To complain about teacher weight comments

Indeed.

Teacher was aware, and covered herself, by giving those who are sensitive a ‘get-out’ option: ‘just put the number 50 down if you don’t want to say your actual weight’. What’s wrong with that exactly?

Your complaint gives off the vibe you are looking for things to be offended about / enjoy taking offence or playing victim. Stop being dramatic.

This! I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, it’s a total different kind of hell

Until you’ve experienced it you won’t understand. But believe us who’ve been through it this sort of thing can lead to very very damaging behaviours. I know it makes no sense. Be grateful if you’re blissfully ignorant of it.

We weigh as per of the NHS though in year 6 which I hate!

but as I said I think this is a curriculum at the school issue rather than the teacher who I am fairly certain wouldn’t be teaching it under her own steam

I would absolutely complain.
about the weighing, about the comments, about the entire experience . What were they thinking?

My daughter spent six months eating nothing but apples after her Year 6 class took part in a university study of exercise patterns and food intake. Parents were not given the full picture of what was involved until too late. resulted in a major complaint to the university’s ethics department, and I have never allowed any of my children to participate in any form of research study since then

Honestly don’t think it’s unreasonable teacher bashing type behaviour to raise this. It doesn’t have to be done in an aggressive confrontational attack the teacher type of way. The teachers on the thread agree focussing on pupils weight is not common practice now now anyway.

OP this is ridiculous to me. I don't think anyone should be weighed if they don't want to. In fact weighing and fixation on weight is associated with dysfunctional approaches to fat loss etc in younger females. I think it's awful the biology teacher did this.

As you well said, girls have completely different rates of development - what is normal to a kid who hasn't been through puberty yet is not normal for a girl whose been through puberty but the difference could make her hugely self conscious of the difference.

I wonder why teachers hate their jobs so much these days. Their mental health is apparently in tatters.

This isn’t part of the UK curriculum

This isn't about your daughter in particular, but having fat kids should be treated as a form of child abuse in most cases and its absolutely right for schools/teachers to get involved, just like they would for any other case of abuse/mistreatment

As did this teacher

I have just put the numbers in the bmi child and teen bmi calculator and for a
Girl of 12 she is on the 80th centile!
I think you are the one who doesn't understand BMI s luv!

I suspect though the teacher did not come up with this lesson plan by herself - at high school most subjects have lesson plans agreed by the head of the department so all of the year receive as much as possible the same lesson.

so if you are to make a complaint make it about the lesson being on the curriculum rather than the teacher given that I think she did try to help by saying put 50kg (which is 91st centiles for both boys and girls at 12 so hardly shaming)

I know DD did around that age st school (for physics thiugh) as did her friends at other schools so it is sadly more common than it should be as I know I would have hated it

So did this teacher.

when my kids did this in biology, the teacher was sensible and said that weighing yourself and measuring your height was optional.

Find myself hoping some of these posters aren’t actually parents.

Never a more apt username.

Stop telling posters what they should and shouldn't think of this outdated mechanism for teaching data values.

Absolutely not. The teacher was being very fair by asking them to put down 50kg if they did not want to put down their real weight. She has a lesson to teach and a curriculum to follow. She can't take into consideration every little upset for poor darling child. Also, they need to learn to deal with differentiation. It is all part of being part of a tolerant society and growing into the adult world. I would readjust my lense if I were you, and explain why your daughter has to adapt and change, rather than lodge a complaint in this already overworked blame culture.

though yes, it is unfortunate that she did choose a relatively low number

Apologies if someone else has already pointed this out, but the average weight for a 12 year old girl is 42kg, so 50kg isn't a low number at all.

They did this to us 40 years ago and the weight was written down on the board. I feel horribly anxious even thinking of it now. I am short, solid and muscley so relatively heavy though I don't look like it. For other people it was even more humiliating. I can't believe they are still doing this knowing what they do about teenagers and eating disorders

It’s tricky - there’s so much pressure on teachers as is it, and I’d hate to make someone’s life more stressful by reporting this teacher.

However, there’s no doubt teachers comments matter. I had an eating disorder as a teenager and though there were many factors that led to it, one of the factors was a comment made by a teacher when I was around 12. We were in a German lesson learning the words for tall, short, thin, fat etc. And then the teacher pointed at the tallest girl who had to say the German for ‘I am tall’, then the shortest who had to say ‘I am short’ etc. And you can see where I’m going with this - I was the fat child who had to say ‘I am fat’ in front of everyone.

For what it’s worth, looking back objectively I was a chubby child and slightly overweight, but not massive or obese.

children should not be weighing themselves in class for any reason although obviously the collection and analysis of data is an important scientific tool.

Just for the sake of accuracy though 50kg is not a relatively low number
50kg is at the upper end of nhs data
For a 12 year old girl it lies between 30 kg and 59kg.

Did she say average or normal? I suspect she said average and your daughter interpreted it as normal. They don't mean the same though.
Having said that I don't think getting self conscious teenagers to weigh themselves in class was a good Idea.