advice on a male teacher at DDs school please

Always illuminating to see people leap to the defence of a grown up man who frankly, should know better, and belittle the teenage girls and the Woman raising concerns....

You haven't given the slightest hint of an explanation about why the girls feel uncomfortable about a PE teacher watching them do PE.

How do you think a PE teacher could do his or her job without looking at their pupils?

Of course they actually weren’t, but it’s a common thing for kids to say

Well yes they were, actually. Quite a few teachers were perverts and creeps, and not just in the PE department either. One of my teachers was having sex with a girl in the year above me. One of my friends at the age of 14 was 'seeing' one of the PE teachers. It wasn't that uncommon, and no one did anything about it.

Not sure why all these people have arrived to defend the poor creepy PE teacher but of course the OP is right to be concerned and to raise the issue. It's absolutely fair that teachers should have a private life which is unsuitable for students to know anything about, but that does entail making their social media private. And we definitely shouldn't assume that it must be made up or even malicious nonsense when the girls are saying he makes them uncomfortable. Maybe they are just used to having a female teacher and it seems strange. But his instagram is a problem in and of itself - imagine you're a pubescent girl trying to do PE while worrying that the teacher is comparing you in his mind to all these bikini models he follows.

Also, don't assume that women are lying when they tell you about abusive and predatory males they encountered as young girls. It is common. Almost every woman can tell you of such an encounter from when she was a girl.

What on earth is "makes them feel uncomfortable" supposed to mean? Huh?!?!

Oh, I get it. We are playing the double standards, quick reverse whilst you weren't looking game!

OK. You win.

[Goes off to walk the dog wondering what happened to critical thinking]

OP's undertone is not as measured as you seem to think

It most definitely isn't and CuriousaboutSamphire is splitting hairs.

Yet it is more measured than is being claimed!

It does make a difference, especially in light of the actions OP says she has taken so far - which are not out of line at all!

It's not potayto potato it is an escalation of what was said, additional angst etc. Not at all fair on OP. Misleading at best!

It's the same uplift in langauge that causes the problems being discussed, ie an teacher being unfarly branded - you are engaging in a form of Chinese Whispers!

Oh fgs.

The OP has taken it upon herself that the girls telling her he "makes them feel uncomfortable" is sufficient, with apparently no further questioning or explanation, to start investigating his private life and asking for advice on whether she should complain to the headmaster.

What on earth is "makes them feel uncomfortable" supposed to mean?

Potayto. Potato.

OP's undertone is not as measured as you seem to think.

What?!?! Where did OP say he was creepy?

She said the girls feel uncomfortable when he is watching... she didn't even phrase it as HE MADE THEM feel uncomfortable!! She as really measured - and that depsite her obvious preference for female PE teachers!

OTHER pps have used the word creepy! And that's down to how they view it.. but OP did not! Take it up with them!

Even the part of the OP quoted doesn't back you up, any of you! You just inferred it, based on your own experience, perceptions etc.

Cheek to try and impugn that to the OP!

Poor guy he has a lot to learn. Despite using all the privacy settings my DD now uses my maiden name on SM as her surname was unusual for the area we lived in and she was constantly getting friends requests from her students.

@BullBaileyyou've misread something somewhwere and put words into OPs mouth! Back up a step and start again before that error!

CuriousaboutSamphire BullBailey quoted exactly what the OP posted. I think you're the one who needs to back up a step.

Her exact words were:-

Currently a young male teacher has taken over and the girls feel uncomfortable when he watches them doing PE

What's that supposed to mean? He can hardly do his job as a PE teacher without watching them.

Is he salivating with an obvious erection ? Or is it simply that the girls feel uncomfortable because they are in gym kit (whatever that consists of these days) alone with a man when previously it was a woman?

Moreover in my experience when female pupils find male teachers creepy it's usually because they are.

