if a teacher....

[mumofjust1]

.....called your child a hippo?

I'm very :o about this at the moment.

My dd (12) has been quite badly bullied at school and things have just started to settle down.

She told me when she got in that she was walking on the school field after school today, and that a teacher shouted at her to "get off the field"

She did so, and as she got up to the teacher, he said to her "what are you, some kind of trainee hippo?"

Wtaf?

I asked her if she had perhaps misheard because it sounds so random, but she insists not, as a friend has just asked dd if that's what the teacher said.

Bloody hell. She's been called awful names by some kids over the last couple of months, but you don't expect it from a teacher do you?

Any ideas?

I'm very and obviously, not very

Bloody iphone

Was it muddy , is that what he meant?

I think this is probrably likely to be in response to being in the mud. Not great, but not outrageous either.

I also immediately took it to mean she was wallowing in mud, hope this helps.

Trainee Hippo?? Seriously???? I hope she mis-heard. If not that teacher has got to be up for some serious disciplinary action. Straight to the head teacher with you. Muddy did not occur to me right away, to me hippo is an insult based on someone's size TBH (although being pretty overweight myself, I might have a skewed POV).

I think it's the mud thing too. I also think there's a teacher somewhere who is suddenly thinking "shit, why did I say that...?"

I think also, because your daughter has been bullied in the past, you've both taken this as 'yet another incident' rather than how it would ordinarily be taken. IYSWIM.

calm down teacher meant muddy!

Ah

I didn't think of the mud thing

It just sounded so strange

I will ask her if the field was muddy

Mud.

Nothing else makes sense at all

Heartstrumpdiamonds - maybe that's why I immediately thought he meant fat.

Dd's not fat at all, but I am lol

I think her confidence is very low which is why she thought he meant that too.

Good old wealden clay down here, breeds cross-country champions because the children weigh twice as much at the end of a run. So put them into national competition and they beat all those city types hands down.
OP, it is the sort of comment I may have made, especially if the child seemed oblivious to the mud, or joyful about it. Never would have connected it to anything but the Hippopotamus song TBH.
But there you go, I will take even more care over my light-hearted comments to children and stick with bellowing 'Get off the field right now!'

Mud.That was my first thought.

It was a flippant comment which unfortunately will be made by people throughout child's your life. You could deal with it in different ways; teach her to take each one to heart and analyse what the teacher meant and complain/demand disciplinary procedure each time your child is upset...or you could just say-don't worry, the teacher he was just trying to be funny.

Don't worry.