Headteacher criticised my daughter's water bottle

Water fountains don't require cups. What is your point?

• @sprigatito In all honestly I dont disagree with the sentiment of your responses at all & yes this is a chat forum and we should be able to chat about things however trivial, I apologise.

What I was trying to (somewhat clumsily) get across and what I still cant understand is this modern need to disect every trivial interaction and find offence in it, and then get outraged. And headteachers have such a horrific time of it from parents as it is and then people are wanting to you complain about a comment you weren't there in person to hear!! On a similar vein, telling someone to "pack it in" isnt very open to hearing people's opinions of which you asked for in a community forum is it. You're someone who only wants people who agree with you to comment - why use a public forum then?

Yes,
Op should write an email - a big apology, saying how sorry she is and how right he is. She should say that the only solution to the plastic waste mess we find ourselves in, is for the school to provide ceramic cups of water though out the day. He can hand wash them at the end of each day while thinking of all the turtles he is saving.

The problem with adults in positions of authority pulling this kind of stunt is that we expect, and train, young children under their care to be deferential to them. And that's fine... you need a certain amount of deference to teachers from pupils to be able to run a school in an orderly and proper manner. But this does then put the onus on teachers to be careful what they say to pupils (because the pupils can't answer back), and I agree with the poster above who said that shame has no place in schools.

I have a very straight talking 8yo who can come across as rude because he'll challenge decisions or statements he thinks are unfair (at leas to him!). His teacher and I have both told him that there is a time and place, and sometimes he just has to keep his head down, do as he's told and let things go. There are a number of kids like him in the class, they're not bad or troublesome kids but they do just need to get on with stuff without questioning everything for the class to function. Had a teacher (let alone the headteacher!) made a silly remark like this to my DS, I would not be surprised to hear my DS had got into trouble for answering back, and tbh I wouldn't particularly be annoyed with him, although usually I support the school in everything. With power comes responsibility.

I did put YANBU.

If he asked who did it belong to and then all eyes were on her as he addressed her specifically, then yes a tad unreasonable and clumsy of him.

But - if he picked up the bottle and said generally, 'oh, these are not great water bottles because etc etc' - which is true of course, then I don't think that is unreasonable. Just generally pointing it out to the whole class. I would imagine most of the class didn't know who it belonged to anyway.

At first I thought you were talking about your child and I thought ‘good for him!’

HT sounds ridiculous, my teacher friends often bemoan the new heads who think they need to make an impact on everything and immediately. Presumably he cycles to school and brings his vegan lunch in a bamboo lunch box.

And exposure to small, harmless events over time will gradually reduce your daughter's sensitivity; cotton woolling her will not.

My children were both very good at school and were mortified if they were told off - sometimes unfairly. I just told them that unfairness sometimes happens and everyone, including their teachers, make mistakes or over-react sometimes. However, I would also be contacting that head teacher and saying a) it was completely out of order to call your daughter out in front of the class for something over which she has no control and b) water bottles in the uk do not end up killing turtles because we have an effective waste management system in which they are recycled - so she was wrong on two fronts.

Mmm. Although it is Pope Leo, who seems to be a bit more modern?

Haven't schools got better things to do.

Maybe the pope? Torn on that one, could possibly be overkill. But this monster does need to be stopped.

Yes, I would definitely add those. Plus the UN Secretary General. Also the ECHR.

I'd also CC your MP, the police, and maybe the king.

Direct email of complaint, CCing in the relevant governors. A pupil of your daughter’s age is not in control of the family finances, and has limited say. To single her bottle out as if to humiliate her in front of her peers, and actually doing so, is wholly unacceptable. This head is new, and has seemingly started off on the wrong foot of more than one person.

Stand up for your daughter and stop this bullying.

Has the HT got nothing better to do than bully and berate a child who had no say in the purchase of the water bottle?

OFSTED. Now.

Does he come to school in a car or wear microfibre clothes or eat meat or have pets ?

Maybe point out how bad that all is for the environment.

Can you imagine if you didn't send her in with any water bottle? You'd be chastised for that too! Hottest week of the year! I've had to do this on a few occasions, water bottles don't last even the expensive ones. Any bottle of water is better than no bottle. Insensitive of him to make assumptions.

Quite. I'm going to say that this falls into "highly improbable"

I'd be interested to hear the head's take on how this interaction occured.

One recyclable single use bottle, nay, a school FULL of recyclable single use bottles, does not a world break.

Is the head pointing out all the plastic crisp bags, the mass produced cheap uniform, the plastic shoes, the cheap ham in sandwiches, the chemical soup of the crap used in the art room, the foam shapes, the plastic pipecleaners - all the shite us parents have to dispose of when they send them home with that recycled junk art tat and the plastic mothers day cards?

Complete hypocrites.

I think I'd use the bottle incident as the perfect excuse to shine a very bright light on all the incredibly environmentally unfriendly things going on in the school every single day.