advice on a male teacher at DDs school please

I don't understand where the stuff about op wants him sacked/ only wants a female pe teacher has come from.

I can't see anything from the op about it. Not sure where those ideas came from.

[quote ComeOnBabyHauntMyBubble]@garden ok what should the school do in this situation though?
What has the teacher actually done that the girls should be listened about?
They are uncomfortable with him watching them during a PE lesson. That's all we know. We don't know if he's leering,if it's due to his behaviour,if he made comments, or if it's just because he's a man and they had a female teacher so far.

So ,please tell me how can we listen to the girls and what actions could the school/OP do based on a feeling?

Which apparently is not even the problem, since OP is focusing on who he follows on Instagram as her main complaint/issue.[/quote]
Exactly, it is not 100% clear to us how his behaviour is making the girls feel uncomfortable so it would be sensible for the school to have a conversation with the girls/parents (which will include listening - I’m not sure why you are asking how that should work?) to find out more.

Then the school can make a plan of action, if necessary depending on the outcome of that conversation - do you think that would be straightforward enough?

It could be as simple as being unused to having a male teacher which doesn’t invalidate the girls concerns but would require a different course of action than if something more serious was at the root.

I didn’t read the op as focussing on the teacher’s sm at all - as she has explained more than once, checking the sm came after the ‘feeling uncomfortable’ and the fact that he has decided to ignore standard professional advice to keep his sm open is a concern (not a massive concern in itself but a concern nonetheless).

At the end of the day, there are teachers who do abuse their positions of responsibility so I don’t understand why so many are so quick to dismiss and minimise the feelings of these girls.

The op is not stirring up anything but has asked a reasonable question and seems to be looking to deal with it in a real way.

Teenage girls also have the right to feel uncomfortable in the presence of a male. It doesn't mean they're in the wrong or that he is in the wrong.

Such mysoginistic name calling for young girls who actually haven't done much, compared to OP,her language,her insinuations is completely out of order.

[quote NiceGerbil]I read this the other day, this thread reminded me of it.

Now this is totally aside from this teacher and the op. But. Time and time again, men who are abusive get away with it.

There is nothing wrong with saying to a child listen to your instincts. Thank you for telling me. Nothing to be done, but do tell me if anything happens.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

We have the idea being raised now that yr 9 children, in particular girls, are an absolute liability when it comes to stuff like this. That they must fancy him. Or, they just have taken against him. That they are in the wrong for looking at his public social media. Etc etc

Give children this message and they consume it.

Anyway. This is a harrowing read. But I think it's worth reading as this stuff does happen and I think saying children should stfu and you could ruin someone's life, and adults saying well. You know what children that are are like. It is not a good thing.

There is a space in the middle.

Anyway. Do NOT read if CSA is v upsetting for you.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/ztdfudx91d/the-boarding-school-monster-who-always-walked-free[/quote]
That is indeed harrowing and a really tragic horrible story. I don’t think it can in any way be likened to this though. Nobody has disclosed anything that can come close to being seen as abusive. I of course think that children should be believed if they disclose abuse. I think this is very different to the current situation.

I think another thing is relevant which is that predators target individuals and rely on them being too ashamed to tell. It would be fairly unusual for a predator to aim their attention on the entire class.

As a pp said, I think the issue is that they just feel uncomfortable with a male PE teacher.

And yes, welcome to all the FWR newbies.

The adults (teachers) should be aware that children will look. And keep it locked down.

Some have said these children are in the wrong for even looking.

Searching people you know or meet is pretty standard these days surely? I CBA personally but I know my parents have googled all their neighbours. Fuck knows why! But it happens all the time

And children are often very interested/ nosy about their teachers.

If he's young, wouldn't this have been a part of his training?

Well, this is a strange thread.

I find it alarming to see people demanding the OP explains exactly what the man is doing that is making the girls feel uncomfortable and if they can't justify it then they are lying/actually fancy the teacher/are trying to ruin his career.

As women, we know when we are being made to feel uncomfortable by men. It's a skill we have to learn: Recognising The Male Gaze. Yes, possibly, some women and girls will get it wrong and feel uncomfortable with a totally nice and innocent man, but there is a Male Gaze, and yes it can feel threatening, even of the man didn't"do anything" explicitor criminal .

