At pick up yesterday the teacher asked me to wait behind for a minute as my 8yo Ds had been put on red (they have a traffic light system- start on green, if really good go to silver and then gold, if naughty go to orange and then red. Get on red twice in a term and you have to go to the headmaster’s office). Ds has always been really good, he’s incredibly shy, hates drawing attention to himself and normally just bobs along on green every week.
He looked mortified when he came out and the teacher told me he’d had to go straight onto red for bad language during PE. Ds tried to say “I only said” but teacher interrupted and said “please don’t say it again, you’ll only get yourself into more trouble”. Anyway, he apologised, we walked home and that was that.
I asked him what he’d said and why when we got home and he told me he missed a goal in PE and said “oh, flipping heck”. I asked him if he was sure that was what he’d said, that he hadn’t said the F word but he was adamant he hadn’t and was in tears of frustration at this point as he kept trying to tell the teacher what he’d said but she just kept telling her not to repeat it.
I messaged the teacher on the school app and said “Ds is very sorry for upsetting you today. He’s adamant that he only said ‘flipping heck’ though and wanted me just tell you that he would never say anything ruder than that either at school or at home”. Teacher immediately messaged back to say that she was aware that was what he’d said, it was more the tone that he’d said it in that she was disappointed about (which wasn’t what she’d told me at pick up) and that I needed to ensure that he was aware that language of that type is not acceptable at school.
Is ‘flipping heck’ rude? I say it all the time and I’m certain that is where he’s picked it up from but I’ve never told him not to say it. I thought it was just a nonsense exclamation.