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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think on hindsight this was a massive safeguarding breach?!

137 replies

Hindsights2020 · 06/09/2023 19:30

Namechanged for this but was thinking recently about something that happened when I was a kid and it's only now I'm an adult with children of my own that it feels really weird, but not sure if times have changed since then (late 90s)

My Y6 teacher (female) lived fairly locally but In a different village. I happened to be friends with an older child who lived nearby which I mentioned in passing to my teacher who said something along the lines of 'oh you'll have to pop round one day'. Being that age I took her at face value and I somehow ended up with her address and we did indeed go round one day after school. I'm not really sure why. She gave us a drink and a snack, we chatted for a bit in her front room then left. I don't think we ever told our parents where we'd been, I expect they thought we were at the village park.

Absolutely nothing bad happened and I don't for a second think that she is unsafe in any way, but aibu to think on hindsight this was over familiar, inappropriate and probably broke all sorts of school safeguarding rules, or were things different back then?!

YANBU - That was weird and inappropriate even then
YABU - things were different then and she was doing no harm

OP posts:
Doyoureallyhavetoask · 06/09/2023 21:35

Also as a young teenager I used to visit an older man on our street because he was lonely. My mum encouraged it.

electriclight · 06/09/2023 21:39

I'm a teacher and kids knock on my door now. I don't invite them in but chat for a bit out of politeness. Thirty years ago things were very different - a sixth former at my school had a relationship with a teacher and they got married the month after she left school, everyone very happy for them.

dancinfeet · 06/09/2023 21:40

I was driven home from school by my male form teacher in his lunch break when I had a migraine in the late 80s. (just me and him in the car) The school had called my mum to come and collect me but he remembered that my mum didn’t drive and so offered to drive me home and drop me off. My mum was very thankful as he saved her a round bus trip! Nothing happened, he was a lovely kind teacher (still in touch on FB). Things were very different back then!

ASDMumof2 · 06/09/2023 21:42

We did something similar. Our art teacher was painting her internal doors! We chatted for a whole, met her hubby and said bye.

As soon as we got into 6th form we went to jazz clubs with our teachers, drinking and smoking.

Seriously, completely different era. Now we think everyone is a paedo!!!

BoogLoaf · 06/09/2023 21:45

When I was in primary school in the 1970's I was feeling ill one day and the caretaker walked me home. We didn't have a house phone but luckily my mum was home.

Lolasyms · 06/09/2023 21:51

When my daughter was in reception, her teacher took her to school for me. She lived in my village, my husband was working away and I had a hospital appointment that meant I would have struggled to get her to school and get to my appointment. My daughter is now in high school, but I still think of that teacher as one of the kindest and caring teachers I know. I of course understand why safeguarding is in place, but the school felt like a big family and she really helped me out when I was stuck!

ZadocPDederick · 06/09/2023 21:57

It's not even a case of "Things were different then". She was just being kind to a couple of children, and it would be the same if she did this now.

ithinkitsdone · 06/09/2023 22:09

In 1988 my family had to quickly move house to new area. This would have meant changing schools mid a levels.
I spent most of that year living with my enish teacher and his wife.

I loved it. Hours spent at their dining table debating, reading discussing current affairs. It seemed so wonderfully grown up. A far cry from domestic abuse at home. I think he knew that from my teenage creative writing and it was his way of keeping me safe?

He was an j credible teacher. Now a very successful author.

blackbird77 · 06/09/2023 22:11

This is a really lovely thread. It’s so warming to hear how many wonderful teachers and school staff there are out there who have shown so much kindness and humanity. As everyone has echoed, safeguarding is paramount these days but we have had to make a big trade off for it and have lost so much.

We need human interaction and communication and bonding more than ever. Everyone is so isolated or lonely or distrustful now or there is so much paedo hysteria. There is (or can be) so much good out there. As always, the 5% ruin it for everyone else and why we can’t ever have a high-trust/nice things society.

