Cheating headteacher is struck off for telling staff to fiddle school’s attendance figures

A cheating headteacher has been struck off for telling staff to fiddle his school’s attendance figures and hide more than 25,000 absences by pupils.

Peter Spencer, 52, ordered staff to log missing pupils as present when they were not in classes after an inspection had called for improved attendance.

A hearing was told his deception went on for five years at Queen Elizabeth High School in Carmarthen, South Wales, before it was reported by a whistle-blower.

More than 28,000 pupil absences at the school were changed to showing as present between 2014 and 2019, an Education Workforce Council panel heard.

Mr Spencer, who left the…