Jo Moore starts new career as primary teacher

Jo Moore, the special adviser who described 11 September, 2001 as a good day to "bury bad news", has swapped spin for spelling tests.

The former spin doctor for Stephen Byers, who resigned after an internecine war broke out in her Whitehall department, is training for a new career as a primary school teacher. As part of her course, Ms Moore has become a classroom assistant to six-year-olds at Muswell Hill primary school in north London.

Ms Moore, whose infamous memo sparked a chain of events that eventually led to Mr Byers' resignation from the Cabinet, abandoned politics completely after an embarrassing outbreak of sniping and accusations in the Department for Transport. In her resignation statement Ms Moore, a friend of the Prime Minister, acknowledged that some civil servants did not want to work with her.

She said at the time: "Clearly there are some individuals in the department who are not prepared to work with me and are even prepared to invent stories about me," she said. "I have devoted most of my adult life to working for the Labour Party because I am committed to achieving a fair and just society. I do not want to be an obstacle to achieving this goal."

Haringey council confirmed she was working as a supervised assistant in one of its schools as part of her training.

A spokeswoman for the authority said: "Jo Moore is undertaking a teacher training course as part of which she is doing teaching practice. She is one of many students who get some practical experience in our schools. Her suitability for the course and eventually as a teacher is determined by her course tutors and assessors and not by Haringey council. All students are supervised and any concerns raised would be reported to her tutors."