Is this acceptable for a teacher to say..

[Countrygirlxo]

My son is in year 7. So my child has sports day outside today in the sweltering heat. Drinking lots of water he asked if he could go to the toilet, the teacher who he hasn't spoke to or seen before said no he can wait, he didn't complain he waited until there were a few of them that needed to go and the teacher gave my son a 'key', a kind of card to access the door for them to go in.
He said "don't lose it or you're a dead man walking." My son wasn't bothered about the way he was spoken to (which he said was grumpy and wasnt said in a joke way) and shrugged it off but mentioned it in conversation, I just think it's an odd thing and unacceptable way to speak to a 12 year old as a teacher.

It's a joke. It obviously wasn't mean literally and your son didn't take it like that.

Thanks everyone

Oh my word some people take life FAR too seriously these days don't they

It's fine.

It's a JOKE.

Bloody hell.

You're a teacher too. Clearly one without a sense of humour.

I work with special needs so I'm more caring and compassionate than having a joke with them. As I've said, thanks for the comments I've got my answer there's no need to comment telling me what everyone else has already said.

He didn't say it in a jokey way?

Do you think he was literally threatening your child with death?

@Countrygirlxo joking with teenagers helps to build relationships. I know you can not do this with teenagers with autism though.

I don't know why, and I can take a joke, made them as well, but there is something about this that I don't like.

I think you should log it with the police on 101. He was threatening your son, and it would not surprise me if he has previously killed a student who had lost a key.

Oh well. Try not to dwell on it, eh?

My cousin's year 3 teacher used to to say "I'll pull your arm off and hit you with the soggy bit". They thought he was hilarious.

I will try not too. Thanks for your concern, I had forgotten about it.

Caring and compassionate are not mutually exclusive with having a joke and/or using idioms 🙄

FFS, maybe teachers should never speak to the kids. Just write all the school rules, lesson instructions and subject explanations down and that's it.

Never explain differently, ask questions, rephrase, encourage kids to think or decide what they feel, respond to their needs or show them the big things they need to know about the world.

That worked really well when schools were shut and kids only had asynchronous work to do and parents were apparently doing all the work.

Or maybe that's actually why they can read, speak in sentences, pull their eyes from their devices, wait for the toilet, follow instructions or generally behave decently.

I work with special needs so I'm more caring and compassionate than having a joke with them. As I've said, thanks for the comments I've got my answer there's no need to comment telling me what everyone else has already said

Surely it's obvious that teachers who work with special needs children and secondary school teachers who are at a sports day are going to speak to the children in a different way from one another.

I teach year two but yesterday I had to help out at the nursery new starters transition and I talked to those children in a completely different way than I would my year twos.

It's madness to suggest that a teacher would speak in the same way to a two year old and an eighteen year old simply because one is a teacher and the other a student l

I still cannot fanthom how some of you are in agreement with locking toilets and denying people access to toilets.
I was a pupil once. Toilets were always unlocked. Surely, there were times when there was an older pupil or a teacher on corridor patrol at break time. But they never stopped you going anywhere. They just kept an eye. During lessons, we did need to request to be excused, which was never ever refused.
This is a new low. I cannot work without access to a toilet. Can you? Why do we impose this on yound adults then?
Surely you encourage them to go to the toilet at break, not to disrupt lessons, same as we do not to disrupt meetings, but if they happen to need the toilet during a lesson, they just go.

@MushMonster I cannot fathom how you cannot fathom why these rules are in place.

I still cannot fanthom how some of you are in agreement with locking toilets and denying people access to toilets

1. vandalism, meaning that toilets could be out of action for days/weeks or longer not to mention the cost of refurbishment out of already too-stretched school budgets
2. children arranging to meet friends at pre-arranged times to skive out of lessons for 20 minutes
3. children up and and down like yo-yos, interrupting lessons meaning crucial learning time is lost. Teachers jobs at stake if children don't hit their target grades.

.

All this plus sadly the sexual assaults that occur in unsupervised toilets. We don't have the money to supervise.

Presumably you can be trusted not to trash the toilets and to go back to work as soon as you’re done. The same can’t really be said about a large bunch of teenagers.
Especially in the sports day scenario.
And being asked to wait a short period of time is totally acceptable for a person with no health needs.

@MushMonster I was a pupil once.

And this is what most issues with disagreements between parents/the general public and those working in education come down to.

Being a pupil (in a totally different context) doesn't mean you're seeing what it's like to take responsibility for doing the job properly in today's landscape.

Successfully (or otherwise) taking part in lessons through having an expert teacher doesn't mean teaching lessons is something that's easy to turn your hand to, and remembering the rules your headteacher put in place for you to follow doesn't mean you could effectively lead a school.

My secondary school pupil came home raging that the toilet seats were missing from the toilets and so I told her I'd contact the school and complain.

Later that evening a picture appeared on Facebook that a member of the public had taken of a load of kids from the school...five of whom were wearing toilet seats round their necks like ruffs.

@MushMonster I was a pupil once.

What do you do now?