AIBU advice needed about HORRIBLE teacher?

[MrsShitty]

on behalf of my sister who is very upset. Her son is a very good year three child...very well behaved and has been excelling at school, on the g&t register and loves school...his reports are always that he is a good and kind boy, often voted as class rep etc.

This term his class have been taught by 2 teachers both of whom teach year 4...they were sort of tasters for nexyt year to get the DC used to their new teachers.

Yesterday my nephew came home and was very upset. He said that Miss T had screamed in his face...my nephew is almost deaf in one ear due to problems from birth and has had both eardrums burst in the past and this woman screamed so loud his ear was hurt...he cried in pain.

She screamed because my nephew had been going for a pencil and had tripped over another childs leg....she accused my nephew of kicking the other boy and would not listen when my nephew AND the other boy tried to explain he had tripped. INstead she yelled repeatedly as loud as she could in his face that she would not be talked back to and then she told him to sit on the carpet and removed his golden time...she threw his book at him.

My hephew says she has also shouted at him for other minor things such as dropping his book once. She also banged the chair of a little girl up and down with the child still sitting in it....whilst shouting "Go to the toilet then!" and the little girl was crying.

My sister says her normally happy boy has been in tears and could not sleep for three nights until all this came out last night. He is afraid of this woman and his poor ear is still hurting.

My sister has made an appointment to see the HT tonight she does not want to speak to the teacher....she feels she has nothing to say to the woman. I must add that her son is very sensible and very truthful he would not lie....the teacher is new and this is her first job.

What measures should my sister ask to take place? What should the outcome be? And who should she write to in the event that she is still not happy after the meeting? The LEA or board of governers? Thank you. I am very upset about my nephew who has had multiple operations on his ears and only has 30% hearing in the one this woman hurt.

This is not quite the same situation. In the OP's nephew's case he is claiming that the teacher was ott in her handling of two students, and presumably there were witnesses as it happened in class. There may also be a report from the doctor about the child's ear.

Math

I can't be bothered, you have a bee in your bonnet about teachers that comes across in all of these threads that you post in.

I will leave you to turn this thread in to a thirty page Math is right and everybody else is wrong.

Oh and by the way if you discussed protected data (which in disciplinary cases it would be) about the two cases then you where unproffessional too.

I was responding to this comment: "But the default position, should be that children are telling the truth unless proven otherwise."

I clearly said that the allegations in the OP should be investigated. Twice.

Math

I can't be bothered, you have a bee in your bonnet about teachers that comes across in all of these threads that you post in.

I will leave you to turn this thread in to a thirty page Math is right and everybody else is wrong.

Oh and by the way if you discussed protected data (which in disciplinary cases it would be) about the two cases then you where unproffessional too.

I agree with everything Boney has said here.

I'm not a teacher so not unprofessional. There is something wrong in a system where a bad teacher can bounce from school to school because information is protected. Don't try to tell me this doesn't happen.

The bee in the bonnet thing is your own impression and you are welcome to it. What I am arguing here is that the OP got an unjustifiably hard time, and I think it was down to a couple of things in her posts that get the goat of a lot of people who seem to have some sort of bees in their own bonnets, G&T being one, and the idea that adults are holding some sort of line against the marauding hordes of children being the other.

You are also welcome to your impression, Feenie.

Don't you get bored of being the last person to appear on a thread, endlessly posting huge, boring replies to people who have long ago left, driven out long ago by your dogma and tedium? Seems to happen an awful lot. Funny sort of 'discussion'.

Now I really am going to leave you to it......

'Sorry you feel that way' as they say.

Freenie, math isn't the only one to have the opinions she has expressed. I just think she has more staying power!! I can't be bothered to keep putting the same reasonable points forward. It's always the same on threads like this.

It is the "children lie" posts which have shocked me. Yes they do, sometimes. But any adult dealing with a very young child should start from a point of believing a child. It is the first thing taught at any safeguarding course and I am absolutely shocked that professionals on is thread don't know that or put that point of view forward.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I'm wary of dismissing what children say. Bit of a long ramble, but true!

When I was about 7 or 8, I had a teacher called Mr Lewis who was really volatile. Sometimes he was very cool and laid back, let us eat in class, didn't seem to have any rules. Then suddenly he'd snap, yell at people for apparently trivial things, and rant and rave.

