Teacher's Behaviour

[eatmysocks23]

I really want to know if IABU before I write a letter of complaint.

My DD9 is at what you would call quite a hothouse school. High flyer top performer in most areas and is petrified of getting in trouble or losing those weekly point things, so in her entire school life has never been in trouble, or lost any personal belongings, missed homework..nothing.

Today after changing into PE, she realised that her uniform was not in her bag, and went to the PE office to try and look for them.

On explaining the situation, said teacher jumped down her throat and said to "get out of the office and that she did not care" and it was up to DD to have put her uniform into her bag and that no one was going to steal her uniform. The PE teachers at this school have form for lacking nature and pastoral care and have had many complaints over the years. There were also other PE teachers present. A simple, now is not the time to look for it, or wait till after school, I would imagine would have been a good reply from the teacher?

I wouldn't speak to DD this way and I wouldn't expect a teacher to. Now I know that children can be over sensitive too, but this really knocked her confidence and then her performance on the field.

We've had the chat about not taking other people's bad behaviour too seriously or personally, but from a teacher --someone they should respect and look up to, I'm not quite sure. DD is still upset over this....something that happened 8 hours ago!

So...AIBU, and how should I now approach this?

IME, PE teachers, especially female ones (the male ones are usually quite reasonable), do seem to think that's it okay to treat/speak to pupils in rather snotty and unreasonable ways that most regular classroom teachers would not

Totally sexist view. Our female PE teachers are lovely.

The teacher was ott. I'd be more concerned by the theft of every single piece of uniform though. The cost of replacing everything would be a big problem for us although possibly not for some. But worse, the fact my dc had been targeted and an entire uniform stolen? Horrible.
Are you confident the school will be able to get to the bottom of it? Is she happy and secure there otherwise? Like I say, it's not necessarily the cost, but the action itself which is most problematic for me.

FrenchMartiniTime witness has same version of events and was equally as shocked because dd was polite and for her to assert herself like that would have taken courage because she would never bother the teachers like that, she doesn't like the spot light on her even though she is one of the top sports players

You seem unwilling to accept anything that suggests your child's view is 100% true and just say "their friend agrees".

There's another thread where the teachers investigating have 3 versions of the same events. I did a tutorial lesson and asked students to do drama on a scenario. Mody of the groups have a partial view in their role play with an adult. Not outright lies, but enough that they sounded less bad and someone else sounds worse.

You're also unwilling to accept that the teachers tone may not have been nasty at all and if you child never gets a firm tone from you she is assuming it's mean.

None of us were there so don't know (the teacher may well have been out of order), but you strike me as being so adamant that you should complain that you're not considering other views/approaches.

OneOfTheGrundys the physically loss of items doesn't bother me, it's the implications that there is perhaps bullying that we are unaware of if belongings were taken, and how authority figures think they can speak to children in their care.

DD takes it with a pinch of salt when her peers are rude to her, so it's not as if she is overtly sensitive. She just truly trusts adults, particularly teachers who she feels there should be mutual trust and respect.

I certainly never had any teachers speak to me that way when I was in school.

Just to say, I said earlier it's worth calling the school to discuss the situation especially the uniform.

You just seem more like you want to complain about the teacher than solve the issue of her uniform.

Time to prepare and fire up an e-mail to send the headmaster.

Oh give me strength. Why not just speak to the teacher in question, you know, like an adult?

I never understand why people just can't wait to run to the Head without actually finding out the full story from everyone concerned. They make themselves look ridiculous.

Totally sexist view. Our female PE teachers are lovely.

And our male PE teachers used to put year 7s on their first day at school in after school detention because they hadn't had their socks named yet!

OP, is it the fact that the teacher spoke (in your opinion) curtly to your DD that is the issue, or is it that it seems to have been unrelated to her behaviour? I get the impression from your posts that you think your DD's teachers should always treat your child with the utmost patience, courtesy and restraint. The real world isn't going to be like that, is it?