However.

This is a man, a teacher, who SHOULD be very aware from his training that a) teenage girls feel uncomfortable anyway, b) teenage girls feel especially uncomfortable during PE (hence so many girls stop doing any exercise in their early-mid teens), c) teenage girls feel especially uncomfortable doing PE with males, d) knowing all the above, as a trained teacher, he should be aware that his behaviour has to be beyond reproach, and yet e) he's publicly 'liking' sexualised images of scantily-clad females on a visible SM account.

He sounds fucking stupid, quite frankly.

OP, you were right to raise this with the Head.

He's probably blown it with this group of girls and lost their trust now. His own fault.

[quote NiceGerbil]I read this the other day, this thread reminded me of it.

Now this is totally aside from this teacher and the op. But. Time and time again, men who are abusive get away with it.

There is nothing wrong with saying to a child listen to your instincts. Thank you for telling me. Nothing to be done, but do tell me if anything happens.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

We have the idea being raised now that yr 9 children, in particular girls, are an absolute liability when it comes to stuff like this. That they must fancy him. Or, they just have taken against him. That they are in the wrong for looking at his public social media. Etc etc

Give children this message and they consume it.

Anyway. This is a harrowing read. But I think it's worth reading as this stuff does happen and I think saying children should stfu and you could ruin someone's life, and adults saying well. You know what children that are are like. It is not a good thing.

There is a space in the middle.

Anyway. Do NOT read if CSA is v upsetting for you.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/ztdfudx91d/the-boarding-school-monster-who-always-walked-free[/quote]
I agree with most of your post.
I do think it's wrong that the girls checked his SM profiles up and checked who he followed. That's why it's good practice to have everything private and be hard to search. Because no matter what I,or others think it does happen and it happens often.

That being said, my 9 year old asked me to google her teacher and then look at pictures. She could do it herself I guess,but since she asked me I told her it's inappropriate, not ok and how would she feel if her teachers were looking for pictures of her . Should I have just let her do it ?

There is no evidence this man has done anything. The op hasn’t even asked the girls into what it is that makes them uncomfortable. Or she has and it’s nothing. Because if she had any evidence she wouldn’t be worrying about him following fitness models on insta.

This is why do much CSA goes unreported and unpunished. Historically. Now? Don't know.

May seem like a leap but the attitudes in this thread are really eye opening, as a primer in how awful shit goes on for years and even if reported. Still goes on for years.

Not related to chap in op obv. Where my previous comment stands.

'Teenage girls can be very bitchy and nasty if their behaviour is allowed to go unchecked. Teach your kid to not make nasty insinuations about people nor to join in when her friends do.'

Case in point

Teenage girls can be very bitchy and nasty if their behaviour is allowed to go unchecked.

Thread's been brigaded by MRAs

I went to an all girl's school and so we got changed for pe at lockers in the corridor.

The music teacher was always wandering around that part of the building at pe changing time.

The music bit had it's own building separate.

Some of the girls thought he was creepy. I didn't. I was pretty naive though. Who can say?

He did nothing wrong and a few girls saying he's creepy did no harm to him.

What we do know as women, and often learnt as girls, is that men can make you feel extremely uncomfortable, vulnerable, without doing anything that doesn't sound completely trivial if you try to explain.

Which is why dismissing this out of hand is not good. You're imagining it, I'm sure he's perfectly nice, it's not fair on him, I expect you all fancy him! Etc etc. It means that they try to ignore the radar, and then I've day, they don't get away when they wanted to because they didn't want to been seen as unfairly judging a lovely man. I've been there. Not wanting to make s fuss. Nothing too serious. Nothing that couldn't be brushed off by adults who really really don't want to hear any of it because it makes things tricky.

See the creepy driving instructor threads on here as an example of that mechanism.

Have you told the child’s parents? Just you don’t mention that.

queenofknives
Then it just needs owning as 'we want a female member of staff', which I would understand to be honest. I wouldn't have liked a male PE teacher at that age.

