£9250 paid to be bullied by goons...

[YetanotherPGCEdropout]

One year teacher training with QTS, costs £9250, but I only did four weeks of the course. I dropped out having been bullied by Personal Mentor, having never thought that could happen to me. It was a shock.
The university still charged me £2000, and when I appealed, it was like talking to a brick wall. The tutor had already warned me that I'd been bullied at that particular school, since the previous trainee had been bullied to the point of nervous breakdown by this same Personal Mentor. So that might be the reason for the lack of refund. However. It's alot of money to pay to be bullied by goons.

I would have to know what all this bullying entailed before I weighed in.

You need to progress this to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, if you've exhausted the University's appeals process.

Sorry, I mean complaints process, not appeals.

Teachers bullying and having a name of being a bully is a safeguarding issue. I'm shocked the teaching course provider doesn't know this.

Apart from being abusive in itself, It breeds a culture of others not questioning or challenging the member of staff which is how it's then possible for them to potentially break safeguarding codes.

We had a full days safeguarding training on this and whilst including things about general work place bullying it also pointed out that Vanessa George of Little teds nursery, who took images of children while she worked there and was changing them, was able to do so because she had a very forceful personality and other staff were afraid of her. So they turned blind eyes to when she bent the rules.

I would whistle blow about this. I would ask to see the school's code of conduct and also the teacher training course.

https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/templates/behaviour-codes-adults-children/

ensure everyone - staff, volunteers and children and young people - feels safe, respected and valued.

I'd consider complaining to the governors of the school and/ or the dfe/ Ofsted.

Agree with what everyone else has said. In addition, your university has a duty of care to you. If they already knew you would be bullied you should not have been sent there. I would progress this to your course leader and head of department. You can raise a formal complaint with the university if your department does not support you.

I’m so sorry OP. I had a similar thing (as did ALL the previous student teachers with this woman) but managed to cling on until I went to another school were mysteriously I was a fantastic teacher again.

If people haven’t been through it they would never believe it. This woman was verbally abusive to the children and basically I was punished for raising it. She screamed in chikdren’s faces, publicly mocked and shamed children, made us (trainee teachers) do things like run personal errands for her after school, would tell us off for wearing the wrong coloured socks or change times of meetings on purpose to make us look bad. It was full on psycho mode. I’ve never come across it again thankfully and my NQT year was an absolute breeze by comparison.

I would make an official complaint and also raise it with ofsted who inspect the courses.

^where! Sorry typing on my phone from under a baby (before anyone polices my typing!)

Please don't give up. Yes, go to your union. You need that person's resignation otherwise they will be allowed to do the same thing to someone else.

Any scope under the Equality and Diversity Act 2010

Don't give up. Get the money back.

I believe it should be read 'warned me that I would be bullied at...'

I think OP is also possibly paraphrasing what was said and they maybe used one of the many many polite euphemisms that exist in teaching for he's a 'power mad arsehole on a power trip' like perhaps 'very demanding with a reputation for being rather difficult' if they actually used the word bullying that's pretty mind blowing.

Bullying of staff in schools is rife. I hear it so often.

Your mentor sounds like an utter nightmare. Make sure you put in a complaint against them, especially as a student prior to you suffered under them too.

I was bullied out of teaching too. It's horrible leaving something you've worked so hard for but honestly, your mental health is more important.

People in the private sector wouldn't believe the stuff that goes on in schools. It wouldn't be tolerated.

Fuck. Why does this sound so believabel. That makes me feel sick. Nothing more powerful than ensuring the masses are insufficiently educated. USA has been doing it for years.

believable not abel. I can spell. Honist!

Have you appealed via The Complaints team and received a response?

If not do so and if you have send the response and your original complaint with whatever evidence you have to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. Do it quickly as there is often a strict time limit.

Thank you everyone! Really good advice and I'm sorry about the typing error. I will follow up with the complaint.

Might there be any value in asking how MMU think they've complied with their duty of care to you by placing you with a known bully without support?

LMAO! Robust measures... that's a good one!

@Dancingwithhyenas I wonder if you had the same mentor who bullied me off my first term of NQT. Absolutely bizarre, spiteful woman. When I raised it, I got sacked. She'd been there 20 years by then.

Doesn’t surprise me. Majority of teachers are bullies (not all before I get blasted!)
that’s Partly why a lot of kids are bullies.
school is just usually an all round horrible place for teenagers (especially) to be raised in.

There may well be "robost measures in place to protect you as a trainee" 5mins, but perhaps not at the University that I atttended. Instead there seemed to be "robust measures" to ensure a massive online bitching session, with a view to negating the point of view of the bullied trainee and write them off.

However, I am sure that better Universities have these "robost measures" of which you speak.

Yes - it is a strange thing isn't it? When teaching is an absolute joy, (I did TEFL in Spain before DD arrived and loved it!) and when students can be so interesting, why is it that in British schools, the bullies seem to prevail?

By the way, I won't let this put me off teaching. I will return to TEFL. 😁

When I made my appeal, I did ask about that. Didn't get much of a reply. They don't seem to do "duty of care" there. The main thing that they wanted to do was remain on good terms with the school where the placement was held, due to the lack of placement places. In fact, one of their emails was trying to negotiate another trainee to take my place! And yet - what with me and the previous trainee - there were TWO complaints made about this Personal Mentor.

I do feel that bullying of staff in schools is rife, yes. But as my background is modern languages and TEFL, I think I can stay in teaching, but in a more relaxed workplace. So I feel as if I dodged a bullet by getting out of the PGCE.

Ahhh see I mustn't have gone to a "good enough" uni either. My first PGCE mentor was horrendous, not bullying but mentally checked out and I got an average of 7 minutes with her a week and she was using the extra PPA to catch up on her own work and using my "observed lessons" to leave me unsupervised while she did other stuff so she could leave at 3:30. I started my second placement basically where I was at the start of my first one. Thankfully my second mentor was amazing. It's all well and good universities writing anything into "policies" but when they're not taking action or listening to you, or are minimizing your concerns, or blaming you for failures in their own system, what can you do?

OP,

I agree you should pursue this with the OIA if you have exhausted processes at your university. BTW, did you intend to identify it, given you are concerned about being outed?

Sadly I think you are correct that preserving relationships with schools is the priority. I really hope you are able to put together a good case - having sat on a number of university appeals committees, may I just emphasise that it will be all about following procedures and presenting evidence - and get justice.