Blatant racism from school - parent won’t do anything

The fake tan incident has been dealt with, teacher's mistake and won't happen again. As for mixing up names, I often mix up 2 names in classes but in secondary there are so many classes!

No of course not, and that’s different depending on which country you are in for a start! we’re talking about the teacher being racist here though - I think this just makes it harder to prove this was in fact racism. It’s best to stick to things where she can’t say eg oh I get everyone mixed up all the time. As a lot of people do, everywhere! I think in a lot of cases (obviously not this one due to the fake tan thing) there is no ill intent and as it is just lazy. (A LOT of people say old bald white men look the same) Coming from a POC would I atomically start chanting racist? Personally no.

Yes, this is blatant racism and a racist teacher has no business in that role. You can see it's alive and well on here too, with people defending the names getting muddled up.

Senior Leadership Team

Don't be ridiculous, it's not at all the same!

I was only one of three Asian kids in secondady schoo. A teacher who was white, when I was 13 was reading the register and had my name in front of him and called out the name of the other Asian kid. We have nothing in common at all and she even was bullying me at the time. He then repeated it twice and I am still so ashamed that I answered "here sir" rather then calling it out.

Our name was not even remotely the same and as looked nothing alike except for race. I still feel sad that I didn't have the confidence to tell my parents or to even raise it myself and still feel that shame years later. OP I would advocate for your niece or support them to make the complaint, if just to empower her and to feel listened to.

Report her.

The over the top responses are not helpful either. Those who constantly see "micro aggressions" everywhere are bullies who create racism. 😳🤦‍♀️

Wishthingswerenouting

This needs to come from your neice or her Mother and Father.
The only thing that you can do is discuss this with your family and put this forward as an option.

Senior Leadership Team

No, it means safeguarding lead.

It's winter and they're teenagers.

Skirts and socks are shorter now than in mid-June. They just add a puffy coat with a massive furry trim on the hood and that solves everything, apparently.

It'll take a foot of snow for some of them to agree to wear tights, much less trousers - especially if they get driven to school, so don't have to concern themselves with horizontal rain at the bus stop.

I would, however, be slightly tentative about wading in on her behalf because what might be more accurate was that she was pulled up for uniform violations such as fake nails, lashes and a skirt barely covering her. I know DD1 tried that one once when she claimed she'd been accused of dying her very, very bright ginger hair and bleaching her eyebrows because they were so pale. (No, darling, you weren't picked on by the teacher for your specific genetic heritage, you were given a detention for having plastic glued to the ends of your fingers).

This might be outing, if the male teacher is on here or his colleagues it might shake him.
There is only a handful of black students in my DD’s school. There is one black boy in her class, name begins with A, totally normal name, the ethical education teacher keeps calling him “Travis” as in Travis Scott, smirking, The boy doesn’t like it and neither does DD.

I have a very small number of kids in my class, all same sex, all white and 4 of them have the same initial first name. I have to run through at least two names before I get it right multiple times a day so the name thing might be genuine..?

The fake tan comment is racist though.

Doesn’t SLT mean Speech & Language Therapist?! It does where I am!

But not all races suffer from structural and systemic racism to the same degree.

It's definitely a thing, but this does happen to all races and I think we need to remember that

@DotAndCarryOne2 I am aware of that thank you. But I don't know if the teacher mixes up the names of other students who have similarities, that could be anything from height, hair colour, length etc etc. So I can't confirm it's racist or not. It is lazy.

I'm a teacher, mixed race and 50 years old. I always get names mixed up, probably due to my brain fog etc.
However the comment about wearing fake tan is atrocious. When I was at school a cover teacher once asked me to take off my brown eye shadow.....I and my all white friends had to explain that it was simply my skin tone. I've never forgotten it but that was back in the 80s!

"Going ballistic" at a school is very rarely helpful. The over the top responses are not helpful either. Those who constantly see "micro aggressions" everywhere are bullies who create racism.

A polite letter to the school recording what has happened would be appropriate but there isnt enough yet to be certain the teacher is being racist. Expand on "She has also been a bit of an arse to my niece separate to this." and on how your niece "escaped detention". How and why is the teacher being an arse - that may confirm your suspicions. Did the teacher admit to and acknowledge a mistake over the fake tan? Maybe the teacher is racist, maybe your niece is seeing offence where there is stupidity. Either way making a great fuss now is unlikely to be helpful.

Dont teach your niece that every incident is racism. Ask about the background.

Fired? Really?

aModernClassic
Your blond child may have got mistaken for another blond child
But
Willing to bet it wasn't done in a overt 'got to pick on you and put you down' way by a teacher who assumed ignorantly and deliberately that true skin colour was fake tan?
As she'd never ever seen a brown child in her life thus far??

That's disgraceful. I used to work with someone who couldn't remember the names of the only two black women in a team of 20. They also looked nothing like one another except for skin their tone but he obviously couldn't see past that. We were all aware that this guy was a twat, and he didn't last long, fortunately

I'm getting angry on your behalf.
Ask them about their anti-racism policy. If it's a good school it should be pinned up in reception. What an absolute knob of a teacher. They need to be fired. Unacceptable.

Maybe she was doing PE? All the local schools near me the girls wear socks and skirts (if not trousers). It’s very credible.