Toddlerteaplease · 06/09/2023 23:09

I used to to go Tesco with one of my teachers, to pick up tea and coffee for doing refreshments for plays. That was ok until he had his car stolen, and we were late back. He got in to trouble for not signing us out.

Maddy70 · 06/09/2023 23:14

It was different then. I remember going round timmy teachers and watching a film.

Nothing untoward happened. It was OK then

saraclara · 06/09/2023 23:23

My (very small) special school class of children came to my house when we had a class trip to a nearby attraction. We pulled up outside in the minibus, and they and my TAs all came in had a drink and biscuits and used the loo before we set off back to school.

My DD's teacher lived just a couple if roads away from us. I had an appointment that clashed with pick up and she offered to take her home with her so that I didn't have to change it.

All in the early 90s.

BackAgainstWall · 06/09/2023 23:32

My male teacher friend used to go round to kids houses and round them up to take them into school on his way in.

It was boys that otherwise wouldn’t have bothered turning up.

A brilliant man and still is to this day.

sunflowerdaisyrose · 06/09/2023 23:57

I remember having an GCSE exam clash so had to be supervised between the first exam and when I could start the second (which had been sat by most people that morning). Another teenager and I were driven by a teacher to their house for lunch and then back a couple of hours later. Don't think any of us thought it strange!

Lizlibrarian · 07/09/2023 00:28

During harvest we used to walk around the community as a class and give the elderly tinned food. One year I couldn't be bothered to walk around our village so when one lady invited me in to her house I was overjoyed. I had a cup of tea and biscuits and watched TV. A couple of hours later one of my teachers knocked on the door to tell me it was time to go back to school, they didn't know exactly who's house I had been in so had knocked on a few. They knew I was not with the group for that 2 hours but decided to finish the task and find me after. Teacher thanked the lady for watching me all afternoon. No one cared. I told my mum when she asked what I did at school that day and she said that's nice, it was a non issue. I was about 6 at the time.

In secondary school we often went for parties with teachers at their house. Sometimes our parents would come and they would all drink together but sometimes it was just us kids. Nothing happened and we had a good time.

Lots of teachers gave lifts to students.

School Gates were always open so people in our community (mostly older people who were lonely) would just walk in and chat to us in the playground. Teachers didn't supervise breaks then. Random people often used the school grounds as a cut through and would stop and chat. If staff saw them they would say hi but were unbothered. They were probably glad to have someone else to entertain us for a while.

Life was very different then. Glad I got to live it.

Stella123456 · 07/09/2023 00:31

ClusterFukt · 06/09/2023 19:42

Around that time 96/97 my two cousins (age 4) were taken out of school by their teacher when she had to pop home during the school day. She thought they were cute because they were twins so took them with her in her car to her house and gave them strawberries in her garden and took photos of them eating them. She actually printed them off and gave them to my aunt as a momento. My auntie didn’t bat an eyelid. I was agog at the time and I was only a teen myself. No one else though anything of it. So weird.

This is shocking and terrible but also so funny

Stella123456 · 07/09/2023 00:34

dancinfeet · 06/09/2023 21:40

I was driven home from school by my male form teacher in his lunch break when I had a migraine in the late 80s. (just me and him in the car) The school had called my mum to come and collect me but he remembered that my mum didn’t drive and so offered to drive me home and drop me off. My mum was very thankful as he saved her a round bus trip! Nothing happened, he was a lovely kind teacher (still in touch on FB). Things were very different back then!

I had exactly the same situation with my male teacher. Very kind. Drove me home. 1979

TheFireflies · 07/09/2023 00:40

I had a Milly Molly Mandy book as a child where her new teacher came to stay in her spare room for a while. I used to secretly wish my teacher would come to live in my house.

In the 80s my whole class once camped overnight in our headteachers back garden, going into her (super posh) house to use the loo etc.

Wouldn't happen now!

