it was lodged 11 hours outside the statutory timeframe, “limiting its decision to jurisdiction and making no findings on the merits, procedural fairness, or wrongdoing in relation to [the woman]”.

“The procedural dismissal should not be read as an endorsement of the termination and meant the school’s decision-making was not tested through the Commission’s usual merits‑based scrutiny,” she said.

The teacher now wants to see changes made to how principals address complaints from students and parents.

“It’s not fair that they can dismiss you on a suspicion,” she said.

“That would never fly in court, so why does it fly with such serious accusations about children?

“It’s weak, and it’s not fair to teachers.”

She also lamented there was no avenue for her case to be re-investigated to clear her name.

“Even the Fair Work Commission doesn’t investigate the allegations, only whether due process occurred,” she said.

After she left the school, the woman was sent letters of support from other parents who said they did not believe the allegations that were made.

“I couldn’t believe it. Some of them wrote to say their child said they didn’t see anything, others wrote that I was a phenomenal teacher and that this was disgusting,” she said.

Despite the support, the woman was still sacked.

“The union said, ‘This will change you forever’,” she said.

“And I’ve heard that from a lot of people; the longer you’re a teacher the less you want to interact with the kids and have fun with them because you’re damaged from experiences.”

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