Should a male teacher have done this?

[mycatisannoying]

During a residential school trip, enter a girls' shared dorm to wake them up?
To my mind it's a safeguarding issue, and there was also a female teacher on the trip who could have done it.
I wanted to seek others' opinions before raising it.
Thanks.

He may or may not be a sexual predator - none of us know for sure. What is obvious is that he’s a man with a very poorly developed sense of appropriateness who needs further training quickly.

Surely it depends on the person not the gender. We had lesbian teachers at our school one of whom would pat the girls' bottoms. We considered her pervy.

He's a teacher and I'm sure he's had all the relevant checks done. Please get a grip. Just because he's male doesn't make him a sexual predator

But we don't know he entered - op is being purposely vague. He could have knocked and called through 🤷🏼‍♀️

I suspect this is more about the phone that about him knocking on the dorm door in the morning.

You're right, @ParanoidGynodroid .
It's really not difficult for the men (or any other) teacher to follow the rules. They're very clear and you always err on the side of caution. If he did this, he can be dismissed, quite rightly.
You have to cover yourself all the time, it's not hard. A male colleague wanted to go through a yr12 girl's coursework with her after school. He asked me to stay in the room, so I sat at the back, marking. He sat behind the teacher's desk, she sat behind a student's desk.
She was safe. Our jobs done. It's not hard.

As a parent of 2 DC I would have no issue with a teacher off opposite sex entering a dormitory. There is an inherent safeguarding risk in any occupation involving children and both men and women can be perpetrators.

My DS had a medication routine involving self injection into his thigh when at primary. This was done under supervision of a female teacher when on residentials. Could this have been an opportunity to abuse a young boy in a 1:1 situation? Possibly if she was so inclined. Did I consider this a safeguarding issue? Absolutely not

The OP made it clear he entered the dorm. Even if he just opened the door and stuck his head in then he’s being stupid in the extreme - there could have been someone up and getting dressed.

Assault a girl in front of a whole dorm? Maybe not. (Though it's surprising what some men can succeed in doing in plain sight.)

But it is the start of boundary erosion and the normalising of a man in what should be a private space for girls.

This is how grooming begins. Minto pushing of boundaries, and then bigger ones, and then without anyone even realising it those boundaries are gone.

I'm not saying this teacher is a paedophile - but he's certainly a tw*t, and he will know from the regular, obligatory safeguarding training that he has to do, that what he did was totally inappropriate. He may well be pushing the boundaries to see what he can get away with. At the moment he has plausible deniability if anyone reports him - but if not reported he may be even more inappropriate next time.

As a PP remarked - some of those girls could already have been out of bed and half dressed. His behaviour really does need to be reported.

You could ask them for their school policy on trips.

Bingo. This idea that women need to shut up to make men comfortable - no. Men need to improve their behaviour.

So what’s your view? Are women “safer” than men? No. There are plenty of women who abuse their position of power to groom boys and girls. The male teacher probably just knocked on the door and asked them to get up and then had to do it again because the girls didn’t respond. However, this is why many men feel uncomfortable doing something as innocent as this because of harmful accusations that could ruin their career (despite being innocent).

That's not how it works.
Safeguarding applies, he's broken it, he needs to be investigated.

So what’s your view? Are women “safer” than men? No.

Yes.

Women are safer than men, actually.

There are some bad apples, obviously, but over 98% of sexual offenders are male, and of the 2% who are female, the vast majority are colluding with a male.

That's a completely different issue than him going to wake them up.

So the root of the issue comes out... You're annoyed he accused your DD of having a phone on her, but you're sensible enough to realise that alone isn't enough to complain about, so you're scrabbling around for anything else you can find.
You clearly don't like this man, but on this occasion, he's not really done anything wrong. And certainly nothing to deserve the potentially career-ruining vendetta you're considering.

many men feel uncomfortable doing something as innocent as this because of harmful accusations that could ruin their career (despite being innocent).

It is not "something innocent" - it is an intrusion into the private space of pubescent girls.

He SHOULD feel uncomfortable entering this space.

If he doesn't want his career "ruined" for something he hasn't done, he shouldn't perform actions which are open to misinterpretation.

He absolutely has done something wrong by entering a girl’s dormitory on his own.

I am well aware of how it works. I am suggesting she gets some factual ammunition from her school. The LEA will have a lengthy policy covering all of this - it's the reason why many trips don't take place today.

Well statistics from the world over prove that women are safer than men, but sure, keep up the delusions.

Borrowing a quote "“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”. 89% of quoted statistics are wrong 76% of the time. In your case, your quoted stats are wrong 100% of the time.

Maireas How do you know he's broken it? So you're judge, jury and executioner? Talk about jumping on a band wagon. Can you please clarify exactly what happened that morning please Maireas?

Safeguarding isn't just about keeping an eye out for wrong'uns.

It's about everybody having standards of behaviour such that predators have nowhere to hide.

Once people start having discussions along the lines of "he's passed a DBS check, he can't be a threat" or "poor old men, having to be so scared of little girls", then we're creating a culture whereby people stop challenging "borderline" behaviour. And that's how the borders and barriers get blurred/moved/removed.

Entirely dependent on how he woke them. Bang on the door and shout, " time to get up, breakfast in half an hour" then walks off? Totally fine.

I don't know why you're so outraged by the phone issue. If someone told him she had a phone, he can't ignore that. That really is a safeguarding issue if it has a camera on it. If he was told she had one, of course he followed that up. I don't know what the code thing was all about, but it sounds as if the others were frightened to 'snitch' on her in her presence. I've asked kids to use a code if they need help but are too embarrassed to ask for help.

No they aren't.