Ok, this happened a couple of weeks ago but I’m still annoyed. My daughter got in trouble at school for using her phone and recorded something that went on in her class. No faces shown, no names mentioned. Had a phone call from school to tell us they were aware of this recording and she had been put in internal exclusion. School always ring me first before dad but luckily dad was able to hear the conversation after I placed the call on loud speaker. Bit of back story my daughter has be having trouble with some girls and at time’s been ganged up on, we thought this was the reason he was ringing us. I’m aware my child is no angel all the time but these girls have a history so I do believe my daughter when she tells me things plus I have a way of getting the truth from her eventually. We have worked with teachers when there has been problems, either with homework or bullying and have always had adult and productive conversations with other teachers and have worked towards sorting out any problems that have arisen in the past.
Anyway my aibu is more about the teacher that rang regarding the recording and his actions and behaviour to us and everyone involved and would also like to know how others would have reacted? So obviously been told my daughter has been put in internal exclusion was a shock but when I asked questions about what had gone on he seemed to not want to tell me anything other than I should know the policy on mobile phones and it’s in my daughters planner. (Planner says a detention for mobile phone use on school premises) I asked why a child would feel the need to record an event? No answer! He then went on to say that there had been a complaint about the recording to which I asked if it was the childs mother who the recording had picked up?. He told me he couldn’t say and I need to ask her myself as he couldn’t say under gdpr rules but he could have said she wasn’t the one that complained. The mum is a friend of mine so at this point I was angry to think she didn’t ring me and say she had a problem also at this point I thought she had been unfair after knowing our daughters have a love hate relationship and we’ve always in the past dealt with them together as they get on in small doses but fall out easily. Neither of our daughters is perfect in their behaviour but they are far from being delinquents. After days of stewing over everything and hearing what my daughter had told me. What she did tell me sounded like the teacher had interrogated her to make her say something that hadn’t happened and was trying to put words in her mouth. I decided I would just text the other mum and sort everything out. After a long conversation it turns out she hadn’t complained and even knew about the recording before the school mentioned it and hadn’t cared or thought anything else about it(my daughter let her hear the recording as it had her daughter on) turned out the school had rung her and this teacher asked if she knew her daughter had been recorded without her knowledge to which she said she knew and didn’t care and was then to be told she may get some backlash from this (I assume he meant from us?) After speaking and getting most of the answers from the mum that we couldn’t get out of the teacher as he refused to speak to me or answer any of my questions and spoke over everything I said while he interrogated us! He asked if I had asked my daughter to make the recording and then asked (interrogated)my daughter if the other parent had asked her to make the recording as the other parent had issues with the teacher who was also in the recording, he hadn’t asked the other parent if she had asked her to do this. The school hasn’t heard the recording and only myself, partner, other parent and obviously my child has heard this recording so they have no clue what’s in it. It also hasn’t been shared on social media which the teacher said it had. I did ask why they find the mobile phone policy so serious but they haven’t taken the same approach to their bullying policy which ended up with a teacher threatening my daughter with detention everyday if her father doesn’t sign their policy. I’m lead to believe the school was sued back to the stone ages when a recording had been made about 4 years ago. If this is true they have covered it up very well. After been ignored and unable to make an appointment with the headmaster we finally got one on day four (their policy states 24hours) after the original phone call from the teacher to be told no complaint had even been made. He made a comment saying he thought we were just another ‘shouty parent’. Turns out said teacher who made the original phone call has had many complaints against him from parents which have been ignored, I’m told he is friends with the head teacher who is also one of the governors and deals with the complaints which makes me wonder if he’s not acting on them and also is this not a conflict of interest? I’ve also been told by many people the teacher has a dislike for women and called women stupid to their face but changes his tone when the husbands turn up and talks over women when they speak, this is what I had to deal with. We have also made it clear and also put it in writing that he is not to be alone with my daughter and the first thing he did was take my daughter into a room alone! 2nd time he did this my daughter asked for another teacher to be present which he obliged. I’m actually worried that this teacher is trusted to be in charge of children when I & my partner have had great difficulty dealing with him ourselves and witnessed how he has handled what he says is a serious situation and implied people have complained who actually haven’t. We have asked for the governor’s details to complain to as this is not given on their website and have yet to receive these details. Our complaint isn’t about our daughter being punished and support the school if our daughter is being disruptive or doing something she shouldn’t but more how this teacher has behaved and we find it worrying how he’s gone about this situation and if we hadn’t have been in contact with the other parent how this could have panned out. If this is how he deals with parents what does he do around children. He had us thinking another parent had complained (told us a complaint had been made) when they hadn’t. I’ve wrote all this on my phone so hope it all makes sense.