A TEACHER failed to get a job after being labelled as Humpty Dumpty by a pupil allowed to sit on his interview panel.

It almost sounds like a late April Fool joke.

But teachers union NASUWT says that Student Voice, a government scheme to allow students a greater say in their education, has led to pupils abusing their powers to humiliate teachers.

The scheme was defended by Bournemouth University educationalist Stephen Heppell on Radio 4’s Today programme. He said that it had resulted in “a better quality of learning”.

Mr Heppell said: “They (the students) do need to have good training. There’s lots and lots of schools that do involve children not just in the interview process but in watching teachers teach and watching students learn in the classroom.

“What they get back is children who reflect on how they can do this better as an institution.”

Mr Heppell denied that children were being used as “agents of management”.

Teachers these days are used to being observed by each other and regularly swap and share ideas, he said.

But NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates (correct) said that the scheme had resulted in many teachers being demeaned and embarrassed.

She cited examples from a 200-case dossier compiled by the union including how one teacher was told to sing their favourite song while another was asked by students on an interview panel how they would impress the judges of Britain’s Got Talent.

The report also said that students could “inform” on their teachers and would manipulate questionnaires so that they could unfairly criticise staff.

A spokesperson for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said the idea was devised to give students a say about how lessons could be made interesting but that pupils were not meant to have an input on the performance management of teachers.

This weekend union members will consider whether to resort to industrial action to stop pupils abusing their new powers.