Allegations about a teacher at school.

[Ccola]

A letter has been sent to all parents at my DD primary school. An allegation has been going around about a member of staff physically hurting a child in their care. It's been going around parent Whatsapp groups etc. The letter says this is not true and someone trying to cause trouble. How would the school know it's not true? and why would a rumour like this get started without reason? The people spreading the rumour are having to have a one to one chat chat with SLT and may be banned from the school premises and face legal action.

I wonder why teachers are leaving the profession... 🤔

Banning these rumour sluts from the premises is just a start- they should be prosecuted for malicious communications.

Malicious accusations are bloody awful and are one of the reasons why we have a recruitment crisis. If the school have sent a letter out saying there’s nothing in it then they have investigated and there’s nothing in it. I really wish those making them were held more accountable. It’s shite.

I know multiple teachers who have faced untrue allegations. Also others (myself included) who have been investigated for technically true allegations taken out of context (eg one for a grabbing a child’s wrist… to stop them hitting scissors into the top of another’s child’s head. Fortunately there were multiple adult witnesses. Another had comments about dirt relayed like they were being racist when the child quite literally was dirty and they told them to wash their face and hands!)

Happens a ton in schools, both rural and urban. Massive problem, especially for those children who genuinely have been hurt/treated badly etc as I always worry they won’t be taken seriously!

THIS.
Grumbling on what's app and spreading rumours sounds more like a pissed off parent than genuine incident.

What is interesting is that there is another thread at the moment where a parent is upset because the school have phoned social services over an unfounded allegation against the parents. Lots of people are saying that children make stuff up all the time and why was this taken seriously.

There are teachers who are abusive but it would go through LADO

Happened at DD's school - allegation made about a teacher even though the TA was right there and testified to say nothing had happened. Wrecked the poor teacher's life.

And it will leave a permanent stain, however untrue it is proved to be.
In the school where I taught an Art teacher, a man in his late 40s, was accused by a group of girls of inappropriate behaviour and he was suspended. Once the girls were interviewed separately their story fell apart, apparently one had thought he'd given her a lower grade for coursework than she wanted. He came back to school but there was always an undercurrent, a suggestion that he's 'got away with it' and couldn't be trusted.

There should also be some consequences for pupils, especially older ones, who make malicious allegations against teachers, they know exactly what buttons to press.

We have found it the other way round .. a teacher being a serious safeguarding concern, a danger to children and the head in denial despite parents (who were very respectable teachers, social workers, nurses, care workers) flagging worries. Thankfully the issue was eventually taken out of the heads hands and the teacher removed from role.

I work in education and we see all children’s behaviour as communication, with misbehaviour often linked to unmet educational needs (mainstream can be awful for those with additional needs) and whatever else is going on in their life. We do a lot of reflective practice and have good parental relationships.

Founded serious allegations against teachers do happen but many are unfounded. A huge number are reported. A lot come about as a result of the restraint method which has perhaps gone wrong (as it must be bloody difficult even being in the position where you have to use it). Often this occurs in special school settings. Often in mainstream schools it’s because a teacher has ‘grabbed’ a child but there are often witnesses that it was to keep the child safe. There is a safeguarding procedure that has to be followed for every allegation even if the school does think it was unfounded. If the school says it didn’t happen they would only say that if a LADO had closed the case already. So perhaps it was an open and shut case. Very stressful for all concerned though. Devastating for teachers.

This went around our school this week in Suffolk. It was made up.

Having worked in a public facing job for many years you would be amazed at the lies the general public will make up.

Regularly an issue will happen, people on social media will take the bones on the story and fill in the gaps with the most glorious details you would question if it's still the same issue.

People love a drama and will attempt to get themselves involved in any way possible.

Unless you were there I wouldn't believe anything said by a member of the public.

Are you inferring allegations only happen where there are unmet needs? Often unfounded allegations come from parents, not children. Great relationships with the teaching staff help (which the poster you quoted had) but they are not an antidote to problems.

A student accused me of hitting him, to my face. He pushed in a busy lunch queue, turned his back and ignored me when told to go to the back, I touched his arm to get his attention, he accused me of touching him and his friend then chipped in that I'd hit him. I'm an experienced teacher and didn't tolerate this, involved senior staff and logged the incident. He has form for being a trouble maker but a less experienced teacher might not be able to manage that situation. I can see how these allegations can quickly develop.