My big concern would be the uniform. Why hasn't the staff undertaken an enquiry? Who has taken it? Has someone hidden it for a bad joke? It can't just disappear. The teachers response is questionable but as has been said we don't know the full story.

So MaisyPops what do you suggest I do?

Like I said before, call up calmly and without the agenda of "I want to complain because this teacher was clearly nasty".

I have zero issue with parents calling up and chatting about something, but my willingness goes down when instead of wanting resolution they just want to complain. I take the same approach when I call parents and things get resolved much quicker and I find when I need to call parents again they're lovely.

Something like "miss blogs, I was wondering if you had a minute to talk about what happened to my child's uniform. They put it in the changing rooms and it wasn't there when they got back. Do you know what happened or what the school procedure is for locating it incade its been taken or move. Obviously she's quite upset about it and we are reluctant to pay out for another good uniform."
Through that you could ask if ghr changing rooms were locked when the students were out, if not is there cctv outaidr to see if somebody went in etc. Could it have been taken to lost property?"

At least once a fortnight
we have kids realising they've picked the wrong PE bag up or wrong coat, wrong school bag. Hardly surprising with almost 2000 students on site. One of my y9s picked up a smaller version of his coat after a club. Some poor y7 had an age 15 by mistake.

Focus on solving the issue rather than trying to pin blame on someone.

I take that she went home in her PE kit. Did whoever collected her not go into school to inquire about the missing uniform? Or does she travel home on her own?

Totally sexist view. Our female PE teachers are lovely
They seem lovely in dd's comp too

Having witnessed some awful behaviour from teachers as a child I can easily believe that a teacher could speak to your dd like that. With that and the missing uniform I think you are totally justified in getting in touch with the school and seeing if these issues can be resolved. Good luck.

Funny-
Just because there are times when a teacher has been out of order doesn't mean that the default position should be all guns blazing the teacher MUST have been mean and nasty. There's quite a bit of this on MN aka 'I had 3 bad experiences so you should totally just believe that the teacher is wrong and complain. Go to the head. Report them.'

I've had doctors who were more/less sympathetic. Doesn't mean I can complain because one didn't speak to me quite so softly as I'd like.

Any other 9 year old would have just left it and gone on their merry way and waited till mummy emptied their bag...but my DD does her own washing.
didn't read past this hilarious comment...bagging off every other 9 year old in the world while stealth boasting about your own. OP, you have such a way with words!

PE office?

I really feel for teachers, they get shit off pupils and then get shit off their parents, they cant win.

Kermit. It is a private school

But what happens in a PE office Quad ? Private school or otherwise, I've never heard of such a thing.

Kermit it is probably a bit more admin in a prep school PE dept as the children play matches every week so those need to be arranged, lots of different sports sometimes at different locations so arranging transport, teams need to be organized by ability usually.
Also there is usually more PE staff because there is sport 4/5 days a week in most of the prep schools.
They can't do all of that in the staff room or get the secretaries to do it all so they need an office.

That said when I was at secondary (state) there was a PE office for the 2 I think full time members of games/PE staff.

There's a PE office at dd's high school. I think all the departments have them.

MaisyPops I didn't suggest original poster go in all guns blazing. I didn't suggest that the teacher had to be lying and that all teachers are bad. I gave my own account, because some people have a hard time believing that a teacher would behave like that and all I'm saying is, it happens.

If you read my post it only says getting in touch with the school for a resolution to the situation. I think you have misinterpreted my post in an aggressive way.

Funnyface1
No I didn't think you were advocating all guns blazing. Sorry if it sounded like that.

I just meant that I accept what you say about some teachers being difficult. And too often there are replies on school threads that are essentially "I experienced this so I'm going to bring all my baggage to the situation". Those kinds of replies are never that helpful in my opinion and three advice given would have the opposite effect on me as a teacher. Far from wanting to be very accommodating, some of the advice given on here would lead to me passing the issue to a senior leader with a note of 'Here's the issue but home are challenging'.