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.

Exactly. The inappropriateness around the phone and code word (wtaf) has already been explained. The OP has already said he entered the room, not ‘he knocked on the door and shouted through it at them to get up’

It’s interesting that some posters are absolutely determined that the OP is lying over both issues and equally determined to defend this ‘poor’ male teacher’s actions.

The amount of women on here falling over themselves to excuse a man entering a private female space and minimising his attempts to use secret code words with teenage girls.

Fucking hell.

Whoever mentioned slow erosion and pushing of boundaries is right. This is exactly how it starts. Predatory men don’t go from zero to assaulting teenage girls. There’s a long period of boundary pushing to gauge what he can get away with first - largely behind a cloak of plausible deniability. And so many on here are just waving it through.

Men who are not predatory in the slightest wouldn’t even suggest secret code words or volunteer to wake up a dorm full of teenage girls.

A man who may not be a predator but doesn’t realise that those things could be read as potentially predatory, doesn’t have enough self-awareness to be a teacher.

Maybe some posters would be okay with their DP’s step dad, or their mum’s new partner behaving like that with their teen daughters. But even so, the professional bar for this teacher needs to be much higher than what you’d be happy to minimise in your private life.

Eh, a husband and his daughters is completely different, I'm surprised you can't see that.

Re his marriage and children - even paedophiles have wives.

Yes it is career and life changing - rumours escalate very quickly and the OP is determined to find fault with this teacher.

Did he knock and stick his head round the door or walk right in and pull the duvets off? There is such a wide spectrum of behaviour encompassed in the OPS post.

No, no i do not see a problem with it

Do you genuinely not understand how inappropriate it is for a male teacher to even stick his head into a room of teenage girls who are sleeping and potentially getting dressed? If not, how can I help you understand this?

I think there's very strong possibility none of this is true, t least not the way it's been told, but if you have concerns of course you should speak to the school.

Is it possible that the daughter was uncomfortable with her friends being asked to tell on her, so has overdramatised the wake up call? It needs careful and gentle investigation by the OP, before bringing it up elsewhere. My gut instinct is that the code word thing, whilst not a sensible course of action, was brought up in a jokey manner, rather than spoiling relationships with the children by appearing too heavy handed. It needs an honest an calm chat with DD.

And if it is true that he entered their dorm on his own and gave the other pupils a code word then that’s very concerning, isn’t it.

The words of far too many children and women are dismissed. It has to stop.

It's a shame we've got to this point. Do the women saying he shouldn't have gone in not allow their husbands to check on or dress their female children just in case they molest them because they are male and therefore cannot be trusted? Do they allow their female children to be taught alone in lessons by a male teacher? If a female lesbian went in to the dormitory instead would that be more preferable than a man? If there was a fire would you expect him to run around trying to get a female teacher first rather than enter the dormitory and get the kids out?!

If the the teacher was happily married with two daughters would that make a difference? If he knocked and shouted first and didn't do anything inappropriate I don't see a problem. This is a man who is responsible for classes of the same children and their welfare daily, presumabley alone in a classroom! If you are saying you can't trust any man approved by local authorities with your kid then we need to go back to Victorian times with separate entrances for male and female and separate classes, girls wear ankle length skirts and bloomers or seek an all girl's school (they still have male teachers by the way!)

If if if if if if… and yet still women and girls suffer male sexual violence on a weekly basis in this country.

You say it’s a shame we’ve got to this point. But how did we get to this point? Not by women and girls making up loads of stories against innocent men, that’s for sure.

By things like Savile - who was enabled to abuse girls on a systemic scale, and in plain sight. Same with Larry Nassar. All happening right under everyone’s noses and no doubt lots of people back then willing to explain it away and minimise.

We’ve got to this point because by this point, men in positions of power and trust abusing female
children is depressingly normal. We’ve seen it happen time and time again.

Not the same thing at all as statistically it is much less likely that the female would abuse the situation

When I was on school trips as a teacher we always ensured that only female staff went into the girl's rooms.

I'd be amazed if he didn't know that wasn't ok. You're not even allowed to close your classroom door if you're with a child on a 1:1 in the middle of the school day. These things are taken really seriously and are as much for the staff's protection as the kids.

If it had been mid-day and he'd knocked for permission due to enter eg because of an issue in the room that's another thing but not when they're sleeping.

I don’t think this is acceptable. My daughter went to an all girls grammar and it transpired that one of the teacher had indecent images of children uncovered. He is now on the sex offenders register. Looking back my daughter mentioned that he always noticed when she wore her PE shorts under her skirt and would escort her to his office to remove them. She felt uncomfortable but mention or didn’t think much of it at the time until the story hit the news (after she left). Now she knows that was wrong. For the avoidance of doubt and to protect children this sort of thing should not go unremarked.

He's only stuck his head round the door. There are so many real dangers in the world. I won't be teaching my daughters that a man saying 'wake up' in a doorway is one of them.

*didn’t mention

OP,

I think both incidents are off.

The code word one is extraordinary off, and can be easily verified by the other children.

Contact the school.

He should not have entered the girls room.

I completely agree @BlueMumDays there is a need for safe guarding and I do understand what that is as I have children myself albeit they are still young. But all we know is that children were told to get up by a male teacher, we assume (but we don't know because OP hasn't told us much) he has shouted, knocked on the door etc first possibly got no response, cracked the door open and then stood in an open doorway for a few seconds telling them it's time to get up. Where is the issue if that is the procedure followed? Is that not the same procedure that a female member of staff would follow so tell me what is the difference?

No, he shouldn't have done it.

Very, very stupid

It was a stupid thing to do from his perspective.

(I don't think he's a predator at all, but you do know that DBS checks aren't foolproof?)

He entered the room - and even if he ‘just’ stuck his head round the door (which the OP has not said) he could have seen a teenage girl getting changed. Does that help you understand the inappropriateness?

As your dd told it, he shouldn't have done this. I doubt there is anything sinister but safeguarding sets limits that everyone should follow to protect from the minority are sinister. There's a chance that you haven't had the full story though.
PErsonally though I doubt I'd volunteers as a teacher esp if male to go on things like this.

@FusionChefGeoff

Not the same thing at all as statistically it is much less likely that the female would abuse the situation

Statistically it is unlikely that abuse would happen in either case.

What do you think male PE teachers do?

I had a male PE teacher.

He banged the door, shouted everyone decent, waited for the yes and came in.

OPs are talking as if he strolled in and sat on the beds to chat to them.

But then I doubt the credibility as the phone story seems utter nonsense.

But statistically more likely that it would be a male teacher if it were to happen - which it does.

Surely he knocked on the door and waited for one of the girls to say "come in"before entering? Some of the girls might have been half asleep but unless he did something like walk in without knocking or sat on a girl's bed then I wouldn't be bothered.