Contacting school about male teacher

[Slidingdowntherainbow]

My child goes to a preschool attached to a primary school. The Head is always on the gate each morning welcoming children (and parents) in the gates, we see her every morning.

The other day, I went to collect my child earlier than usual and walked past the playing field as usual, it's on the way to the preschool.

It was a hot day and the Head, along with another female colleague, was sitting on a grass bank watching the children and I know they saw this as they laughed.

A male teacher was walking along the playing field with each hand squeezing two girls shoulders. So he was between them, with a hand on each of their outside shoulders, seemingly squeezing. The girls were giggling and the the Head laughed. Not that I think it matters as he shouldn't be touching them at all, but it wasn't a quick squeeze, he was more resting his hands there for a good 30 seconds I'd say.

Anyway, it may be nothing, but it made me feel very uncomfortable. 1) it's inappropriate to touch a pupil for no good reason 2) he gives me the ick anyway, he's a big presence and I sometimes see him when dropping my child off and I just don't like his demeanor, not sure why.

Do I report this? My child won't be going to this school so I'm not worried about that. More that the Head actually saw this with her own eyes and laughed, so I suspect will be defensive. I then have to walk past her daily, potentially for the next two years. Unfortunately I can't report anonymously as I was the only person walking past at this time.

I'm not suggesting anything more than this has happened, but isn't this a slippery slope? Should a teacher (especially male), be touching pupils necks?

Would appreciate opinions please!

I don't think anyone has said that. OP saw him put his hands on their shoulders, nothing more. If she's seen him touching them intimately, it would be totally different.

I think this kind of OP attracts certain types of people - ie the word ‘male’ in the title brought them in their droves.

That’s a very high bar you got there. 🤔

Mumsnet (AIBU in particular) is really feminist in its leanings - men doing anything wrong are usually universally strung up. Strange that so many have leapt in to say OP is being unreasonable here.

Luckily for children, child safeguarding isn’t followed up by a vote.

What many seem to be saying is that guys in a school should be able to do what they like in terms of touching people
After all, they're just being friendly. We don't want their feelings to be hurt. We don't want to get them into trouble. We value them/are so lucky/should be so grateful to have them. They wouldn't do anything wrong. And we certainly wouldn't want to make any work for those who have the job of supervising those men....
Has anyone said men should be able to do whatever they want?

Holding male members of staff to the same standards as female members of staff is not giving men a free pass.

Advising caution before someone reports a member of staff they don't know and have never met based on the fact that at a distance they think the member of staff is icky and they saw the member of staff touch a pupil's shoulders is not giving men a free pass.

All members of staff working with children and young people are professionally obliged to meet their safeguarding obligations. Nobody working with children and young people should be considered sacred and beyond question. OP is free to speak to school if she wants to and it makes her feel better.

Agree completely with this. I’m actually a little worried at how quickly and emphatically so many posters have poured scorn on the OP’s concerns. I’d expect my little kids to be hugged if they fell over, or have a plater put on if they needed one, but that’s not what the OP is describing. I have memories of one particular male teacher in my all girls school who was just a bit over familiar with certain students (not me, I wasn’t pretty enough for that!), he was quite good looking and I think lots of girls had a bit of a crush on him, but looking back he really played on that- and it was the same kind of thing, light touches of the upper back, shoulder squeezes etc. Not saying this teacher is of that ilk at all, but to just dismiss OP’s concerns as entirely ridiculous seems completely naive and quite scary to me.

Just rereading my post and I’m not saying you need to be pretty to suffer from abuse, obviously. Just that there seemed to be a certain type of girl that this teacher did this with.

👍 thank you.

As a side note. I remember at secondary school (all girls), the deputy head took a liking to my friend. She was bubbly and very flirty, she flirted with him relentlessly. But instead of telling her to stop coming to his room, or creating distance, he lapped it up and reciprocated the flirting. It wouldn't have been obvious to those outside but as someone who loitered while waiting for my friend, it was blattently awkward and inappropriate. He didn't take it further, but I still remember him decades on leering at her legs and have no doubts that he had these situations with other young girls. He was inappropriate but got away with it. And sadly, it's often the vulnerable kids, who for a variety of reasons, attract this kind of teacher/person in position of power.

OP, maybe this kind of experience has made you project, and see everything in an inappropriate light with suspicion. Look, the way you describe it sounds entirely reasonable to me, and to >90% of people, and after a whole day of posts, you are still arguing that it is not. I wouldn’t dream of interpreting a stroll of the teacher with two kids, everyone including the headteacher smiling and enjoying the nice weather, in such a bad way. Yes of course keep an eye on things, and a healthy dose of suspicion is good, but this sounds unhealthy. Did you have any other experiences like the one you described above? Your child could pick up this type of anxiety from you as well.

