Headteacher criticised my daughter's water bottle

Sure, that’s why your post got deleted because you were fine. 😂

Again, unrelated to OP's incident and incomparable!

DDs English teacher called a kid in her class a pratt because he was very disorganised - and it was a daily thing.

But I'm certain that they didn't pick one child as an example, they picked one bottle.

Context is so important:

"This bottle isn't the best to use because..."

"This bottle, LIKE THE ONE LITTLE SALLY HAS BROUGHT, isn't the best to use because..."

Are completely different circumstances.

It's not a good example to set for children though, picking on one child as an example to the school. If they wanted to discuss how plastic bottles are bad (perfectly valid discussion to have) they didn't have to involve the OP's DD.

My point exactly!

Calling someone a "deadbeat" and it being part of continuous, unprofessional behaviour (which I'm sure was much more common in the 80s especially) is incomparable to one isolated comment about a water bottle.

I did well at school, and generally got on with teachers, but there were a lot of comments back in the 80s/90s. One that particularly sticks is the French teacher who called me a "deadbeat" as my mum couldn't afford to pay for me to go on the school residential trip. (Not an isolated incident either, she said a lot)
Probably need therapy, but I'm AuDHD and can't let go of things easily. God I would love to have it out with that woman particularly.

We are talking about ONE comment here.

Either your examples were more than a single thoughtless passing comment, or you need to go to therapy...

If you are genuinely that traumatised by a teacher mentioning your bottle once (as an escape), this is a problem that runs deeper than the teacher.

Right. So it was just ONE poster who did that then. Hardly a majority view.

I dunno, perhaps HT's need to develop a bit more "resilience"?

I still remember the "thoughtless" comments teachers made to me. Admittedly it means that rather than be upset with them I'd rather punch them if I saw them now, but it's still there.

Another poster mentioned he should be sacked.

No wonder people don't want this job.

I’m confused by your comment, I didn’t say anything about the sack?

And therein lies the problem. The HT made a slip, a clumsy comment. No he, should not be sacked for this. This is not comparable to some hideous, on going bullying in the work place.

I mean agree with you here that one PP who are called for him to be sacked is way off the mark. But an email highlighting the situation or an appointment to discuss would be appropriate. As would an apology to the child for humiliating her in class. A HT with decent leadership skills who understands the impact of their words would do that.

The classroom is not a public place, I cannot believe the soppiness in the way you’re talking about children’s understanding and ability to deal with just facts

Unless they picked it up and said "GLASSBLUEBIRD IS A TERRIBLE HUMAN AND HERE IS HER BOTTLE TO PROVE IT", no, I wouldn't.

The HT absolutely should have read the room better, but the outrage and anger people are showing is completely disproportionate.

I always used to reuse an empty 'single use' water bottle at school, could usually get a term of use out of it. I can't remember if 'proper' water bottles were really a thing in the 90s. People used to bring in their lunches in empty butter tubs etc. I think it's wrong of the HT to assume your daughter wasn't going to use that bottle again.

“It was a thoughtless passing comment”

And those thoughtless comments have consequences. A HT should know better.

Everyone in that room, including the child, knew that that water bottle belong to that child. That child has been singled out in front of their peers. It’s not okay.

Imagine you being singled out in your workplace by your boss in front of 29-59 co-workers how would that make you feel? You’d be trotting off to HR!

Er, no, I didn't "lose it" at all., thanks. What a silly, projecting comment.

Almost as silly as the absurdly hyperbolic statement I was responding to.

I genuinely thought I was going insane reading all of these comments.

It was a thoughtless passing comment; not an angry, self-righteous tirade against the child.

Reassure her that she's not murdering turtles and move on. This is life - she's nearly in Year 4, not Reception.

Well since you completely just lost it on this post and got personal, insulting and quite frankly over the top my grip is fine. Yours is clearly lost reading this post. My empathy, attitude and understanding of kids is just fine.

Are we thinking that we should have HTs entering classrooms embarrassing children because that’s how we can make our kids resilient?

So the the HT is not doing a shit job - they are actually leading the way and returning resilience to the nation - sounds easy, let’s get on with embarrassing all kids and we’ll be a
strong nation again in no time.

Thanks op for posting this op, your dd is so lucky, she’ll be resilient after this snd hopefully we can encourage other educators to follow suit. Britain will be great once again! Lovely! 🥰

How on earth can you not see that in effect he singled out OP's child and criticised her publicly?

Oh dear. If this was me I would just explain to my child what the HT meant, explain it’s obviously a one-off as the other bottles were leaking, tell them not to worry about it and move on. Buy a new reusable bottle and forget about it. I get a lot of children are very sensitive now but they need to get some resilience.

How on earth can you see what that head teacher said as being cruel it’s a piece of information with a visual aid unless OP is going on about it I don’t expect the child to have thought about it once