Headteacher criticised my daughter's water bottle

Mountains out of molehills.

Single use plastic is disgusting so the message is right but maybe not the delivery - but then you are relying on an ‘overly sensitive’ 8 year old to relay the story so I would let it go.

I’d send a note to the head, explaining exactly why you’d sent your dd with a plastic bottle, and adding that your child was extremely upset by the personal example you made of her.

And I’d hope that the head would make a point of speaking to her with some sort of apology.

Leaking microplastics aren't really a turtle conservation issue though
Not the case.
A recent study supported by ISARGO and the funded by the European Union discovered ingestion of plastics, by sea turtles, to be found in 95% of the dead turtles analysed.
Microplastics represented 74.42% of all ingested plastics.
This is largely because previous studies concentrated on meso, macro (obviously both important) and micro plastics but only down to 1mm. This study used sampling down to 0.2mm. Which showed up how wildly underestimated the issue of microplastics has been in the threat to marine ecosystems.
These creatures bellies are full of microplastics - so they stop eating. If anything they're more dangerous to marine life. You can see a plastic ring embedded around a seal's neck, and a plastic net caught in a turtles flippers. You can't see the digestive tract of a marine turtle until it's already dead.

If the HT is going to sanctimoniously bang on about killing turtles, he should 'educate himself'
(assuming he meant plastic reusable bottles, of course...)

Aw, poor DD - I think that’s rubbish - I would have been so upset by that as a child - I was sensitive too, very shy and self conscious, this would have made me spiral. Thinking about it, if my new big boss said oh how bad it is you have a plastic water bottle in front of a meeting I’d still be mildly upset tbh. It is a clumsy criticism and it’s not something your DD could control.

What a silly thing for him to say.

Teachers often say things to the children that they want to say to the parents but don’t dare to! I’d be fuming OP and would complain. Who the fuck does he think he is?!

Clumsy and inappropriate to single out a child like that.

Maybe point out that the fishing industry is single biggest contributor to ocean plastic pollution the next time fish fingers are on the school dinner menu.

Headteachers are not generally delicate little flowers, and they get paid really quite well to take on the responsibilities of their jobs.

If headteachers can't work out for themselves that it is not appropriate to humiliate 8 year olds in public about things that aren't within their control anyway, then my heart is not going to bleed for them if that leads to them having to deal with a complaint about their crassness. Perhaps this one could usefully learn something from it.

How on earth would he not know who the bottle belonged to? He picked it up from OP's daughter's table.

It's irrelevant whether he knew it was a one-off or not. Talk about killing turtles is way OTT given that there is every likelihood that OP intends to recycle the bottle, and if he wants to give out that sort of message it would be much more effective and appropriate to do it by way of a note on a school newsletter and/or an announcement in assemblies.

Of course she personalised it. She picked up OP's daughter's bottle off OP's daughter's desk and criticised it. It must have been utterly obvious to everyone that she and her mother were being criticised. It's very unprofessional behaviour by a teacher, let alone a headteacher.

I got water bottle shamed at work 8 years ago and still feel embarrassed when I think about it and I’m nearly 40

It's an important message, but I am not fond of preaching by headteachers- whether it's a type of Christianity, or trying to protect sea turtles- what next veganism?
A headteacher's personal views are just that , personal, they should not be using their HM rostrum to push them, no matter how worthy.

I've bought and chucked away lots of my children's so called reusable water bottles because they are broken, or they leak etc. Whereas I myself have been reusing a standard plastic water bottle that I bought from Sainsburys for about 6 months. What a ridiculous thing for the headteacher to say.

I wouldn't be happy either op. Plenty of kids in my school have come in with no bottles at all in this heat so you had the sense to get her a water bottle on the way in. I don't agree with schools politicising kids either. Kids should be able to be kids without this forced agenda being crammed down their throats. No wonder they are so anxious.

Oh yes, I agree - and I think many of us are fed up to the teeth of the AIBU attack fetishists

(I initially mis-typed that as 'fetishits')

What a load of crap! My kids used to lose their water bottles constantly. At a tenner a pop, and with three children, I made a decision that I only send plastic bottles into school. £2.50 a week and none of the racing round in the morning, searching every possible place they could have left it, discovering it’s sprung a leak. Just nip to the fridge and get a fresh bottle of cold water and we head to school. We do reuse where they’re not ruined and we do recycle but that’s entirely a decision I’ve made to ease a real pinch point and save me money. It’s absolutely nothing to do with my eight year old and a teacher making them feel bad about it would really annoy me!

HT is an idiot, some of them are just lacking. Ds was awarded a HT award by his French teacher - first thing HT did on seeing him to supposedly award him with a certificate was criticize his laces for being undone and give him a lecture on how dangerous that was - he was in Year 7, one of the shy ones who did his best. Anyway - you've got the measure of them early on - ds's HT never could see the wood for the trees.

If my boss picked one of my possessions up off my desk and criticised it in front of all my colleagues I would definitely take it personally. HT is twt/dck (delete as appropriate) and a bully.

Headteacher is an idiot. Hate that mode of teaching which is how do I best humiliate everyone into doing what I want.

Leaking microplastics aren't really a turtle conservation issue though, not compared to being choked or poisoned by all the single use plastic that ends up in the ocean.

We re-use shop ones - sometimes it's easier to buy an extra than carry two or three refillable ones. Also here at least in wales recycling should mean such bottles end up no-where near the sea.

TBH I'd encourage the kids to shrug it off - comment from someone with no idea what happened to get to choice and not really interested in anything beyond making their own point.

😂😂😂

HT sounds like an arrogant a—- who wasn’t a very good teacher but got promoted to management and, like most school leaders, isn’t actually a very good manager.

As a teacher, I get his point but wouldn’t make it with an individual bottle. I know your circumstances are different but the children that bring single use plastic bottles to school regularly tend to be the poorest children with hectic home lives.

My real most hated water bottle is the trash sold by smiggle. Very fun exciting bottles and they ALWAYS break and the children are heartbroken because they were so pretty/shiny/new. And that kind of plastic can’t be easily recycled.

I'm sure. But if that is what he meant, then they're not much better if they're plastic. They'd still be leaking microplastics all over the place. Especially in this heat. Which is why I was asking what type he meant. I'm assuming he gave, or pointed to, an example.