A physics technician at a leading boarding school who claims she was told women should "stay at home in the kitchen" has won an employment tribunal.

Hannah Miller, who worked at Tonbridge School from January 2005 to June 2014, said she was verbally abused by pupils and given less pay than male teachers.

The 39-year-old, who was based in the school's physics department, resigned last year stating the school didn't acknowledge her grievances, claiming she was "shouldering 90 per cent of the workload" in her department and complaints made had "not been acted on appropriately or at all."

Despite the school, in the High Street, denying the claims of equal pay, constructive dismissal and sexual discrimination, a judgement ruled in favour of Miss Miller.

The tribunal was held in Ashford in March.

Tonbridge School is a £35,163 a year boarding school. Former pupils include members of the band Keane and author Frederick Forsythe, caters for 780 boys aged between 13 and 18 years.

A letter written by school bursar, Anthony Moore to Miss Miller to inform her of the outcome of her grievances was the basis for Miss Millers' sex discrimination claim.

Miss Miller found the tone and content of the letter to be “dismissive and belittling” – which the tribunal agreed with.

The judgement in favour of Miss Miller read: “Having considered all the evidence on this issue we have concluded that the claimant has established, on a balance of probabilities, evidence from which we could infer, absent an explanation from the respondent that the content of the letter sent to the claimant by Mr Moore on April 29 2014 could have been because of her sex.

“We are unanimous in concluding that the respondent has failed to discharge the burden on it of showing, on a balance of probabilities, that the letter was not less favourable treatment on the grounds of the claimant’s sex.

“We therefore find that the respondent has discriminated against the claimant because of her sex."

With reference to her constructive dismissal claim, the judgement added: “The claimant having been dismissed the onus is on the respondent to establish that there was a potentially fair reason for the dismissal.

“It has neither advanced nor established any potentially fair reason for the claimant’s dismissal. In those circumstance, we have no alternative but to find that the claimant was unfairly dismissed.”

“We therefore find that the respondent has discriminated against the claimant because of her sex" - Employment tribunal

Miss Miller said that some years earlier at the school, a physics teacher stated in her presence in his classroom 'You should never have women in physics, I would never hire one'.

She added she made complaints which fell on deaf ears and was worried she was being "over sensitive" and taking "banter" too seriously.

Following the ruling, Miss Miller has reached an undisclosed agreement with the school and is not able to comment due to confidential terms.

A statement from Tonbridge School said: “Tonbridge School will not appeal the verdict of the employment tribunal.

“The allegations of ‘abusive or humiliating’ behaviour made by Miss Miller were unsubstantiated upon further investigation, but we accept that we should have done more at the time to ensure the science technician pay scale was fair and transparent and for this we are sorry.

“The School was in the process of evaluating and comparing pay for certain roles even before the tribunal. These changes have now been made and are consistent with our equal opportunities policy, which we take very seriously.”

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