Drunk teacher made students ‘dance the Macarena’

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A teacher who turned her Wales classroom into a “mini-rave” has been removed from the job.

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Alice Ashton, 31, was accused of calling her students “little s***s” and asked them to “dance the Macarena” during a class at Ysgol Bro Caereinion school in Welshpool, Wales, in January 2024.

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During a disciplinary hearing, the Education Workforce Council were told that the “out-of-control” lesson devolved into a “mini-rave, with loud music, shouting and dancing,” the Telegraph reported.

Students, particularly those near the front of the classroom, said they could smell alcohol from a water bottle from which Ashton was drinking, according to the outlet.

The usually “reserved and quiet” teacher’s classes on alcohol and drug awareness were normally “boring,” one 16-year-old student told the panel.

But before the class, she was spotted guzzling from a water bottle that reeked of booze, the unidentified pupil recalled.

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“She was very, very close to us. There was a slight alcoholic smell. She was very, very lively and quite animated and speaking with her hands. In other lessons, she was more reserved and quiet,” the student explained.

Ashton “asked the class to make the Macarena” and “played music,” the student detailed, adding, “we were not doing work.”

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Another student added: “She got us to dance the Macarena and she did not care about the lesson any more. She got some students dancing to the laptop and speakers and it spiralled out of control.”

Ashton kept “jumping up from her desk” but soon became “irritated” as the lesson went on, the student said, as the teacher repeatedly swore and called the whole class “little s***s.”

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The students noticed that the “water” bottle Ashton had been taking swigs from was almost empty by the end of the class.

The wild lesson took place about four months after the teacher had been convicted of drunk driving, the fitness-to-practice hearing heard.

Ashton denied the allegations during an internal school review, LBC reported, but according to the panel, CCTV footage from the classroom corroborated the students’ stories.

The panel found that she appeared under the influence and/or smelled of alcohol in the classroom, according to the Telegraph.

Ashton, who was not at the hearing, has not responded to the allegations, nor did she show any remorse or issue an apology.

She was struck off the teaching register indefinitely, but may reapply in two years.

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