There was one particular child who he didn't like. This boy was annoying but not naughty or disruptive, just a bit irritating. Mr Lewis was always on at him about something or other. One day Mr Lewis was late into the class and the boy decided to be helpful and write the date on the blackboard ( this was the 1970s, we had a blackboard and the teacher wrote the date on each morning). Mr Lewis arrived to see boy standing on stool writing on board. He kicked the stool away so boy fell on floor.

I told my Mum that evening, and she spoke to the head. The following afternoon the head appeared in the class at home time and sent Mr Lewis out. He then asked the class if anyone had any complaints about Mr Lewis, and specifically asked the boy who was tormented. Everyone, him included, was terrified and of course denied any problems. The head then pointed his finger at me and shouted "so in that case, why do YOU go home telling tales to your mother.". It was awful, I was beside myself, cried and felt terrible.

I know it sounds silly, but this has really affected me ever since.

But Mr Lewis left not long after, under something of a cloud I believe. He clearly had some psychiatric problems. So I was right to tell, and my Mum was right to believe me.

I think children should always be given the benefit of the doubt, and not just dismissed as making a silly fuss.

'...any adult dealing with a very young child should start from a point of believing a child. It is the first thing taught at any safeguarding course and I am absolutely shocked that professionals on is thread don't know that or put that point of view forward.'

That is what is shocking to me too.

Math, you are completely distorting what the teachers on here are saying and totally ignoring the problem of believing everything children say without questioning.

I always start with the assumption that a child is telling the truth, then I go and ascertain the other side of the story (if it is an internal issue, such as a falling out with another child) or refer it to the appropriate authorities if this is needed.

I have been on the safeguarding courses, I am a good teacher and I do know what I am talking about. If I always just believed the child without trying to find out the other side of the story can you imagine what chaos would ensue?

All we as professionals are asking is that parents give us the opportunity to put our side first before screaming and shouting at us (and yes, this has happened to me a few times). It's not good for teachers, or for children to see this.

To try and pretend that we're all treating children as little liars and dismissing what they say out of hand is patronising nonsense.

My mother was a teacher.

She taught behaviourally disturbed children who were challenging.

If you go with the assumption that the child is always telling the truth, then the little toerag who stabbed her and denied it - he's telling the truth and she's lying and the stitches in her arm, what, she did them herself?

The other little toerag who hurled a set of shelves at her and cut her above the eye and again she needed stitches and it left a scar, what, when he denied it, she made that up too?

Or the child who hit and kicked other children and said he didn't when challenged - he was right as well?

Come on, children cannot be blindly believed.

Or the wee shit (and yes I will call him a wee shit) who deliberately hit my DS around the head when he was just out of hospital after surgery, but when the teacher said I saw you do it and he said no I didn't - he should be believed? Over the teachers who saw it happen, and my DS who said he did it?

I'd just like to say that proposing that parents/teachers should believe DC was in response to posters telling the OP that her nephew was probably exaggerating, so she should not be rushing off to the HT. She should speak to the teacher first.

It was pointed out that for an incidence such as this, the teacher shouldn't be approached first. The HT should deal with it and get both sides of the story. Of course no one was saying DC never lie. We were just astonished that parents and teachers of young children would presume their DC was exaggerating/lying.

Maybe I'm just old and cynical then, but the OP smacked of protesting too much to me, and I don't for one second believe that an eardrum would burst if the wind blew. But that one's easy sorted because DD is off to the consultant, as I said, on Wednesday and I intend to ask him has he ever come across that happening.

Posters have stated that the default position should be that children are telling the truth - how do you then deal with a he said/did, she said/did when you have two children telling differing versions of the same story?

That situation is different if it something not very serious. This allegation is serious and it is up to a HT to sort out. NOT the teacher accused of shouting in a 7 year olds face/hitting him with a book.

Can't you see that IF the teacher is guilty she could just deny the whole thing? The HT needs a proper investigation, speaking to others in the class as well as the teacher and the child. Saying "the child is lying/exaggerating talk to the teacher" < the advise given on this thread> means non of that would happen and the teacher would get away with behaving very unprofessionally.

OK so how is what happened to my mum/DS not very serious?

'Math, you are completely distorting what the teachers on here are saying and totally ignoring the problem of believing everything children say without questioning.'

