advice on a male teacher at DDs school please

All I know is that people can’t be disciplined at work on the basis of vague feelings. That’s very dangerous. Of course girls should be vigilant and trust their intuition but I’d feel very uncomfortable firing someone without anything of substance at least being alleged.

And "ooh you're a man" cuts no ice with me. I don't know if the other posters who have been critical of you are men. Their posts don't particularly strike me as being made by men.

Oh heh kcar missed that.

Fair enough.

Maybe op is biased as previous female teacher was awesome. Who can say.

'Why is it inappropriate? Because he teaches in a totally different building and always seems to be walking past when the girls are getting changed. Why would he need to be in that corridor? Hanging around where girls are getting changed is quite obviously inappropriate and different to what is described here. This man is the PE teacher whereas you’re describing someone who doesn’t teach PE suddenly appearing every time you’re in your PE kit. Can you not see the difference?'

No.

The staff room and canteen were in the main building. He had perfectly valid reasons to be there.

I never said he was 'hanging around'. I specifically said he didn't do anything at all apart from walk past surprisingly often!

There was no obvious thing to say, he did x.

Some of the girls found him creepy. I personally didn't. Looking back he did walk past an awful lot though!

All there was, was done girls saying they found him creepy. When he could well have been going about perfectly legitimate business.

No different at all.

To clarify, it was a male pupil who showed me the teachers SM and thought it was off, so stop blaming girls. All the insinuations about nasty girls whipping up hate are...wrong.

Oh? Is it a mixed sex class? Do the boys feel uncomfortable too? It all sounds a bit odd and I hope the teachers locks it down ASAP. But anyway, just because people don’t agree with you doesn’t mean that they are men. I think relatively few men post on FWR.

All your posts mention the girls being exposed to sexualised content. How the girls are uncomfortable with him and now they've discovered this.Did they actually see it too ? Did they searched for him as a group or did one of them do it and then went "ohh look what mr x has on his account " ?

A good female PE teacher would be my preference for this age group of girls. They are not looking to get out of PE, they want to participate but not feel wierded out by their teacher

A few assumptions there aren't there?

I see the OP doesn't mention that she has discussed this with the parents or guardians of the girl who raised it with her.

Where I get it from is this post where the op explicitly says she wants a female pe teacher.

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Add message | Report | Message poster | Quote happydappy2 Wed 04-Nov-20 15:39:04
The Head has got back to me & is reminding all staff that their social media should be private, for their own protection. I think this is right (& am surprised it was not already policy.)

We will see how things go-but the damage has already been done-the children have seen the sexualised images and already feel uncomfortable around him. A good female PE teacher would be my preference for this age group of girls. They are not looking to get out of PE, they want to participate but not feel wierded out by their teacher.

'
Today 21:27Kcar

It’s clear the OP has an agenda. She wants her dd to have a female PE teacher.'

Where on earth do you get that from?

I'm not saying I think from the info the OP has given that there is something wrong with the teacher, other than he needs to lock down his social media, and he really should know that. However it's really uncomfortable reading all these comments about teenage girls creating drama and being manipulative. All the comments about there needing to be more evidence than just a feeling, so many sexual harassment/assault cases come down to victims word against attacker and they are not believed. Feels like teenage girls are being set up to fail :(

I’m a teacher myself (not PE though) and I’m looking at this two ways. One from the teachers perspective and one from the girls and so this needs to be approached gently.

Firstly, PE teachers of the opposite sex are always open to these types of comments and gossip, and if you found someone creepy would you go looking at their social media? This could just be gossip that could damage this teachers reputation and be harmful to his career. After all, what is he meant to do, not look at his students during the lesson? He does need to be careful with his social media though and ensure it’s private. Just because he follows body builders and skimpy looking girls doesn’t mean anything. I’m a female teacher and I have good looking guys on my SM, doesn’t mean I’m being creepy with my male students though!

Second perspective: if the girls genuinely do feel uncomfortable for whatever reason then of course this does need to be followed up in case there is something to this. The school could address this by ensuring there are both male and female teachers for PE.

