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?

That’s not a false accusation. That’s just kids being stupid in general, as we all were when we went to school back in the day.
If a student made a formal complaint like that, they would not be taken seriously on resource allocation grounds. We receive regular training at our private school from the police and former social services specialists and that’s not the kind of thing they look for.

The scenario in the original post however is a classic case study of many red flags however, specifically the request for private phone numbers, suggesting meeting up after school and one on one meetings possibly outside of the knowledge of senior teachers. That definitely would definitely be looked into at our school, with external agencies supporting.

False accusations (anywhere in the world) are much rarer than real abuse.

There were two separate allegations against my colleagues in a primary school many years ago. Both teachers were suspended immediately and the LEA sent in an investigation team who talked to both teachers and the children involved. Both were exonerated completely, the children concerned both said happily when it was pointed out that neither teacher was actually working that day that they had made it up because they were cross. Neither teacher taught again, they were so horrified. False allegations have always happened sadly.

Your first sentence was at the very very least, he has behaved extremely stupidly and needs a bucketload of retraining

That is an assumption of guilt on some level.

Unforgivable from somebody who has worked in schools.

Not being in on the day in question is pretty quick and easy to ascertain. Why were they suspended?

Yes I agree. What's your point?

To be honest, stats don't lie. Men abusing women and girls is rife. False accusations are anecdotal. It's quite unsurprising that most people would think that it's most likely that his intentions weren't good. There will be an impartial investigation, as there should be, and hopefully the truth will be found. But frankly, why would OP's DD lie? And why would the staff member act in this way?

Christ.

Nope, wrong!

People aren't saying anything of the sort. The debate about false allegations came about because someone said that they had safeguarding on how to avoid this and I questioned how it would as false allegations are malicious as it wouldn't and then debating how rare it is.

At no point has anyone said anything about the child in question. It was a secondary debate relating to the training and how common it was. It wasn't in relation to the OPs child.

Teachers can debate things that impact on them and their safeguarding. Safeguarding applies to ALL not just children.

TheFallenMadonna
i think suspending teachers was the knee jerk reaction in those days. Hopefully there is now a more measured approach. It was complicated in one of the cases by this being pointed out to the child and them changing their story to implicate a different staff member. However by this time all concerned realised this was all made up and the child (a year 5/6 I think) caved. It was awful for the accused though.

What actually happened is that the member of staff to whom the disclosure was made went to the Head, which is the correct response. The Head will instigate an investigation and likely (given the nature of the allegation) report to the LADO. As a deputy head I carried out investigations. Every allegation or concern reported was investigated. That is what happens.

I am so sorry.

I hope this will be resolved. Please reassure her she did the right thing in reporting.

I am sorry about your experience. And it wasn't always like this. I've been a teacher for nearly 30 years, and things have changed.

Shocking things still happen though. TRA records show that there are still a lot of adults who should not be in schools.

Someone with your reading comprehension skills has no business teaching anyone.

Someone with your writing skills has no business teaching anyone. See? Works both ways.

What duties could this person do realistically that doesn’t involve contact with students.
I think it’s got to be an accepted aspect of working in schools. Any investigation should involve temporary suspension on full pay. The risks are too great. The person is still being paid.

Yes, guilty of not observing basic safeguarding protocols in the workplace. Easy to understand, and absolutely correct.

If the accusations are true, then yes he's guilty.

It’s been established by the OP that he’s been conducting the sessions alone (1:1) in his office.

If this is true, and the child hasn’t made it up, this is not a training issue, there is no excuse with the amount of training given in schools. He is a predator and will be sacked if this is found to be true.
It will be investigated as a matter of urgency and either suspended pending further investigations or sacked. It won’t be dragged out.

Contact Ofsted immediately, as well as your local/county council education welfare office and if you feel it's needed, the police too to raise safeguarding concerns if you don't think the school is dealing with it.

It's not that student allegations are unimportant, it's that they are SO important that they should have been prevented by proper supervision from above. If all staff have safeguarded the child, the evidence of what happened will be clear, and both students and staff would have found the location easily viewable. You simply cannot depend on a child being brave enough to speak up; they need to be actively supervised with the attitude that "It could happen here". Even if nothing has happened, and someone made an honest mistake about being too hidden from sight; that is still a very dangerous mistake. Any child who accuses a teacher should be separated from the accused and it investigated rigorously. My point in saying that policy following is more important than actions is because the policies prevent bad actions. Also school have a responsibility to be watching their staff. If this man was taking Ops DD into a hidden place, without it being observed, he is not the only one at fault.

Thanks all for your advice. I’ve had a meeting at school last week. Unsurprisingly, the school are believing the member of staff. He has said that my daughter took what he said out of context and that apparently when she was with friends talking about what they’d done at the weekend, he joined in with “oh that sounds great fun - perhaps you should give me your number and I’ll come along next time”. DD is adamant that it’s a different story - that separately he asked her for her phone number and on another occasion asked her if she’d like to meet outside of school. On both occasions, she was alone having a one to one session with him, and was not with friends.
I’m not happy. Whilst I believe what DD has told me, I do understand that any pupil making an accusation could be lying and it would be awful for any staff to be wrongly blamed. But still, I don’t understand how the school so quickly and firmly decided that staff member’s story was right and DD was wrong. If DD is right, he’s free to do it again and I’m not convinced he’s safe to be working with children.

apparently when she was with friends talking about what they’d done at the weekend, he joined in with “oh that sounds great fun - perhaps you should give me your number and I’ll come along next time

Even if that’s true surely that’s STILL inappropriate? I used to work in schools and would never say something like that to a child.

Has he at least been removed from working with your DD?