Sacked teacher who let pupils as young as 15 pose TOPLESS brazenly insists she’s ‘done nothing wrong’ & says ‘it’s art’

A TEACHER sacked for letting her girl pupils pose topless for a photography class has defended the project as “art”.

Emma Wright, 41, was fired and banned from teaching for two years for allowing her students, some as young as 15, to take the lewd shots for a school project.

The pictures showed teenage girls posing only in their underwear, while holding cigarettes and booze containers, with their hands, bottles or cans covering otherwise naked breasts.

Mrs Wright has now complained to Government officials and vowed never to return to teaching again.

She told Sun Online exclusively: “I feel there is a deep injustice about it, but I am not going to appeal because I no longer wish to teach.

“I have written to my MP, the union and the Education Minister regarding this. I am a good person. I am not the person they are making out to be. 

“I really feel very strongly about it. I am really quite upset about it. It is a position I never thought I would be in.

“Those students were wonderful students. I have no bad feelings towards those students at all.”

Mrs Wright has spoken out for the first time since being sacked from Huxlow Science College, near Northampton, where she had taught art since 2004.

The Teaching Regulation Agency ruled the "highly inappropriate" class had broken safeguarding rules and ordered her to be struck off.

The watchdog found Mrs Wright had invited a photographer who specialised in “suggestive poses” to talk to the students without telling parents or superiors.

They also said the images included teens “posing with their hand inside their underwear or in a pose which simulated masturbation”.

Wright was reported to the TRA after the portfolio of teenagers' work was discovered by the school's head of art and design.

But Mrs Wright, who now runs a care home, blasted: “The TRA has not taken that into account and they have not got an understanding of art in education, which is the basis of my letter to the TRA and MP.

I am hoping the local community are as shocked as I am, and as sad and angry. They know me. I have taught in that school for a long time. 

Emma Wright

“I am hoping the local community are as shocked as I am, and as sad and angry. They know me. I have taught in that school for a long time. 

“So I am hoping that I will be fairly represented because it is quite hurtful.”

The lewd photos were discovered in December 2017 and following a probe Wright was fired the following year.

A lengthy TRA investigation was delayed due to Covid and only announced its findings last week.

Speaking to the panel, Mrs Wright added that in her opinion the artist’s work was not sexual in nature, but she did accept that, with hindsight, she should have told the pupils their photographs were not appropriate.

Decision-maker Alan Meyrick concluded Mrs Wright had committed a serious breach of professional teaching standards, and failed to safeguard pupils' well-being.

Despite being an experienced teacher "of previous good history", she was banned from the profession for at least two years.

Mr Meyrick said: "Whilst the panel was satisfied that there was a low risk of repetition, it did not find that Mrs Wright had fully reflected on the safeguarding implications of allowing pupils to take photographs of themselves or others in a state of undress.

"The risk of harm, due to the lack of safeguarding pupils, was a significant factor in forming that opinion.

"In my view, it is necessary to impose a prohibition order in order to maintain public confidence in the profession."