To be annoyed that my friend ( a teacher) may be disciplined for telling parents one of her pupils took a pregnancy test?

[NiceTry]

The girl had confided in her and the test was arranged, via school nurse but my colleague decided that the girl's parents should be informed and may now face disciplinary procedures because the girl had not consented to this (the test was negative by the way). Obviously the girl (and parents) are very upset. But did she do the right thing?

When I find out my teenager (assuming we make it that far... he's only 7.5 months ) hasn't told me something I would want to know - and it will be when, not if - I just hope I (a) remember I am his mother, not his owner and (b) have a think about why he didn't choose to tell me.

Then I'll freak out. But - again, hopefully - not at the person who honoured his wish for privacy.

As a union rep, I hope you get advice from your union. Otherwise I think you will have problems defending this teacher.

Is the teacher an NQT, had she had a break from teaching or new to the school?

Has the school organised refreshers on child protection policies? Has this teacher had proper training. Did she know who the child protection person was?

I find it more frightening that you don't seem to understand that the teacher made a mistake.

Teaching unions have regional reps and I think that if you are out of your depth then you should contact your region's representative.

I'm afraid I think your friend was in the wrong. As much as I would want my daughter to tell me it was not her place to tell the parents esp in confiding relationship.

Don't you find it weird when someone starts a thread ostensibly to find out what other people think, and then sticks their fingers in their ears and shouts "la la la can't hear you la la la" when they get the response?

Seriously Nicetry, what was the point of posting this if you are going to ignore every valid point people make, trivialise their concerns for this girl and disregard their opinions?

People have given so many extremely good reasons why what your friend did was wrong and you've not acknowledged a single one. Surely even if you sympathise with your friend a tiny part of you can appreciate that the situation could have turned out very badly indeed? (and in fact still might for all we know).

I hope (for your friend's sake) that as a union rep you conduct yourself a bit differently at her hearing.

I feel so sorry for the girl in question - what an awful thing to have dne to her. Her whole relationship with her parents could well be ruined now.

mrspnut 'I also strongly disagree with your statement that there is loads of access to contraceptives for teenagers. As a professional I know how hard it is to get kids in touch with the services providing contraceptives and contraception advice because of misinformation, lack of trust, and general lack of knowledge.'

So what has gone wrong in the last 25 years then? As a 17 year old in 1983, there was info on condoms (admittedly you had to go to Boots to buy them), and the pill (family planning gave them to me without any hassle), and we were beginning to be clued up about AIDS and other STDs (we called it VD then). It has always struck me as a professional, that info is so much more freely available than when I was a teenager, as is the access to condoms and the pill to name but two examples.

The contraceptive advice I don't think has altered much since I was a teenager - don't do it and you won't get pregnant! If you are going to do it, condoms and the pill to make doubly sure, and these days you have the MAP as a back up as well. There is loads of information out there, and no excuse, given that sex ed is taught in schools now (I remember doing this with year 8 about 3 years ago) for lack of knowledge and misinformation. We didn't have the Internet in 1983 and we coped, so why given the rise in sophistication of your average 14 yo now as opposed to 1980 when I was 14, are there so many more teenage pregnancies?

Sorry, I haven't read whole thread but would like to say that as a teacher I was told by the Head of a school I worked in, along with all the rest of the staff, that we had no right to keep confidential anything like that which is told to us by a pupil. He had in mind that if a child told a teacher she was pregnant, that information should be passed up the line so that the child could be persuaded to have an abortion sooner rather than later. He implied that a teacher withholding such information would be in trouble if found out.

Maybe the teacher in question had had just such a warning from her head teacher.

As a 15 year old in the early 90s some of my friends were having underage sex and would have been far to scared to seek contraceptive advice/condoms/the pill. There were very much mixed messages about yes people wont tell your parents, no its illegal and the health professional will report you, etc. I guess stories like this won't help - it will go round the locality like wildfire and the teenagers won't seek help.

One of my friends got pregnant at 16 and had an abortion without telling her parents. She'd been too scared to go and see her GP and ask for the pill. There was no family planning clinic in our town.

I still live in a fairly rural area and would imagine that some teenagers would struggle to physically access services without their parents knowledge.

And I do agree that its become more acceptable for teenagers to continue with a pregnancy. Maybe more (underage) teenagers are having sex these days as well?

Funnily enough even though health professionals can prescribe the pill for under 16s without telling the parents. If a pregnant underage teenager came to me for antenatal care (m/w) I HAVE to fill out a CAFF form and inform social services who I believe inform the police. Never had to do it yet.

Elasticwoman - I think its sad that anyone would be thinking about persuading anyone to have an abortion!

Yes i thought it sad too - esp when girls at that particular school were getting pg on purpose and an abortion only meant they got pg again soon after.