That in itself is a distortion of what I have been trying to convey. Where have I said there should be no questioning? The questioning and investigation needs to be done by the HT. (As QuickLookBusy says)

People have lambasted the OP for not going to the teacher to sort this out, when it seems clear to me that in a he said/she said situation involving a teacher and student there is bound to be the possibility of
(1) hindsight not exactly being 20/20,
(2) the possibility of more heat generated than light because of parental protectiveness towards a child and also because of defensiveness of a teacher, and also
(3) because a child might feel vulnerable afterwards if a third party was not involved to make sure a truly volatile teacher wouldn't take it out on the child once the parent's back was turned and feeling safe in the knowledge that no-one else knew of the incident.

And again, this is not a case of two children pointing fingers at each other where a teacher needs to manage the incident. This is a case where a child reported possible abuse by an adult in authority. I have done safeguarding courses too. The starting point of your assumptions when an incident is reported should never be 'children lie so take everything with a grain of salt'.

Nor is this a case of a behaviorally disturbed child, Hathorkicksass. (And I hope your mother didn't describe the children using the terms you have used for them)

Sorry I was refering to your comment he said/she said, thinking you were refering to normal bickering that goes on between DC.

What happened to your mum/DS was serious and I would presume the HT got involved and spoke to everyone who saw the assaults?

Also when your DS was hit by the little shit by the bo,y I presume you believed your son? Which is exactly what I am saying.

What would your reaction be if you had written on MN about the incident and people had said "Childen exaggerate and lie, you have to go and speak to the boy he is accusing and ask him what really happened" Because that is what the OP is being told is the best thing to do and I think that is a croc of shit very wrong.

That was to hathor

I think we have to think about this in Management terms, and leave the emotional response of Mama Bear out of it for a second. Of course we all have heightened emotions about our little ones being in situations where we think they are at risk and there is little trust, for whatever reason.

But let's say you were in a shop, or had a bad customer service experience, well, to complain, you wouldn't go and talk with the service representative, and try and get satisfaction there; you'd want to speak to his manager, so she can sort it out, and help the service rep to achieve his service rep potential vis a vis more training, or to reassign him within the organisation, so he can have a less customer-facing role.

It's the same here: the client of the school - the child, and his parents/aunty- has a problem with a member of staff, and her manager, the HT needs to be involved to help ascertain what went on and what to do about it.

Ok the OP has shown some unpleasant qualities - revenge and triumphalism are always a little unpalatable, but sometimes understandable as an immediate response when children are involved, but her DN is still the client who has been let down (however you term it) by the teacher providing a service, and IMVHO the HT needs to be involved as this is a management issue.

I'm glad the guidelines used now by professionals train professionals to believe children rather than cruelly dismissing their voices as the mere inconsequential babble or lies of 'children'. We have come a long way from the systemic human rights abuses of the past, where children were blamed for abuse, or branded liars when the adults covered their evil tracks (and I'm talking in particular here about the systemic child abuse in Roman Catholic institutions all over the world).

And to all those posting here who say that children are liars and they make up stuff all the time, please remember that children are human beings too, and have human rights to live and work in a safe environment. What they say should not be dismissed out of hand, as exaggeration or lies.

(Indeed -- the case of Bishop Brady and the interrogation of poor Brendan Boland did not happen all that long ago.)

totallypearshaped, no-one has said "children are liars and make stuff up all the time". I think you made that bit up.

What has been suggested is that both sides of the story need investigating.

I have often noted that many children perceive reproving as shouting, even when no-voice has been raised. I do NOT intend this as a comment on the OP's situation, but as an example of where children see things quite differently from the facts of the case.

Children see things differently from the facts of the case..
Things get scrambled in translation..
Children misinterpret things..
'it still makes me smile to hear someone say 'he's bright, he's G&T' as if that somehow proves that he would never be naughty and never lie.'
'..he is 8 and might have dramatized it a bit.
That's one hell of a list of stuff there and i find it hard to believe it all happened like that.'
'A child in my class once told his mother that I keep a gun in my desk.'
'Because the whole situation is based on the word of a 7 year old.
And I'm not for one second saying he's lying, just saying that it could be a matter of interpretation.'

All those posts urging the OP to get the facts straight are implying that the DS didn't, apparently because he was a child, and because the inability of children to get facts right, etc., is well known....

mathanxiety if it helps you, let's forget the child and operate natural justice, which is to hear both sides of the case.