Dealing with teachers who are (imho) bullying children

Wow the teachers are out in force tonight! Of course there are poor teachers - why wouldn't there be - there are bad people in every profession! My children are through school and I've seen great and terrible teachers. I only once complained about a teacher who had shoved a child - not mine. Fortunately other children had told parents too so I wasn't the only one to raise it - as otherwise I'd be getting told my child had misunderstood! Of course it's borderline bullying if a teacher is leaving a child sat next to their bully despite several conversations about it. Some teachers just don't like feeling they are being told what to do by parents and kick their heels in. All you can do is reassure your child that it isn't them and explain that sometimes teachers, as all people, can make others lives difficult.

Horrible situation for your son. I've been through something similar. Basically, teachers will close ranks. The nicer you frame things and tiptoe around them, which is what I would do and did naturally, I found they didn't respect me and yes, they took things out on my son for me saying something. I had a better result when I went in and coldly/bluntly said don't sit my son next to this other boy - he's being bullied. They jumped a bit then. Shame you have to be like that. Better yet, if you have a husband who looks a bit scary I think they'll be listened to more. Some teachers are great but there is definitely bullying going on. But you can't win so best you move him ASAP so he has a fresh start.

I ended up going private and while not perfect the behaviour of the kids was so much better as there were more consequences. This helped massively while, again, some of the teachers were arrogant wankers.

No boots, no hard hat, no hi-viz = no job.

You can chuck in no wearing of jewellery/watches (degloving risk), tying long hair back, compulsory wearing of eye protection - arc eye isn't pleasant, for example - and other such roles where it is imperative that the rules for appearance are followed.

Looking at the seat plan issue, it's quite likely that the teachers have been directed by the new, shiny SLT to arrange students in a very specific way, such as everybody eligible for Pupil Premium in one place, everybody with SEND in another, everybody at similar levels (High, Middle, Low) at KS2 together, with an open threat of disciplinary action for refusing an instruction as a fantastic way to further motivate staff. 'But that means Fred will have to sit next to James who has bullied him for months' 'Tough. If you're telling us that you struggle with your classroom management, you can be placed with extra new and extra shiny SLT member for improvement strategies. Or you follow the instructions because OFSTED will want to see that all lessons conform to the school improvement plan'.

Judges have to wear wigs and robes in certain circumstances. Vets, dentists, doctors, nurses etc have to wear uniform or scrubs.

If you don't like the school uniform, go elsewhere or campaign for change. Statistically, most parents prefer uniform.

Sitting a child with a bully for a number of weeks when other places are available does make them a bully.

It doesn't.

How many times has your child asked to move?

I get asked daily by multiple children. Most requests get a no but if a parent requests, usually I remember. However there are times I forget. Especially with a class I teach once a week, parent emails on the Tuesday after the Monday lesson, and by the next Monday, I've forgotten. Because, guess what.... I am human!!!

Literally nothing of whag you have described is bullying. There can't possible be a quiet and a loud part of the classroom. The children are sharing the space, if one child is loud, it's loud.

I read three quarters of this thread and got to the point where I had to comment.

You always believe the child when they disclose abuse.
Always.
Bullying is abuse.

I have done 3 lots of safeguarding training this year. Two for roles in schools.
It seems that many of the teachers on here don't believe in that training.
No wonder we have problems in schools.

Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility.
Especially parents towards their own child. I know abuse mainly happens in families, but low level abuse seems to be the way schools work, and those who can't cope are told to be more 'resilient'.

Resilience is not a virtue or a value for a child. It means a child's needs are not being met. If their needs are met they will grow up to be secure in themselves and therefore resilient in adult life, where most have far more choices than children do (And therefore less need for resilience.)
If a child has to be resilient, it means they are not being protected and looked after properly.

That’s a dress code not a strict uniform where everyone looks identical.

Im so glad some teachers have come on here to explain just what a teachers day is like. I’m sure some parents think that it’s just their child that gets taught. The reality is (and I’m not saying this is good in any way) that teachers are overstretched, overworked and overloaded and as a result, they might not always pick up an email from a parent straight away. As a previous poster has said, a teacher might get 50 emails a day and have no time to look at them. I had a couple of days a week that I had a full teaching timetable, plus break or lunch duty and an enrichment club (that we had to do) and then meetings after school. Emails had to be left until the next day as I barely had time for a toilet break, let alone to sit down and read and respond to emails. On the other days I might have had 15 minutes over lunch to try and get through and respond to over 100 emails that had built up over a couple of days.

I used to teach over 250 children a week. I had to have paperwork and data for every single one of those children, plus there were lesson plans, marking, sorting resources, break duties, detentions, meetings, my form, reports (that was fun when you had the whole year group!), the list goes on and on. Teaching is like juggling 100 plates and they are all on fire.