Elasticwoman - the teacher in question is being disciplined because her school policy was not to tell the parents without the girl's consent.

She decided to break the policy - so nothing to do with the head.

By NiceTry on Thu 13-Mar-08 22:09:36
The official policy (via child protection officer in school) is that parents do not need to be informed and confidentiality should be respected. My colleague (as a mother of a girl this age) could not live with herself if she did not tell this this girl's mother.

Thanks youngvis. Interesting to see how policy has changed in last 15 years or so. Although you say it is only the school's policy, it is probably based on govt guidelines or law, don't you think?

I don't know tbh - Nicetry may know the ins and outs, I've only gathered this from what she's posted along the way.

As far as I've worked out, the school's official policy was for the teacher to refer the matter to the child protection officer and let them decide how best to tackle it.

In this case the CPO decided that the girl's parents should not be informed as the girl wanted confidentiality it was not in her best interests. I think (from what Nicetry has said) this was partly because it was a negative test.

Nicetry's friend felt otherwise and decided to ignore the CPO and tell the parents anyway.

Hence the disciplinary.

Message withdrawn

Nicetry: one factor in the rise of teenage pregnancy is people like your complete cnt of a friend. People who think that teenagers are not human beings but the property of their parents, people who, if they permit any sex education at all portray it all in terms of dirt, disease and the horrors of an unplanned pregnancy, people who tell teenagers that abstinence will protect them against everything - including rape, because only sluts get raped - People who haven;t got a single fucking clue about life and humanity. The only sex education programmes that work are the ones that acknowledge that sex is nice, that it's something most people are going to want* to do, so here's how to be safe and sensible about it.

YABU nicetry, I think Madamez has it spot on. Sorry.
I would like to think that my children would confide in me about things like this but, you don't always get what you want and I would rather there was someone they could feel they could talk to in confidence rather than no one.

Look, for the last flipping time! Teachers do not have a duty of confidentiality. If teenagers want confidential advice they can go to their GP. My job as a teacher is to teach modern languages. My remit does not extend to providing a backup parenting service. Granted, during my time in the school I am in loco parentis (with a heavy emphasis on the in loco part- ie I am acting as a parent, not actually being their parent) with regards to their safety. The only reason that teachers become involved in situations of this kind is that on the whole we are mature, trusted and sensible individuals, in daily contact with young people.

For anybody to suggest that a child's relationship with their parents is going to be "ruined" because one teacher told the truth to those parents is patent nonsense. If a parent-child relationship cannot withstand a normal rite of passage (if a little early) then they probably need some kind of family counselling in the first place.

Madamez your logic is extremely flawed. 50 years ago teachers were much less approachable and there were also far fewer teenage pregnancies. Maybe we should start to become formal and distant again as a profession. Maybe that would drive down the teenage pregnancy rate.

You're all crackers if you think that teachers and schools can cause and solve all of society's ills. Just be glad that most young people have in their lives peoples whom they feel they can confide in. Even if sometimes we get it wrong.

madamez, I have told my kids what you say all along (sex is nice, normal, so protect if you get to that point in life)

Now the elder 2 at 19 and 18, I know for a fact they have gone no further than kissing. They have no urgency as I think I took the mystique away and have never shied away from questions. I know famillies at the other end of the scale (never talk about, just don't do it attitude) and their girls are boy crazy and up to all sorts

Duchesse: teenage pregnancy didn't not happen 50 years ago. Rape didn't not happen. It was just hushed up a lot more. Girls who got pregnant in their teens, either through rape or through their own ignorance and lack of access to contraception were either forced into disatrous marriages or backstreet abortions (girls with wealthy families usually got them performed by a discreet doctor under reasonably safe clinical conditions). Or they killed themselves. Or they got locked up in mental hospitals for 'moral delinquency (ie having been raped). Or they were sent away from their families, and their babies taken off them and adopted at birth. Which of these things would you like to go back to?

madamez i think you are spot on.

I didn't say I wanted to go back to any of them. I just said there were fewer teenage pregnancies. But thank you for highlighting the flaws in your own argument.

What flaws would those be, duchesse? Or do you just think that a general mindset of ignorance, cruelty and fear is somehow a price worth paying as long as girls don't get pregnant?

THere are a variety of reasons why girls get pregnant at a young age, and it isn;t just down to Evil Sexualised Rock Music and trendy teachers. Something that might also need to be addressed is the sheer poverty of opportunities on offer to some teenage girls: if the choice is between a life of shelf-stacking or a baby who will love you, is it that surprising the second option sometimes seems more appealing than the first?

What you are forgetting is the school whether they had a school nurse or not, would have the phone number for the sexual health out reach nurse, who they could of rang, who would of seen this girl to gived her comprehensive sre advice as well as taking a pregnancy test. Therefor, the teacher in question would of been able to by pass her moral outrage.