Disgusted by school’s response to complaint about pervy teacher

[SophEll]

I had a night out a few weeks ago with a friend. In a bar, we were approached by a man (who had a male friend with him) who started talking to us. He seemed quite drunk, but explained he recognised me from past parents evenings. At this point, I realised who he was - he taught one of my DC at their old school (they’ve since left). Out of nowhere, he said to me ‘I always used to imagine what it would have been like to bend you over that desk’. I was speechless, my friend said ‘excuse me’ and he replied ‘joking obviously’ and we walked off. My friend couldn’t believe what we had heard.

The following Monday, I checked the schools website which confirmed he was still teaching there. I followed the complaints procedure on their website and got a fairly blunt reply which was along the lines of, ‘sorry but as this happened outside of school and at a non school event, we are unable to review your complaint’. I challenged this - said surely it’s of interest to them and again they replied and also said it is outside of the remit for the DfE, and that they’d file any further correspondence from me without responding.

I was furious, as someone like that should not be teaching children in my view. Another friend says they think I can complain straight to Ofsted and they should take it seriously. I’ve also considered writing to my local paper about the schools dismissive response.

My DH thinks I need to drop it and that I’m just stressing myself out by taking it further - he thinks he will just deny the comment and that will be that, but he’ll be suitably embarrassed not to say something like that again.

AIBU to pursue this?

Stop op if a man lost his job for every sleazy comment when drunk , half the country would be out of work.
you won’t get anywhere and will end up looking a bit nuts.

I don't think telling a woman you wanted to shag her is "hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls"

And I've definitely heard drunk woman make similar comments to men

No one on here has said any different to this poster. The school doesn't see an issue because it happened at night time in a nightclub. Sorry to say you want to be a victim.

Goodness me. This thread is hysteria central now. What happened to critical thinking? One drunken comment from a teacher in a bar affects a whole school of children?

Ffs no he didn't!

And if men should get fired for sleazy interactions when drunk then so should women

And then most of the country would be unemployed

I am good friends with a male primary school teacher, objectively good looking (sadly for the mums, gay).

I'm in shock and awe and some of the things he tells me have been said to him by the mums in and out of school

It cuts both ways, one isn't more harmful or conversely naive and ill judged than the other

But no one wants that conversation.

Agreed oh my god pp you are fucking DANGEROUS.

Of course not especially when he's good looking. The teacher who hit on the op is probably butters 😁

I'm not sure it would reflect badly on the school. The school is not responsible for the teacher's behaviour when he's offsite and not working. A teacher at my DD's school was dismissed for having a sexual relationship. My view of the school hasn't changed. I just think the teacher was an idiot. What he did has not brought the school into disrepute,nand this example is about behaviour that quite clearly breaks teachers' professional code of conduct.

Unwanted contact is a form of harassment. You could report it to the police, but it’s a decision for you to make.

Reporting it to the school, however, is pointless IMO.

This is an absolutely batshit take. Jesus Christ. No one mentioned rape and what the teacher said didn’t indicate any desire to rape OP. He said he fantasised about bending her over the desk, not that he fantasised about bending her over the desk without consent. Wtf goes on in your head? Do you get your kicks out of dramatising everything?

@sandrafarringdon66 where is the rape aspect coming from? I get bent over tables etc by my partner every now and then and I'm perfectly willing. You are assuming he means forcefully because it fits your and the OPs narrative. This guy immediately backtracked and left. If he remembers it he's probably mortified.

The police wouldn't be interested if he made one comment and then walked away. There are actual crimes going on shouldn't they attend to them?

Report it to the police??
Are you actually for real?

I am absolutely aghast at some of these replies

My kids were in independent schools and if a paying parent, past or present, went in with something like this, I don't think they would just file the complaint. I think, given the specific context of what he said, there would be a meeting and the teacher would be made to formally explain himself and apologise.

I don't know about that some private schools think they are untouchable. My children have gone to private schools and as long as the teacher does a good job they will back them. They are a business at the end of the day. If the parent left bad reviews that would change the narrative. They rely on parents paying them money to teach their children. It's still a volatile environment.

Or, to express thus sentiment in a different way: 'Finally, after hours of debate, someone who agrees with me.'

FFS, the bloke made a stupid comment whilst drunk on a night out and you have gone straight into a witch hunt to get him sacked.

I said that she could, not that she should. Given the responses, I’m surprised it hasn’t been taken that far tbh

If OP thinks she's going to get him sacked, she's going to be disappointed. It's her word against his, with one biased witness.

He acted like a prat. Nothing more than that. If everyone was dismissed from their job who had behaved poorly for one reason or another in their personal life then absolutely everyone would be unemployable.

Biggest thing I can take from this is that the OP clearly has very little going on in her life if she’s got time to spend shit stirring and trying to get random people sacked from their jobs.

One comment which can't be corroborated by an independent source.

This is sexual harrassment by a person in a position of authority.

Don't be daft. Teachers nowadays have absolutely no authority at all.
They have had all authority and respect taken away from them, mostly by parents who fail to parent and then complain about teachers not doing their job.

A bloke overstepped the boundary, recognised he'd done so even when he was thoroughly pissed, backpedalled (Just joking, he said) and some pearl clutching Mother has felt violated because he implied he fancied her.

If you were alive and circulating in nightclubs in the 70s you'd hear much worse than this. None of it was 'threatening' as such. "You look like you'd be good in bed" or "You have a nice body" or "Fancy a roll over in my bed tonight?" Yeah, right mate. Bye then. OP reckons none of us have had this traumatic scenario happen to us. I think most of us mature women, over the years, have had these lascivious comments. This teacher probably did NOT think, on the parents evening, that he'd like to bend her over the desk. It was just something he thought of when he was pissed in a bar and recognised her and thought he'd chance his arm. He was soon shot down by her response and retreated.

To actually contact the school and try to get this man into trouble over a drunken comment that he immediately regretted when he saw it landed badly is a massive overreaction in my opinion. It shocked her in the moment, obviously, but he immediately retreated.
I'm not giving him any passes. He was quite clearly an idiotic drunk and shouldn't have said it. He may be agonising about it too.

Teaching is TOP of the list of the most stressful careers. Teachers are dropping out of their teaching career in droves. They are leaving because pupils are becoming uncontrollable. So maybe they go out and get pissed on occasion. I would.

I have to say, in my late 60s, that OP sounds a proper snowflake.
To feel offended is one thing. To chase an already beleaguered teacher
who got a bit drunk one night and said something dodgy to a woman he recognised is way beyond unreasonable.

OP. Let it drop. He's prob a very nice man who got a bit pissed because he has a really demanding job. I guess he won't do it again. No need to hound him out of his job.

There’s no point asking OP to update because she clearly doesn’t want to be wrong, hence she has doubled down like a petulant child despite being repeatedly told to drop it. She probably realises she’s made a fool of herself but doesn’t want to accept it so she’s carried on down that path to save face. If she has an update and it doesn’t go the way she wants it to, she’ll either not update the thread or she’ll make out everybody else was wrong and she’s had a satisfactory outcome.