A teacher-turned-secret gossip blogger who wrote about girls at prom looking like ‘prostitutes and trans-human Kardashian clones’ must wait to learn if he has been struck off after his misconduct hearing was adjourned.
Alex Price, 43, secretly penned his thoughts on his school’s annual prom, describing it as ‘a shallow, vacuous affair, about nothing more than who has spent the most on looking nice.’
The former Design and Technology teacher at Denbigh High School, North Wales, compared his head teacher to a ‘slithering,’ character from Lord of the Rings, while claiming students were taking cocaine and smoking cannabis at their prom.
Andrew Price, pictured taking a selfie in a tuxedo, described his school’s prom as a ‘shallow, vacuous affair, about nothing more than who has spent the most on looking nice’
Mr Price said he created the blog, titled ‘The Provoked Pedagogue,’ as a ‘cathartic’ exercise while working at the failing high school and tried to make them ‘colourful and entertaining’.
He said: ‘The blog had a tiny readership and was fully anonymous.
‘Hundreds of pages of papers and hours and hours of time have been invested to investigate a blog which yielded zero complaints and simply told the anonymous truth.
‘The articles are colourful and meant to be entertaining.’
In an article called The Problem with Prom, Mr Price described some girls as looking like a cross between ‘Eastern European prostitutes and trans-human Kardashian clones’.
He said girls at Denbigh High School in Denbigh, North Wales, would spend ‘nine out of 12 months’ planning for the event when they should be learning.
Mr Price admits writing the blogs during his time at Denbigh High School in North Wales, but denies they amount to unacceptable professional conduct. If found guilty he faces being struck from the teaching register.
Mr Price was caught after the school conducted an investigation when one teacher thought the posts might be about Denbigh High School
He added: ‘The prom means more to them than GCSE results, the pressure builds and builds and when they should be studying they are on ASOS.
‘Young girls in school fresh-faced or pimpled are plastered in make-up because they feel pressure from all angles, often including the school.
‘Parents getting paid alone to pay for hair extensions and lip pumping, botox for some and dermal peels for others – make-up so thick that when it cracks it rivals tectonic plates.
‘Then there’s the fake tan: ludicrous shades and colours that defy even the unlimited variations provided by the human gene.’
He said some pupils had ‘literacy so poor they cannot read the instructions on sachets of brown goop that leak into every pore.’
He described prom as ‘the ugly end of society where only the rich has value and everyone else has to emulate.
‘Anxious young teens shoe-horned into gowns and paraded into towns like cattle.’
The former Design and Technology teacher claimed the blogs were anonymous, but presenting officer Ashanti-Jade Walton said: ‘Anyone with working knowledge of the school’ would be able to identify it’
‘Tears are assured and will have been flowing freely, family relationships are stretched to breaking point in the quest for the perfect combination of overpriced tat that the teenager thinks they want.’
Mr Price was caught after the school conducted an investigation when one teacher thought the posts might be about Denbigh High School.
James Wood was then appointed by Denbighshire County Council to independently investigate and said today that Mr Price had already admitted to being behind the posts.
Colin Adkins, Mr Price’s NASUWT representative, said: ‘The blogs have been totally misrepresented.’
He said the article about prom was meant to show how girls were put through ‘an appalling, degrading, spectacle’ and not meant to cause offence.
He added: ‘Alex Price has a view on prom night and it’s a view he’s entitled to hold.’
Mr Adkins said the large majority of the blogs were written ‘about education and education matters’ and contained views ‘appropriate to express as a teaching professional.’
He said: ‘Of all the blogs written by Mr Price – more than 100 – the EWC investigation produced just five blog posts and one tweet of concern, all the rest were deemed fine.’
Presenting officer Ashanti-Jade Walton said although Mr Price claimed the blogs were anonymous ‘anyone with working knowledge of the school’ would be able to identify it.
She said: ‘It does not take much skill to scroll through blog posts and tweets.’
Mr Price admits writing the blogs but denies they amount to unacceptable professional conduct. If found guilty he faces being struck from the teaching register.
The hearing in Cardiff was adjourned until a date to be fixed.