Alexandra Dolan faces an allegation of unacceptable professional conduct brought by the General Teaching Council (GTC) for covertly filming pupils and colleagues for a Channel 4 documentary while working as a supply science teacher.

Made at four schools in Leeds and London, the programme showed pupils fighting in class and running on tables, while others swore in the face of teachers and refused to work.

Ms Dolan, from Cambridge, also captured apparent attempts to mislead Ofsted inspectors for the programme, which was broadcast in July 2005.
At a hearing in Birmingham, she said she wanted to expose poor classroom standards, the deception of inspectors and the manipulation of exam results and league tables for the benefit of pupils and parents.

She told the GTC professional conduct committee: "I believe it was caring because I got to know these children. I feared for them a great deal.

"They were so failed by the system. I was lucky - I got a good education. They weren't getting that.

"I made this film for them."

During the covert filming, a 15-year-old girl said one of the schools had gone through 26 supply teachers in recent months and she was so angry she was writing to Tony Blair.

Ms Dolan said that as a supply teacher, fundamental information required to do the job was often not supplied, the most disruptive pupils were taken on day trips on the day of Ofsted visits, and that supply teachers were swapped into other schools and subjects to plug holes so that senior staff could teach the classes being inspected.

The documentary was broadcast after clearance from a High Court judge who refused to issue an injunction sought by Leeds City Council, ruling instead that it served important public interests.

Ms Dolan claimed the same, telling the panel: "These problems were so serious they had to be brought to the public interest.

"The bottom line was the pupils were suffering."

Speaking ahead of an appearance from former Ofsted chief Chris Woodhead, she added that the filming had to be covert, because overt filming would have influenced the results.

Mr Woodhead, the chief inspector of schools in England from 1994 until 2000, is expected to give evidence in her defence this afternoon.

Proceeding