Was your daughter on a school trip at Alton towers today?

[Zzz1234]

Was she late for her bus? did the teacher lose his rag at her in the middle of the entrance area? If so is she ok?

Can’t believe what I saw today, two girls were 20 mins late back, yes they should be in trouble but they did not deserve some teacher screaming at them, I was 75 metres away and could hear everything I felt so sorry for the girls. I was in a queue and I wasn’t talking about it to the other people in the queue, I was about to go over, but another teacher did.

Would love the name of the school to make a complaint to. Heat is not an excuse, I have lived in hot countries and never saw a teacher lose it like he did.

I know it’s not Aibu but posted here for traffic....

I would hazard a guess that the teens were late because they had too much fun - hence a shouting was well deserved.
If they were late because they had got lost / been abducted / got hurt, the reaction would most likely have been different.
We weren't there.

I am not excusing teacher. But there must be a middle ground?

Teachers cannot do what they want. They are in one of the few professions where even a minor slip up leads to being hung drawn and quartered by parents baying for blood.
Usually by the same parents who don't parent their children and excuse self-indulgent behaviour.

It is selfish of them though. To keep all their classmates who have waited for them sweltering on a hot bus deserves a bollocking. Yes it’s probably not a good way of dealing with things but the teacher could have worried they were actually missing and be reacting through stress. Getting shouted at won’t scar them for life for goodness sake.

This. They need to learn that keeping a bus load of their fellow students on a sweltering bus is extremely selfish. There's far too much of this sort of selfish crap.

its still no excuse to scream/shout at them in public. It's unprofessional.

I hope the mums on here and she comes on saying good her daughter deserved it for being selfish

I’m with the teacher too. 20 minutes late is unacceptable.

My child would be getting another telling off when they got home if they had done this, unless they had an incredibly good excuse, and I’m not a remotely shouty parent normally

I don't blame the teacher, they are responsible for the children in their care, and anything could have happened to them, and the buck would have stopped with them. Good on the teacher for giving the girls a bollocking, they have to realise the gravity of their actions. In the 80's we got bolloking off teachers if we talked back to them, or if something like this happened, we knew never to do that again.

Those 20 mins would have been heartstopping for the teacher, deciding what to do, what to tell the parents, what happens if these were abducted(yes it could happen), execute lost child plan. Maybe the teacher could have been calmer, but they would not be going on another school trip until they show responsibility.

I don’t think it’s ever acceptable to shout and scream at anyone. By all means be angry but there are reasonable ways to punish a student.

Sometimes a good shouting gets the message across. The message not to keep everyone waiting, to stay with the group, to not go off alone, to not be back late, clearly had not got through any other way?
Maybe, just maybe, they will think twice.
It is not ideal.
But not the end of the world...

its still no excuse to scream/shout at them in public. It's unprofessional.

Would it be fine in private? Genuine question.

I would find this response more appropriate that a deferred dressing down on return to school.

No legobitcho, I don’t shout at children. But I can see why the teacher lost the plot.

I know mumsnet is the YAY TEACHERS club

I think I'm reading different threads to you. There's no shortage of people willing to teacher-bash on mumsnet.

I don't see what is wrong with a good telling off now and again when a pupil is in the wrong. Provided it isn't prolonged, and the adult moves on quickly from the incident then it's fine.

Kids don't like teachers who can't maintain discipline.

Mad to take a school trip to Alton Towers.

Firstly: an interestingly divisive first ever post OP.

Secondly: I’ve given DS a bollocking for similar behaviour this week.

Thirdly: while not an ideal response, I can see where this teacher was coming from. I’d be beside myself in their position- with fear and worry- and may not express myself as perfectly calmly as usual. Teens who can go off in Alton Towers on their own should be able to cope with a bollocking if they are late.

BehindLock
These late children may possibly be not well parented children. The teacher will have been beside themselves with worry.

I wouldn’t be ecstatic that my dd were shouted at by a teacher. However, if she were silly enough to be late, the shouting would be deserved.

I hope they apologized. They did need a telling off. If they found it a shock, maybe they won't be so late in future.

Leaving the rest of the class sweltering on a bus. Then making all the parents picking children up late at the other end.

I agree that kids who cause delays for others through laziness/bad time keeping deserve a telling off - but what if there was a good reason?

It may be possible that the kids had been delayed due to one of them falling ill/crying/getting lost, but the teacher had lost their rag and defaulted to the bad time-keeping assumption without stopping to wonder what had happened.

I just think back to my own school days, where teachers would bite kids' heads off for something without stopping to see if there was a good reason.

Tbh you only saw a snapshot... I dare say that if the girls had got there with a plausible excuse and had been apologetic, the dressing down would have been less severe. My guess is they were reprimanded at a "normal level" and either came out with the classic "wha' eva" or some other usual teen backchat so the teacher lost his shit.

Sometimes a good shouting gets the message across

Yes, the messages (1) that the teacher has lost control of the situation and can't think of an effective way to use words to express themselves and (2) of 'do as I say, not as I do'.

The girls still had to walk through the bus full of the peers they've made wait for 20 minutes - I'm not saying they shouldn't also be punished back at school, but shouting at them isn't going to convey the displeasure of their classmates better than just putting them on the bus together and making them apologise to everyone.

If it's a male teacher the fact that their voices carry so much further could make a general dressing down seem far worse. On top of that, one person's stern word is another person's screaming and shouting.

If they were late, they deserve a good telling off. It's not OK to keep the others waiting and we don't know if there were very specific reasons other students needed to be back on time.

Urgh yes, taking a big group of teenagers to Alton Towers today would have been exactly my idea of hell.

Ooh, interesting. My daughter was at Alton Towers today and from her school there was a girl who was very late. The Y8 gossip goes that this girl was waiting in the Smiler queue when her friends told her they would have to leave to get back to the coach on time. Girl refused to leave the queue as she wanted to go on the ride. Dd thinks that all the friends left her in the queue to get back to the bus.
That coach had to wait for ages by the entrance for her.

Dd2 keen to point out that there were loads of schools at AT today and “I only know what people were saying on the bus”.

And no, I won’t be sharing dd school's name.

Selfish twattish kids! The teacher must have been beside himself with worry by the time they turned up 20 minutes late.