Good, I'm glad that they are taking it seriously, if it's bollocks, parents shouldn't get to make crap up and spread it on social media. It's nice to see them supporting their staff

Absolutely, but it will never happen as you're always going to have people with the viewpoint as evidenced on this thread 'oh somebody, somewhere, something, somehow must be to blame' ....

In my case it was for doing my job and doing it well. I had a good relationship with the child and gained trust so they started opening up about what happened at home. I reported everything, as it's my legal (and human) duty. A string of accusations followed.

I was once accused of verbally abusing two nine-year-old girls so horrendously that they ran out of school sobbing in terror; too frightened to venture back, they had gone over to the park, to cheer themselves up by enjoying the visiting fair......that was the explanation when they were picked up at the local fair, anyway.
I regularly covered the class every week for an afternoon, so that their class teacher could carry out her postholder duties. They had planned to take the afternoon off, thinking that their class teacher would not notice, reasoning (!) that their parents would be suspicious of such a tale about their own class teacher. The fact that registration occurs at the beginning of the afternoon as well as in the morning had not occurred to them.
Unluckily for them, luckily for me, there was a last-minute emergency (unwell teacher, theatre trip for another class returning after the normal end of the school day) so I stepped into the breach and took the theatre trip, and the class had actually been covered by the headmaster, and I was not back at school until 4:30.
The worrying thing about this, which was pointed out to them and their parents, was that, if (God forbid) they were in future maltreated, their credibility would be questioned.

We had something like this happen at pre-school when I was on the committee and actually in the room along with several other parents when the incident happened (although the parent of the child wasn't). The children were taking part in some end of term prizegiving type thing, all sitting on the carpet and being called out to the front one by one. One child started kicking the girl in front of him, quite hard. Was told to stop. Didn't stop. Teacher then picked him up under his arms and moved him, child wailed/whined. Then the event carried on and we all went home.

Later that afternoon I had a call from the distraught teacher who had just had the POLICE at her door. One of the other parents who had been present at the event had reported to the mother of the kicking boy that he had been abused, dragged across the room, was screaming and crying, neglected.

It all came to nothing (obviously) but created a very nasty atmosphere and was dreadful for the teacher involved.

My dad was a senior teacher whose colleague was accused of racism and racial discrimination against a pupil back on the 90s. The parents alleged he targeted this child, gave them lower grades, this kid got detentions because they were black etc etc. The kid was just getting same treatment as everyone else, completely unfounded by they'd been given a detention the day before they disagreed with.

Parents stormed into school demanding meeting and teacher be sacked etc etc.

Sat down with this teacher and parents, who went through their accusations of racism, they were going to the papers, he was going to be sacked etc etc. Teacher then takes out his wallet, with his photos of him black wife and dual heritage kids. Apparently the look on their faces was quite something.

Luckily for this teacher, it was a non entity of a case but I've seen enough false accusations go round to know kids will do a LOT to avoid responsibility or to admit they're wrong.

All schools keep very detailed safeguarding records , which evidence incidents over a period of time.
They are contributed to by all staff including the Designated Safeguarding Lead who has full oversite.
The vast majority of schools use an electronic system. Records are dated, tracked, actioned, ended.
Records are checked by OFSTED, monitored by senior leaders, with governor oversite. Of course, given the detail they can be matched to staff working days, hours, role etc.
Very evidence based.

If the allegations had any truth there would be no information from the school due to confidentiality.

Safeguarding children is the top priority in schools All staff are trained in this https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66d7301b9084b18b95709f75/Keeping_children_safe_in_education_2024.pdf

We had something similar in our old school and the school sent a similar letter. As it turned out the parent spreading the rumours was the one whose child had about 20% attendance because most mornings she couldn’t get out of bed to walk her the 200 metres to school. She got pulled up on the attendance issue, so she made a private facebook group to gossip about teachers. 🙄 I think a good rule of thumb is to consider the source.

Wise words, WeakAsIAm

After a few decades of doing it, the same ex I mentioned upthread used to say you could work out roughly what the latest rumour was even before it came crawling across the playground ... you'd just look at the gestures and expressions around the school gate and who they belonged to in order to have a pretty fair idea

Add social media and a complete refusal to accept responsibility to that and a perfect storm can very easily result