Teacher sacked for teaching a TikTok dance

That works in larger cities I imagine. It doesn’t work in small villages where the teachers are close friends and family of most of their pupils and their parents.

There should be no contact between pupils/parents and their teachers on social media accounts.
Not professional and just asking for trouble

Class Dojo isn't social media. It's a platform used by schools to communicate with parents.

You can message the whole school or class. Or just one parent. You can share photos. But anything on there can be seen by whoever is in charge EG SLT or the head.

Just seen this before posting my reply
Knew there must be more to it.
There should be no contact between pupils/parents and their teachers on social media accounts.
Not professional and just asking for trouble

Exactly. You don’t get sacked easily as a teacher

and an investigation into her condact found a pattern of small indiscretions which ‘make a bigger concerning picture’
Hmm, there's obviously more to this story.

@ToryHater

Thank you. I would not want her or anyone like her near any children. I wonder if those feeling sympathy for her would feel the same if it was a male teacher.

Having read more about this case after seeing it in the news, I feel for this teacher. She was clearly struggling with her mental health but her actions seem to have come from a place of caring (letting the children know about having a different teacher next year to prepare them emotionally, staying in touch with the pupil over dojo because the pupil missed her.) Yes it wasn’t sensible but it wasn’t malicious. The school knew she was having a hard time and responded by conducting teaching observations, which would have no doubt added to her stress.

She shouldn’t have told the children about the ectopic pregnancy and it is regrettable but it sounds like she was emotional and told them using child-friendly language. These things can happen in life and if someone told my DC this, I would explain that sometimes things don’t go well and sadly the baby couldn’t be born. They were upper primary so they would have some understanding of death/ things not going to plan.

I taught for 10 years but changed career a few years ago. A lot of multi academy trusts are quite difficult to work in and they heap so much pressure on staff that it becomes toxic. I remember we once had a training session where they told us that if a child tries to hug us, we should literally push them away because it’s inappropriate. Some children are vulnerable or have a difficult home life and often the school staff are the only people they feel safe with. Teachers aren’t robots and I don’t like the way they condemned her for using affectionate language about the children.

I’m not saying she was completely in the right but it’s a shame the school didn’t support her more.

In year 5 as in 9/10 year olds??????

It’s completely different to the newspaper article then.

Pretty complicated and messy.

I remember feeling so adrift as an NQT, but that was donkeys’ years ago.

If PTSD is impacting your classroom, I don’t see how you can continue. There are limits to adjustments, I’d think.

Details of the case are here
https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/ms-g-rogers-v-diocese-of-southwell-and-nottingham-multi-academy-trust-2601454-slash-2022

she overshared information about boyfriends and her ectopic pregnancy and formed inappropriate relationships with a couple of pupils.She seems to have significant mental health issues too.

EJ Butler concluded the school’s investigation into the TikTok allegation was ‘flawed’ and as a result the allegation itself did not result in ‘gross misconduct’.
However, the tribunal found dismissing Miss Rogers in relation to the other allegations was the ‘reasonable response’ and her claims were not upheld.

so not only was she fired for other matters ,the tik tok thing was held NOT to gross misconduct.

I feel for the teacher too. It’s sad that a female teacher calling a little girl “sweetheart” is seen as inappropriate. My nine-year-old’s teacher has called her “honey” in passing before - like, “No, honey, put it over there.” I have absolutely no issue with it.

The few things mentioned are very inappropriate and the teacher sounds clueless with no professional understanding of boundaries.

To be fair, if you aren’t a teacher or in a position with safeguarding, you wouldn’t notice the two hints in the passage.

It reads very much as if it’s about dance and TikTok.

I feel for the teacher in this. Very new. Impacted by Covid. I used to call dc in my class sweetheart, my lovely etc.

She’s got a warm, nurturing style of communication and hasn’t learned that written communication should be more formal. Dojo isn’t FB messenger.

However, I suspect she was underperforming in other ways and this was the way they chose to tackle it.

I've read as much about this as I possibly can.

I definitely feel like there had to be more than this.

Dojo is not a platform that you would use if you were up to no good because the school can see everything. You can't message the children on it, only the parents.

You do get parents who will dojo message you about things that they shouldn't. I once saw a family when I was walking my dog and the mum started messaging me about dogs and did I think getting a dog would be beneficial to their child as he was an only child.

I can really imagine a parent commenting on your nails at pick up and then messaging you saying how they or their child liked them and where do you go etc.

I definitely don't CPOM every child who mentions they have been watching dancing on TikTok or playing fecking Fortnite because if I did I would never get anything else done. I do say 'that's not something you should be doing' and that sort of thing.

I'll be doing it now though!