Teacher insulting my daughter

[Lua1978]

I work as a teacher at the same secondary school my daughter attends. In the staff workroom yesterday, a couple of teachers were discussing which two pupils they'd overheard saying something about something another pupil had done which they needed to report as a safeguarding concern.

When one of these teachers (who clearly has no clue it's my daughter she's referring to) starts going into great depth discussing one of the girls appearance as they couldn't remember her name... all very personal comments. She then remembered the pupils name and said "oh yeah it's (dds name)" she's got a very unusual name and the only one in the school for sure.

TBH if they had said poorly applied fake tan and skirt rolled up to short I'd have thought fair enough! I'm not overly precious about my daughter but these comments were really personal. I just sat there absolutely stunned and then walked out as honestly I was going to lose my temper or cry if I didn't and I'm normally a really calm person who doesn't get worked up about stuff.

Should I report it- it was really unprofessional, obviously she had no clue it's my daughter but it was so derogatory

so Teachers thinking it’s ok to negatively comment on a child’s appearance isn’t bullying so if they think that’s ok to do amongst themselves what happens when a kid comes to them and says that other kids have been saying the same thing? ah well that’s not bullying? This is a child if teachers can sit there and say that stuff to each other what kind of people does that make them!
I hope you are never bullied
I had 7 years of primary school being bullied then 6 at high school
but I wouldn’t know…

Ah, so you were one of those busybody receptionists then?
The ones that do bugger all apart from gossip to and about everyone for most of the day and then complain they’ve got too much work to do. 😂

I'm saying I find it interesting, which is all I can say lest my comment get deleted 😇

I think it’s awful and unnecessary. If she’d said once the short girl with a big bust and slug eyebrows that’s not nice to hear but not inappropriate if it led to girl being identified quickly but how can repeatedly mocking her eyebrows and phrase face like slapped arse ever be appropriate.

Like I said I'm really not precious about my daughter, she rolls her skirt up so short I can see her arse on occasion and I tell her this and tell her to roll it down whenever I see her. She knows there are consequences if I see her with it like this. If the teacher in question had mentioned this or the fact that her hands are often orange where she hasn't washed them properly after applying fake tan (the bane of my life!) again I would have thought, fair enough. These comments were overly derogatory and about things that she can't change aside from starving herself. Her eyebrow are completely normal, they are marginally darker than her hair as she has some highlights but not something I'd ever think was unusual.

Please report it. My daughter overheard teachers talking about her like this and laughing while she was at school and it affected her badly. Those comments are not descriptors they are vicious and it needs to be reported through the proper channels so that it doesn't happen again.

Do you pick up when teachers are unfair judgemental about other children ?

I am concerned that as a teacher you would seem to think that a child is choosing to use behaviour that they can control. There is always a reason a child may be acting out. I would hope that a teacher would understand that, and try and find out what is going on with the child, not sit and gripe about them in the staff room.

Ok.

I stand by what I wrote about it being odd not knowing your colleagues especially in a school. For those asking, I worked in retail. To get your job done, you simply HAD to know and speak to your colleagues. That WAS doing my job.

After reading your update :

You should have confronted her there and then - SLT or not.

You obviously only recognised they were talking about her after how they described her!

It's not nice, it's not kind and wasn't great for you to have heard. I would have confronted there and then rather than letting it become an issue.

I would agree with those posters tho who are saying - 2000 pupils - you can't simply say small girl with brown hair, you could literally be talking about 100+ kids.

If her eyebrows and her resting face are a distinguishing feature, that's what you're going to describe. Would you rather they'd said, she's got enormous boobs or she's a 'big girl' - I think the latter is more polite.

I still don't understand why a teacher, who's used to dealing with confrontation day in day out off the kids, would have simply clammed up and walked off? A simple, Hi, sorry are you talking about X in Y's class? That's actually my daughter, can I help out at all?

Some of the teachers on here absolutely falling over themselves to defend this behaviour is reminding me very much of a certain political party on the news at the moment....