I think language is also important.
I think "I'm uncomfortable with how mr x looks at me/us during PE" is different from "I'm uncomfortable with mr x watching me/us during PE".
I can't even fully explain why,maybe because watching is interchangeable with supervising .
However you're right, it's so hard to explain or quantify "the look", but somehow we all (or most of us ) know exactly what it is,and more importantly how it feels.
I wonder what kind of responses and advice OP would've got if she only mentioned the girls feeling uncomfortable.

I have a feeling the SM thing muddied the waters both ways

I agree with you.

I think the social media thing matters though because it gives a bit of background to how the OP is viewing things. What stands out to me is that if it's a genuine safeguarding concern then I'd be reporting that to the dedicated safeguarding leader, not leaving the main issue to fester and talk to the head about not liking the legal content of his social media.

For what it's it's worth I'd say if any child was genuinely uncomfortable with a member of staff then they should mention it to their parent, even if they can't quite articulate why. The parent should listen, make a mental note and be willing to raise it if and when required. They shouldn't do any leading or start whipping up more story, intentionally or otherwise.

If a member of staff has behaved inappropriately or unprofessionally then that does need reporting, investigating and following up.

You know when someone stands too close and you aren't sure of their intentions. You know when someone's eyes linger on you, but it's hard to pin down.
It's crucially important that girls develop these instincts.

Totally agree. Very difficult to explain exactly why you know that there's something wrong with a man, but once you've seen the patterns, you know not to ignore them.

Yes, sometimes you may have a feeling and of course it’s hard to specify why you feel uncomfortable. But in those situations you can’t do anything really beyond avoiding being on your own with that person. Which there is no reason for any of these girls to do. What you can’t do is to threaten other people’s jobs due to someone’s vague intuition. To do that, there needs to be tangible evidence beyond that the PE teacher is looking when his pupils do sport.

This is off topic but I remember when I was at university in a northern city which was very ethnically diverse. A girl in my halls of residence was waiting for a taxi to take her to the station one evening and she turned to me and said ‘you know what? I’d feel much safer if the taxi-drivers in this city were white’. I just stared at her open-mouthed. The point is that one person’s discomfort with another can come from any number of reasons and not all are valid. It is absolutely okay to interrogate the reasons why someone claims they feel creeped out by someone because it’s really not always a psychic intuition that they are a bad person. The problem in this case is that there is absolutely nothing beyond a feeling. I just don’t understand how anyone can think that this is something that requires action to be taken against the teacher.

Oh and I’ve been around on FWR for years in case anyone thinks I’m a newbie (just because I disagree).

I can't even fully explain why,maybe because watching is interchangeable with supervising .

However you're right, it's so hard to explain or quantify "the look", but somehow we all (or most of us ) know exactly what it is,and more importantly how it feels.

I wonder what kind of responses and advice OP would've got if she only mentioned the girls feeling uncomfortable.

I have a feeling the SM thing muddied the waters both ways.

He's a PE teacher. He was probably watching them intently as part of his job. This thread is awful.

It’s clear the OP has an agenda. She wants her dd to have a female PE teacher.

That may not be possible due to teaching loads and staffing issues.

Her own DD hasn’t raised this with her some other child has.

The op hasn’t even mentioned telling thr parents of the child concerned. Surely if you had a safeguarding concern you’d talk to the parents of the child ?

It wasn’t the op’s DD.

It's very very hard for girls and women to justify creep radar.

Because... There aren't words for it that don't make you sound silly and trivial. This happened in metoo at my work. A couple of men were asking me what the 'wrong' way to look at a woman was. In the end they said 'we can't even look at a woman any more' and stomped off. Following on from various conversations about 'rape rape' and casting couch and etc I had pretty much had it on the topic by that point! They were nice blokes as well.

Anyway.

DD comes home and says the way Mr X looks at me makes me feel uncomfortable. And some of the other girls have said it as well.

What follow up questions even are there? For a child in year 9. It is what it says on the tin. She has told you how she feels. Pressing for 'evidence' will achieve what, exactly. I still can't describe how it is that the way creepy men look at you creeps you out, and I'm nearly 50

I can see zero harm in saying to DD. Thanks for telling me. Does sound a bit unusual. Let me know if anything else happens. Keep an eye out for your mates

Who is harmed by that? No one

What exactly was "a bit unusual" ? All the OP has said is he was watching them at PE.

What you suggest would be reasonable if the OP herself were behaving reasonably.