Dr? Judge? Politics? (not uniform as such but still suits and ties) Scientific research? Pilot? Vet? Pretty much anything medicine or science related actually.

I'd say they're all aspirational jobs which require uniform and will be much more strictly enforced than in school.

What high status jobs require uniform? Or are they preparing for life as a check out assistant or postman? Nothing wrong with those jobs but really not getting why kids need to practise wearing a uniform when most aspirational jobs don't need one ... And even where uniform is required it's less strict than most secondary schools

I'd assume misspelt name in the teachers email address.

I had a complaint about me made to the head for ignoring emails. The email chain was forwarded to me and my email address had a letter missing from my name so I had never received the emails.

Ah, they won't give a shit about that. They can't take it into account prior to offering a place and it doesn't transfer over in the CTF once your kid's admitted. They'll be interested in SEND, safeguarding and attendance/punctuality. KS2 data comes from the DfE if it's not included in the CTF. The rest? Irrelevant.

You said you wanted to know if people would consider it bullying. Several people told you it's not. You told them it is. Therefore I assume you're not actually interested in people's opinions.

You need to deal with your son feeling upset about sitting next to this child. It's fine to advocate for your son. It's not fine to say he's being bullied by a teacher.

At work, if I shared an office with someone I didn't get on with, or someone who typed really loud and this distracted me, or someone who was rude or unfair to me in the past and had a disciplinary for this, my manager would not move my desk because of this. They would not be a bully for not moving my desk. There may be genuine operational reasons for keeping me there. As there may be with your son. Or there may not be; I don't know and you don't know.

Can you speak to the person who previously dealt with the child who bullied your son?

@derivativation your response to hercisback shows you really don't understand how managing a classroom works.

There is no 'somewhere quiet' to put a child in a classroom that's occupied by 30 other kids. Where exactly would you want your child to be moved?

You have no idea of the make up of that class and what other issues the teacher is having to manage through their existing seating plan.

Your DC says this teacher talks too fast and is 'volatile'. That's your child's perception and they obviously don't feel safe in that classroom. That however doesn't make the teacher a bully. It makes them someone whose teaching style and personality don't suit your child.

The more you explain about what is happening at your child's school, the more it's clear that your expectations are way out of line with the actual reality of most classrooms. There are some classes where you can't sit anyone away from someone who is going to distract or annoy them, because everyone's a problem and you haven't got enough space to separate desks and if you put Tom next to Zac then that means Emma has to sit with Jack and they broke up two weeks ago and aren't talking so that's not going to work, so instead you have to put Zac with Tom, even though Tom finds Zac distracting. It's a constant juggling act.

I think you need to be a little more realistic here about what you expect a school to be able to do for your child. Kids are not going to love all their teachers, they're not always going to be able to sit exactly where they want, and sometimes another child's needs will need to be prioritised over theirs. Such is life.

@derivativation

I think the situation you're describing of a teacher ignoring emails and not moving a child being bullied is negligent but not bullying. Bullying would be the teacher intentionally choosing to cause a child upset repeatedly. You don't know that the teacher was intentionally choosing to sit the child next to someone who was bullying them.

From a teacher's perspective - our days are frantic and chaotic. Today I ate my breakfast at 1pm because that was the first break I had. I didn't have time to eat anything else all day. I teach back to back on Wednesdays so I didn't have a chance to look at my emails until 4pm. When I did, I had 50 to read and I didn't get to most of them because I needed to plan my lessons for tomorrow. I already have 100 unread emails that have stacked up from the past couple of days to get through. I won't get to them until my free period tomorrow. A parent may have emailed about an issue with their child that I haven't had a chance to read or action yet. This might mean that I could have inadvertently today or yesterday sat a child with another child they shouldn't be sitting with.

When you have several classes of 30 kids to think about and plan for every day, and very little time to do any admin or talk to colleagues about students, things do get missed and we also do forget things. Unless you've been a teacher, I don't think you can really understand what it's like on a day to day basis.

You seem insistent that the teachers at your child's school are intentionally looking to harm the children in their care. Perhaps you're right and perhaps this school has managed to attract the type of teachers who hate their jobs and shouldn't be anywhere near children. But you might also be dealing with a school where teachers are massively overworked, stressed and overwhelmed - especially as you've already said the headteacher is useless - and you have no idea how much of what is taking place in the classroom is down to teachers struggling to keep on top of things. I do my best every day to juggle everything and remember the needs of all of my students, but sometimes I do let things slip and I forget some information or make an error of judgement. Some parents have to wait a week for me to get back to them when they email because I just don't have enough time in the day and I have to prioritise having material to teach my classes.

Teachers are not perfect - none of us are. But I can't say I've come across many in my long career who genuinely take pleasure in deliberately making a child's life miserable.

No. Bullying is he repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group. That's not what happened here.

No, that's not bullying. Have you spoken to someone directly about this issue?