JanglingJack · 07/09/2023 00:47

It still does happen, well going back to when my eldest was at secondary. He must have been 15. Anyway, my Mum, myself (both emergency contacts) took my 3 year old to a little show. With buying crap afterwards etc we were phones off and put of range for probably about 3 hours.

Out we get, both turn phones on. Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping both of us. Voicemail. Oh gawd!!

My son had broken his wrist in that 3 hours that we were out of contact. They'd taken him to A&E, he had splint thing and a sling, they brought him home and he'd had to let himself in with his own key. 😭 He was 15, but I still felt like the worst parent ever!
Big box of Heroes and a thank you card for the teachers next morning.

GeorgiaGirl52 · 07/09/2023 00:47

My mother was a cooking teacher in secondary school in the 70's. She made a point of inviting every girl in her classes to dinner at our home at least once during the school year. We had a dinner table that would seat six people. Every Friday night we had my mother, my father, me and three students at the table. It was semi-formal with silverware, china, tablecloth, etc. My mother thought that they should all see exactly how a dinner party should be conducted. Afterward my father would drive them home.

JanglingJack · 07/09/2023 00:49

JanglingJack · 07/09/2023 00:47

It still does happen, well going back to when my eldest was at secondary. He must have been 15. Anyway, my Mum, myself (both emergency contacts) took my 3 year old to a little show. With buying crap afterwards etc we were phones off and put of range for probably about 3 hours.

Out we get, both turn phones on. Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping both of us. Voicemail. Oh gawd!!

My son had broken his wrist in that 3 hours that we were out of contact. They'd taken him to A&E, he had splint thing and a sling, they brought him home and he'd had to let himself in with his own key. 😭 He was 15, but I still felt like the worst parent ever!
Big box of Heroes and a thank you card for the teachers next morning.

That would have been 3013? Something like that?

JanglingJack · 07/09/2023 00:50

Oh FFS nothing like that 🤣

StandingMyGround888 · 07/09/2023 00:53

We were driven home in the boot of my teacher's Volvo. We went to the headteachers house for squash and biscuits. Was a lot better back then. 90s.

mayorofcasterbridge · 07/09/2023 00:56

My primary school principal lived in the house that belonged to the school, and was yards away from ours. He was a close neighbour as well as our teacher.

I started school when I was coming 5, and one day there was crazy snow. My dad carried me to school but there was only me and the principal's daughter because no-one else could make it. The principal carried me home. That just wouldn't happen now, but it was all totally above board.

I used to, as a child, love the company of elderly people. They had such tales to tell (how I wish now I'd written it down!). I used to visit them as a child to listen to their stories. There was one family in particular, 2 brothers, 2 sisters. One brother had been married but the siblings had hated his wife until she died, and he moved back home. The other three siblings never married. The oldest sister lived to be almost 100.

They lived in a tiny house with 2 bedrooms (one of them in their living room) and the 'girls' and the 'boys' had their own space. The house had a tin roof, and the floor was clay. They had no electricity. Their only modern convenience was a phone, which they used to keep in touch with various priests mostly. They had a cow they'd milked for years lol, and served tea so strong you could stand on it, plus the milk!

The younger sister used to get a lift to Mass every Sunday and rode her bike to ours and left it under shelter and was picked up from there. She did this in her 70s and possibly 80s and the lane up to their house was the steepest I have ever seen.

One time our whole family was stricken by a horrible flu. The younger sister then in her 70s arrived into our house like a guardian angel, and took over, with no fear of catching our lurgy!

I used to spend hours with them because I was fascinated by their stories. My parents knew where I was. Nowadays, our friendship would be considered inappropriate.

RIP Mary, Hugh, Rosetta and John. You added so much to my teen life.

Sugarfree23 · 07/09/2023 00:57

I think now adults are more aware of the risk of them being accused of doing something wrong.

How do you defend yourself against false accusations if you've been caught with a child in your house?