A teacher did this about me at school. I was shy and awkward and he told his class how much I irritated him (we had only been in one class together that I know of). It was a bit bemusing but despite being shy I am fairly robust so all ok, until another teacher started a more focused campaign involving long and utterly inappropriate 1:1 “chats” in the lab prep room.

It was a long time ago and it’s only in the last decade I’ve realised how very damaging it all was.

your school sounds toxic and it will spill over into everything. Report it and be part of changing the bedrock of attitudes to students.

For me personally, to have heard those comments as a 52 year old would have upset me (not enough for it to rule my life, but still, I'd feel upset and use it as another way of finding fault in my appearance) so god knows what your daughter would have felt like if she'd heard them herself! I totally agree with you being upset about overhearing that information and believe that if those words were said about another pupil and not your daughter, that you would also be doing something to rectify the situation.

Even with the power imbalance between you and this other teacher, you do need to pull her up on her awful behaviour. Either by addressing it 1:1 or by raising it with your Head of Year. Clearly she knew who the girl (your daughter) was because she finally said "it's X" (daughters name) so there was no need to go into a character assassination on your daughter! She doesn't sound a very nice person tbh!

she rolls her skirt up so short I can see her arse on occasion

and the teachers sound as bad as 15 year old bullies

the school sounds bloody awful. Like something out of a channel 4 drama

Yabu it is awful that a professional adult thinks that she would have the right to do that.

My daughter already has a complex about her appearance as she is so different to her sister and I. We are both tall and very slim with no boobs or bum, she takes after her dad's side of the family and is short and curvy. We try to celebrate her differences but I know deep down she hates her appearance. She skips meals at school as she thinks people will think she's fat. She's already getting therapy for self esteem issues....

If someone said that about my daughter I would make a formal complaint once I'd succeeded in not knocking their block off. Teachers should not be making comments about students appearance at all, how on earth are we supposed to stop girls being bitchy towards each other when adults talk like this about them. I'd be absolutely fuming.

I am sorry to read this

but all completely irrelevant to the issue at hand

Teachers bitching about personal appearance is unacceptable even if talking about the most confident girl in the school

And if it wasn’t your daughter?

the fact the person involved is the OP’s daughter I don’t think is particularly relevant to what the op should do

I wouldn't be happy about my daughter rolling her skirt so high that you could see her arse or applying fake tan, but the teacher sounds awful, I would report

@Lua1978 Yes, that's really horrible and totally unnecessary and I can completely see why you were upset. If they'd said 'Oh, you know the girl I mean - she's quite short, roundish face, dark eyebrows' then that would be fine, but they've clearly gone out of their way to be unpleasant. Calling a size 8 girl 'big' because she's got a larger bust is gross. Actually, calling a teenager anything at all on the basis of their chest size is gross really.

I completely agree that the fact it's my daughter doesn't mean that should be the reason I report it. It's actually making me more wary of reporting it. I would have reported it at the time had it been any other student but as it's my daughter it feels very awkward and difficult as it's personal and professional lives intertwining.

My previous post made it clear I think that I am not happy about either of these things!

We had similar but not as bad with a rather strange teacher making personal unkind remarks but to Dds face along the lines of “you think you are so great don’t you” etc. Dd was baffled and quite hurt. She really doesn’t think she’s great at all she’s only 13. The teacher has said it a few times now am considering saying something. Dd is very well liked - effusively so by most of her other teachers particularly female ones - and is very well behaved. I can only assume jealousy tbh.

Lua I feel your pain about the skirt rolling. If a poster can provide a solution to this problem I’m all ears.

I do think that saying something immediately to halt it was the best thing to do, but I know if it was I sitting there and heard a cutting diatribe about my child, I'd be frozen with shock too. If someone starts gossiping about an adult it's easier to say swiftly, "Sandra is one of my dearest and oldest friends" just to stop them saying something they'll regret (and I'm sure those teachers would feel remorseful about referring to your DD like that if they knew you overheard), it's a lot harder when it's your dc! Even worse that you know that if she knew she would be desperately hurt, rather than just shrugging it off with "I really don't care what they think".

I do think they should be revising their strategy and stick to describing the children in accurate but not unpleasant terms. It IS possible. To that end somebody should be having a word with her (or them if both).