A teaching assistant has been sacked by a primary school after parents discovered photographs of her modelling underwear. Gemma Laird, 21, says she was told the school did not want pupils ‘thinking it is acceptable to be a model’.
She was sacked after less than a week in the job at Bloemfontein Primary School in Craghead, County Durham, where she worked with pupils aged five and six. Miss Laird, who has a four-year-old daughter, Zofia, said: ‘After a week, I got called into the office and the headmistress said, “I don’t want to have this conversation with you but I have to”.
‘She sat me down and said somebody had been on my Facebook page and discovered that I was doing modelling work. ‘They had reported me for it. I was told that they didn’t want to damage the school’s reputation and that people would lose respect for the school if they found out I was a model.
‘She said she doesn’t want her year-six pupils thinking it is acceptable to be a model. ‘She made me feel dirty and like I was a prostitute. It’s ridiculous.
‘When I started out they said I was a natural with the kids. They loved me. It was hard, but I felt like I was doing well.’ Miss Laird had been offered the job as an apprentice teaching assistant, with pay of about £150 a week, after passing an exam and beating seven candidates in an interview.
She said she had told the school about her modelling, which had paid £120 a day, and her social media accounts were set to private. Since being sacked on March 3 she has returned to modeling.