If there's real safeguarding concerns they need reporting. If there's just an off feeling then they have been fine to raise it and should be encouraged to report should anything happen. Alongside that the OP needs to keep her feelings about his social media out the way. It should have been locked down. The head has confirmed that. But the focus needs to be on real issues and not what people think of perfectly legal material on social media.

It's good that the headteacher has warned the teachers to lock down their SM accounts to protect themselves from troublemaking, cyberstalking students.

You shouldn't be encouraging your daughter to make insinuations about this teacher because he follows fitness models on SM. He's a PE teacher, of course he's following fitness fanatics. I follow a load of fitness people online because that's what people who are into fitness do.

Teenage girls can be very bitchy and nasty if their behaviour is allowed to go unchecked. Teach your kid to not make nasty insinuations about people nor to join in when her friends do.

This is why men shy away from teaching. Who'd blame them. Ffs. Calling him a pervert for no valid reason other than they're trying to stir drama.

I read this the other day, this thread reminded me of it.

Now this is totally aside from this teacher and the op. But. Time and time again, men who are abusive get away with it.

There is nothing wrong with saying to a child listen to your instincts. Thank you for telling me. Nothing to be done, but do tell me if anything happens.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

We have the idea being raised now that yr 9 children, in particular girls, are an absolute liability when it comes to stuff like this. That they must fancy him. Or, they just have taken against him. That they are in the wrong for looking at his public social media. Etc etc

Give children this message and they consume it.

Anyway. This is a harrowing read. But I think it's worth reading as this stuff does happen and I think saying children should stfu and you could ruin someone's life, and adults saying well. You know what children that are are like. It is not a good thing.

There is a space in the middle.

Anyway. Do NOT read if CSA is v upsetting for you.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/ztdfudx91d/the-boarding-school-monster-who-always-walked-free

You have no information about what his actual behaviour is because it didn't occur to you to ask basic questions as the girl's motivation - you've simply assumed the worst and are on a crusade to get a teacher sacked over nothing more than lax security settings and assumptions
That seems pretty unpleasant to me

Another thing that occurs to me is I would not have liked a male PE teacher at that age, either. It is a time when your body is changing and the idea of being physically vulnerable in front of a young male teacher must be mortifying to some of the girls, as it would have been to me. I'm not surprised some of the girls are saying they feel uncomfortable - I would think that they probably just don't want to be looked at in any way at all. I definitely didn't at that age.

I suspect that this is the issue too rather than this man doing anything wrong per se. I think that having a PE teacher of the same sex (as sport is single sex anyway) is generally a good idea although I appreciate that it could cause staffing issues at schools.

It's right that teachers should be allowed privacy and children should be made aware that it's not okay to invade a teacher's privacy too. But we have to remember these are 13/14 year old girls. We probably all would have snooped on our teachers when we were that age, unless you were completely devoid of curiosity I suppose. Again, if you are teaching that age group, and especially if you're responsible for their physical education, you need to be aware of what the risks are and conscientious about boundaries.

Maybe from his point of view, he just didn't realise his students would look at his SM. If so, he now knows, and if he is a decent, professional teacher, he will take the opportunity to reflect on the set of issues that this touches upon.

Another thing that occurs to me is I would not have liked a male PE teacher at that age, either. It is a time when your body is changing and the idea of being physically vulnerable in front of a young male teacher must be mortifying to some of the girls, as it would have been to me. I'm not surprised some of the girls are saying they feel uncomfortable - I would think that they probably just don't want to be looked at in any way at all. I definitely didn't at that age.

Reality the answer to your concern for your man, that you posted in response to me:

'What does this mean though in terms of consequences for this man due to someone’s ‘creep radar’? Should he not be allowed to teach that class? Should he not be allowed to teach at all? '

Is answered in my previous post

'Obviously a girl or girls getting uncomfortable isn't something you can act on. However, please do say to DD thanks for telling me. Keep an eye out for each other. Trust your instincts.'

I hope that sets your mind at rest.

Is this going to be one of those threads where people don't bother reading the actual conversation. And then cut and paste snippets to argue points that haven't been made?

The op wants a female pe teacher and is whipping up a froth to try to engineer that.