Hmmm. I’m not sure this is true. Often the ‘creeps’ were just people who were a bit weird, eccentric, or social misfits. The ones who in hindsight actually crossed lines tended to be quite charming and socially confident men. At secondary school, everyone used to go on about a science teacher who apparently used to rub himself up against the desks. He was in his 50s and had suffered a disability after an accident and used to lean on his desk as a result because he had trouble standing for too long. On the other hand, the young good-looking geography teacher who loads of the girls fancied started dating a 16-year old former pupil weeks after she left school. Yet, it was the former who was labelled a weird pervert, not the latter. Not saying it’s always like this but generally teenage girls don’t have particularly good intuition about predators, which is why they are such prime targets.

I think you need something more than ‘he creeps them out’. What exactly creeps them out? Does he say stuff to them, get too close, make facial gestures etc? I would get much more information on this before raising a complaint because it can have such devastating effects for the teacher if it’s false.

I feel deeply ashamed about this but when I was about 11 or 12, we got a new class teacher. He was a young guy and we had all loved our old teacher and weren’t happy with the change and started to dislike him. A rumour started that he was a pervert and my friends and I got swept up in it and told people that he used to look at girls in a creepy way. I also hugely exaggerated things, like saying he screamed at me, when he just told me off. My mum and other parents made a complaint against him based on various things we said and eventually he left our school. I’m not sure he was fired but no doubt it didn’t help. In hindsight, I feel awful about it because none of it was true and he did nothing wrong except not being our old teacher. So be very very careful. It can be addictive as a child to get swept up in rumours. It doesn’t make them bad people but you cannot just go off the ‘hunch’ of a 13 year old. Think about the awful treatment in the press of Christopher Jefferies, where loads of his former pupils called him a creep on the most spurious of evidence.

And actually, ime the teachers at school who actually WERE inappropriate were not necessarily the ones who had reputations for it. That was part of their grooming technique - managing to make pupils think they were ‘cool’ or good-looking. They also tend to target individual pupils, not the whole class.

Any teacher worth their salt would make damn sure their social media was private. All male teachers know they have to be careful and not put themselves into situations where their actions could be perceived to be dubious and if they don't know, it's in their best interest that they learn this fast.
Moreover in my experience when female pupils find male teachers creepy it's usually because they are.

He's a dumbass for not having his account private and hard to find.

However ,his SM activity is not dodgy. He's not sharing or posting these pictures,just following accounts.The girls have found his profile then looked at his following list. No one forced them to,they didn't stumble on it by accident.

Have they actually found any activity on his SM that they deem inappropriate?

OP have you looked at his profile yourself to see what it's all about?

@BullBailey

Sorry! Meant to quote your "Am I reading a different OP" hence the "no you aren't".

I totally agree with you.

Currently a young male teacher has taken over and the girls feel uncomfortable when he watches them doing PE
Has the OP explained if the girls feel uncomfortable because of something he does or because he is a young male? OP is clear she would prefer a female teacher and this will influence her views and also her dd's. The Instagram is separate and should of course be private. And students shouldn't be so nosy.

Absolutely bizarre.

@happydappy2
'the students have a right not to see overly sexualised images of 'models' he follows.'

I think students have foregone that right once they cross that boundary by specifically searching for his SM accounts. They need to take some responsibility here- no-one forced them to track him down on SM....

I don't think it's acceptable that kids have tracked him down on SM- imagine if shoe was on other foot there?! Equally kids will be kids and he should have his SM more locked down than that.
I definitely think discuss with your daughter further to try and nail down what exactly is it that makes her feel uncomfortable about him. Is it because now she knows what is on his SM and now sees him as potentially predatory?
I work in a girls school and I do agree with @Goosefoot that sometimes things are stirred for controversy against male staff. It has happened twice at the school I work at with 2 different individuals. One of the complaints was that the teacher was a pervert cos he sat with his legs apart (as lots of men do) and that was making them feel uncomfortable as it was so in their face. The teacher in question was well over 6ft with very long legs so it was quite hard for him to put his legs anywhere not in direct sight of his classes. He was very distressed by the accusations and comments and we had to nip it in the bud swiftly.

He’s not making the overly sexualised images though. It’s standard for femal body builders and male ones in teeny trunks.

The girls not liking him looking at them seems to me just because he’s male and I don’t see how he can teach them pe without looking at them.