Male School staff inappropriate behaviour towards DD

[heatherwithapee]

DD is 14 (year 10). It has come to light that over the last few weeks a support worker at school (who she has been having one-to-one sessions with) has started behaving ‘weirdly’ towards her (her words).
She’s disclosed that he’s asked for her phone number, suggested they meet outside of school, asked to see photos of her doing her hobby, told her she’s ’his favourite pupil’ etc.

It’s been reported to school but realistically what can I expect to happen next? I understand that it’s her word against his (of course I believe her but appreciate that the school need to look after their staff especially when evidence may be difficult to obtain) but what’s the deal with safeguarding? She’s very worried about seeing him around school now that she’s reported him.

AIBU to think that he should be suspended pending investigation?

I clearly said further interactions with kids should cease. Generally where it’s a case of word against word, the process which I agree with is not a default suspension. The school immediately does an investigation whilst placing the staff member on restricted duties so it’s all quite sensible and fair to all parties whilst still safeguarding children. Imagine if you were an innocent teacher and this happened to you and instead of treating you as innocent until proven guilty and putting you on restricted duties you were just immediately suspended. It’s important to see both sides.

Yikes. My kids support workers tells them them they are their favourite pupil. No way on God's green earth would they ask for their phone numbers or meet them outside of school.

Where are the 1:1 sessions happening?

My dc are taken to the library so very much a public space

What is this thing about telling a pupil they're their fav. It's entirely inappropriate not because of ulterior motives necessarily but it does not actually help young children and teens to develop confidence because it binds them psychologically to the mentor or teacher who's 'chosing' them over other children. It's also disingenuous and not authentic so creates all sorts of confusing dynamics for a child. Such language creates a bind that shouldn't be like that it's not respectful to the student.

I do understand your point.

Unfortunately, a person under investigation on school property is a safeguarding issue. Not to mention a logistical one, the person would essentially require another staff member as a chaperone to ensure they could not be further accused.

I have actually been close to this scenario with a family member who was exonerated.
Awful experience for them.

However, of the two sides in the situation it will always be the child that should be protected until innocence is proved.

No. At the very least he has been extremely foolish. You never ever meet a student alone with the door shut, for example. If he had followed proper procedures, it would not be possible to accuse him of anything because there would have been no opportunity for anything to occur.

A colleague of mine was accused (falsely). He had made numerous misjudgments in his dealing with the pupil. He had no nefarious intentions but he laid himself open to being accused because he did not follow protocols for contacting students.

In secondary schools:
Never meet a student alone with the door shut.
Never communicate via any means besides school email.
Never engage in personal conversations on any topic beyond the trivial or the non-specific - leave that to the pastoral team.
Alert colleagues to any verbal altercation with a student.
Alert safeguarding if any incident occurs which could be misconstrued (eg you take your jumper off and your top rides up too far).
Ask permission from the student before touching them eg during sports or music lessons.
Do not touch the students except for medical reasons or to offer immediate comfort to a crying student (a brief hug round the shoulder, for example).

None of those stop false allegations.

In his office.

It was stuff like keeping the door open if you're doing a 1:1. Then, there were lots of conversations about how that's impossible when you are providing access arrangements and scribing for someone 1:1 in an exam.

Honestly, false allegations are actually very rare. I worked in a secondary school from 2012 - 2019. In that time I only heard of 1. I worked in a school environment with 1200 ish students

I should say it was very rare rather than it is very rare. I have absolutely no idea how things have changed and no intention of finding out. Fuck that.

I'm sure you already have, but please MASSIVELY praise your daughter for telling you about what's been happening.

It was reported to be 1 in 5 teachers have had a false allegation made against them by a pupil. Then on top of that some parents have also made false allegations.. That was 10 years ago.

I have experienced a few myself - one going to court and seen a few with colleagues.

Teachers shouldn't even be saying someone is their favourite pupil. You just don't say that 😒

He should be suspended pending investigation.

It’s not rare. It’s constant.

I am not surprised they quit. Suspension is not a neutral act.

The support worker may not get suspended in the first instance, but will definitely be investigated quickly. If he is suspended it's likely to be on full pay whilst being investigated.

In the meantime your DD should be allocated a different support worker.

But the teacher who follows these rules is (a) much less likely to have opportunities to abuse pupils, and (b) much more likely to be believed if a false allegation arises.

A false allegation is false therefore it is nothing to do with the teacher being an abuser. It is about the teacher being the victim. A false allegation is about being malicious. Malicious people find a way and make things up.

So no this doesn't make it more likely to be believed as the nature of a false allegation can be about anything.

Not sure why you mentioned teachers being less likely to abuse when my debate with another individual is about teachers being victims in false allegation situations.

How about if kids didn't make up allegations and were held to account then false allegations would be less likely to happen and teachers more likely to be believed.

Also, obviously safeguarding courses I've attended we were advised not to stop children from telling us personal things as long as that got reported to the correct person because children will disclose to those they feel comfortable with. If you shut it down straight away you could miss something important.

Where does it say he had the door shut?

As for this "If he had followed proper procedures, it would not be possible to accuse him of anything because there would have been no opportunity for anything to occur."...

Teacher X is sitting at their desk at lunchtime eating their sandwhich whilst simultaneously marking some homework. Pupil Susie comes into said classroom and asks teacher something about equations and leaves two minutes later. Susie later says Teacher X molested her. So kindly explain how Teacher X has failed to follow protocols and therefore has brought this on themselves. Which of these things would be against protocols? A teacher sitting at their desk? A teacher eating their lunch? A teacher marking homework? How can a teacher ever protect themselves from being alone with a student? I can look down a corrridor and see it's empty and think yes I can walk safely down this corridor, there are no students, and then one comes from round the corner? How could one predict that?

I work in HR in education.

We would investigate this and inform the LADO.

We might suspend but even though it’s supposed to be a neutral act it’s not really so we are cautious when doing that - we might look at other options such as having him wfh etc. That said if we thought he was a safeguarding risk we would. Don’t assume because he hasn’t been suspended there will not be a lot going on behind the scenes.

if an investigation showed the allegations to have foundation it would proceed to a disciplinary hearing. Dismissal would be likely if upheld. We would complete an outcome form for the LADO and if dismissed a DBS referral.

If the investigation didn’t uphold the allegations we would still record as a low level concern and look at training etc and do a risk assessment.

It would all depend on the evidence really.

Oh also they are unlikely to share the outcome with you other than “appropriate action has been taken”.

Obviously if he stops working there you’ll notice that and even if he wasn’t dismissed etc I’d expect the school to give your DD a different support worker to protect all parties but they are unlikely to actually tell you the outcome of any investigation and subsequent hearing