Waaaaa, nasty teacher was mean to my PFB!!! :)

And I think it is interesting that some posters are quickly jumping to the defence of the girl and calling the teacher unkind and unreasonable.

Whilst some teachers might be unkind and unreasonable, there are far more children who will report that they are. I am not saying DD is lying at all, but the 12 year olds perception of events, can be rather hmmm....narrow and one-sided. So often a child reports that the teacher told them off because they were late and mentions another teacher holding them back....but forgets to mention that they also then went via their locker to the lesson,mor some other crucial detail.

In these kind of situations, there is often more to the situation than is reported. I am not saying we should think our children are lying, but just appreciate that we don't always get the full picture...so we should be slow to jump to conclusions and judgements.

Why was she late?
I had a couple of Y7s late yest because they'd forgotten their planners and went to Reception to look up what they had. That wasn't acceptable. Also another took himself off to the toilet, again, they should have come to me and asked first.
Conversely, had a girl whose shoe buckle had broken. She couldn't walk in her shoe and had to get it sorted (wait while someone called home to bring in other shoes). She was excused for that as it was genuine.

And it is worth being aware that sometimes children can be overly sensitive think they have had a good telling off, is a rather extreme interpretation of what has happened. I would play it down,when discussing it with her, rather than being outraged by the treatment she has received. If you react in an outraged way, she is more likely to feel aggrieved and be overly sensitive to the way she is treated.
I definitely wouldn't be emailing or phoning after one or two incidents, so early in the term. Wait and see. Listen to see if your DD regularly complains about a similar thing.....don't ask if the teacher has been mean, as this will just encourage negative reports. Don't just accept what is said at face value, but dig a bit deeper about the circumstances. And accept to some extent, your DD needs to be a it more thick skinned and learn to cope. She will encounter many teachers with different personalities, and will have to learn to manage.
In This situation, I would be looking to help my child find ways to avoid it in future....how to be more prompt etc, rather than dwelling on this specific incident and to aportion blame to someone else.

Oh and it's not "character building" madam. It can be character crushing.

It's unkind and unreasonable to react this way to a y7 child being unavoidably late.

Bit of an absence of kindness in too many schools in my opinion.

Horrible for your DD. Teacher's out of order. I'm sure you've explained to your DD that, as is the case with all groups of people, some teachers will be unreasonable and some downright horrible.

Agree with champagne that in future get a note from teacher who made her late, knock, enter, apologise for being late, hand over note and sit down.

I have taught my DS to pick his battles. I do the same.....

It's character building. All through life she's going to come up against unreasonable and aggressive people, it's best she starts learning to cope with them now. When they are in a position of authority like this and she is technically in the wrong then suck it up. Same will stand with traffic wardens, local council planning officers and any other jobsworths with an ounce of power.

Secondary school teacher here who has made this gaffe a few times. Please tell your DD not to take it too personally (difficult I know) but we are trying to drum punctuality into students and discourage long-winded excuses taking up the first half of the lesson. For the future, tell her to ask the teacher who holds her back to give her a note and tell her just to hand that over and sit down. And ask her tutor to have a chat to make her feel better. I hope she gets over it soon.

You say nothing and I certainly wouldn't bother dropping an email to the form tutor.

In similar situations, I've told ds that - like anyone - teachers can be unreasonable and that, as a rule, it's not worth kicking up a fuss because it generally makes things worse.

I know it sounds terribly pfb, but given your daughter is so new perhaps drop a non- confrontational, non-whinging email to her form tutor asking if she'd have a word with your dd.

Difficult one. My ds got totally bawled out by the games teacher for literally being 2 minutes late, because the headmaster wanted to talk to my ds! They do have to reinforce that lateness isn't acceptable as they do get students who start to wander in late with no valid reason, but I do think sometimes the other teachers need to weigh up the validity of the excuse before threatening detentions etc
Think the way to deal with it is tell your dd to acknowledge she was late, and perhaps in a quieter moment explain the reasons (not easy I know) and also that some teachers are unfortunately made that way where they shout first and ask questions later. Keep an eye on it and if it becomes more than a one of ask to have a chat with the teacher