Imagine if you talked to someone about this, and the teacher suddenly found himself in the middle of a shitstorm out of nowhere. This kind of thing, even if ridiculousness proven, sticks. It is a terrible accusation to make with zero proof. If you are very suspicious like this, maybe you should consider a special religious school or something? Do you have a religious background?

Yes.

If you are very suspicious like this, maybe you should consider a special religious school or something?

Brilliant idea. Because the Christian church - and/or other religious foundations involved in education - have never been involved in child abuse.

Imagine if you talked to someone about this, and the teacher suddenly found himself in the middle of a shitstorm out of nowhere. This kind of thing, even if ridiculousness proven, sticks.

This is simply not true. He wouldn’t find himself in a shitstorm out of nowhere. In all likelihood, the worst that would come of it, would be that the Head would pull him to one side and tell him there had been a complaint and that he needed to be more mindful about physical contact going forward. The school would be discreet and professional and that would be the end of it. Unless there were genuine grounds for concern.

ReflectedFlowers
You're right in terms of discussing it with school. The head would deal with it appropriately.

I think the other poster was meaning there's consequences of speculating with random people rather than making a report to the relevant person in school.
Just up thread we saw some posters who thought it was acceptable that people joke about members of staff being paedophiles, and that it should be accepted that teens do that.

Is he related to them? Perhaps their Dad?
My DH taught our 2 boys and whilst he would never touch another child he did smother our 2 with hugs when we collected them coming home from a coach trip to France.
Sometimes walking out of school late, he would have an arm round one or other of them.

78% of all infanticide is committed by women acting alone as reported by CDC in their 2002 study. What’s are you saying here? You postulate that men are more likely to abuse children, statistically women are way more likely to murder them. Who is the real danger to children? I’d argue that there is good and bad in all, and grouping folk by what’s between their legs is unhelpful at best and discriminatory at worst.

Knowing the stats, would you be happy for a woman to touch your children in a similar fashion?

Haven’t we demonised our men enough?

We need more diversity in our educational system. All my children’s teachers are female, and there are no initiatives to redress that bit of gender imbalance as there are in STEM subjects to encourage girls.

What many seem to be saying is that guys in a school should be able to do what they like in terms of touching people After all, they're just being friendly.

I've RTFT and haven't seen a single post saying this, let alone "many".

I report to numerous people for different projects. I’m not co located with any of them. When I see any of them (male or female) they hug me. Plenty of my colleagues would do things like touch your arm/hand to get your attention or to emphasise a point. It’s a huge multinational. We are all IT and Finance professionals with several of the management team being recognised as experts in their specific fields even outside the company. If anyone felt ever asked them not to I’m certain they wouldn’t do it but it’s entirely normal. My daughters both have male primary teachers (there are 4 male staff members at their school. 3 are the teacher for some of the 8 classes and 1 is the PE apprentice). The youngest ones teacher will crouch down and put one hand on child’s shoulder then point them towards their parent while pointing at parent with other hand at drop off all the time. The PE apprentice gave my eldest a hug when she was sobbing her heart out over some upset with her friends. The staff regularly will give out high fives and the nursery/reception staff would give occasional cuddles/carries. Touching someone to greet them, direct their attention or to comfort them when upset is all entirely normal and I find the idea you think teachers doing so is a safeguarding issue just because they are men a bit odd.

So it is or is it not OK for my child to hug her teachers, which she does and they return the cuddle!

Op, sorry this may have been asked before but do you actually know 100% that he is a teacher at the school?

the only DSLs I’ve ‘blamed’ are those that have ridiculed the OP. A DSL should be able to handle a low level concern professionally and make a judgement. It’s not professional to say the OP is crazy and the reason we have a r&r crisis in teaching. I’ve not oversimplified anything. There’s cases all over the world of prolific abusers who were never stopped, because people are reluctant to report their concerns. I worked with one! It would seem Phillip Schofield might be one!

The fact is, we are encouraged to report low level concerns so that a picture can be built up. In most cases, you’d hope it’s an isolated event or someone has overreacted and the concern is dealt with as such. But in some cases, the abuser is far too clever to hand anyone the proof of their abuse and it takes a number of reports of low level concerns.

no one knows exactly what the OP saw. I’ve seen men touch women on the shoulder in a friendly way. I’ve also seen it in a creepy way. The OP said she felt it wasn’t quite right, too lingering, whatever. She didn’t feel right and she should be encouraged to report just that.

Every incident is going to be isolated if no one bothers to report it, and that’s how abusers get away with it for so long.

OP still hasn't answered the question if she'd have found it as inappropriate if it was a female teacher and that seems pretty telling...

It was approximately 30 seconds that have also changed from squeezing to maybe squeezing to maybe hands on shoulders and at one point it was neck not shoulders across a field. Add in that despite not having ever had any contact with this man, OP decided he gives her the ick and has an attitude from seeing him at a distance. Hardly the most reliable testimony.

This has been asked by a number of posters al through the thread. We won’t be getting an answer, and it’s clear why