Daughter’s head of year and tit for tat

[ThisNewCyanBiscuit]

My daughter has been struggling at school a while, we are in the UK she is in year 10. She is academically very bright but has ADHD and struggles in the loud busy environment of school and with her mental health. Currently looking at taking her out of school as I feel like I’m losing her.
I have been upfront with the school the whole way through and their support has been well limited at best. They always promise the right things but don’t actually act on it.
Last week my daughter was crying in class got sent to head of year and then the head of year sent her back to class while still crying. She went to the toilet on way back and had a panic attack and was in there for half an hour and no one knew she was missing, until a friend lunch break said she was to a teacher, I raised this a safeguarding complaint.
Fast forward to yesterday we had a meeting with the school and all seemed like we had reached an agreement on a plan for my daughter. There was me, my partner and 4 teachers in the room.
The head of year said she wanted to walk us out so we ended up walking out just one on one with her. To which point she said “daughter has a tik tok account which is public and it’s a safeguarding issue” using my words back at me in my complaint. She said it all smarmy and in a way that was definitely in retaliation to my complaint about her.
The thing is my daughter does have a TikTok which I do follow but it is anonymous, it has no picture on it, it has no last name on it, it has no location on it and she doesn’t post any videos so it’s not obvious in anyway it’s her apart from the first name. So how did the head of year come to find this tik tok and know it was my daughter? Also is it really her place to bring this up as a safeguarding issue? It’s the way she said it so smugly like she had one up on us. Also the legal age for tik tok is 13 and my daughter is 15. I have access to her phone and she’s a mature young trustworthy girl I know she doesn’t have another account apart from the one I know about.
It’s really annoyed me as it just felt very much aimed at me because of my safe guarding complaint.

They will claim its stress caused by outside influence for example being allowed on tiktok when they are not emotionally resilient enough to cope with it

possible explanations:

She has a different account. You think it’s unlikely, but it’s definitely a possibility. Since she already has the app, all she needs is different credentials to sign in.

If her friends know about it, have her as a friend, odds are staff know about it.

Your daughter actually mentioned it to her. Maybe she saw something that upset her/is playing on her anxiety/related to her condition and opened up about it.

If the meeting was productive and positive steps are to be taken to actually help and support her in school, I’d pick my battles and see how it all develops.

If you really want clarification however, you could send an email like “Hello , following our conversation about DD’s TikTok and possible safeguarding issues I just wanted to clarify if you have knowledge of anything going on. As far as I’m aware DD only has one account , which is anonymous and has no pictures or posts. If there is something going on, please let me know so I can deal with it.”.

Depending on her reply you can decide if it’s something that’s worth pursuing or not.

And yet the HOY knows?

I would absolutely assume from this conversation that your daughter has another account - or is at the very least posting openly on one run by someone else. If it is genuinely as anonymous as you say then the HOY wouldn't know. MySIL is a HOY - she spends a LOT of her time dealing with issues on social media accounts that parents swear blind their kid doesnt have.

Email the HOY, say you've been reflecting on the comment and as you are so sure her account is private, please could she share with you the information that has made her concerned as you are now very concerned as to what you're missing.

Teachers are not the enemy. It is you, your daughter and them against the problem, not you against them. Treat them like the professionals they are and you might get some valuable information that safeguards your daughter.

(BTW, your child truanting when sent back to class isnt a safeguarding issue... she was still on site, she made a conscious choice not to go where she was sent. Don't be that parent that cannot see your child's part in the problem....).

Teacher here...

If she said your DD has an unlocked account then there will be something behind this. No one has time to go looking for kids TikTok accounts for no reason at all.

So either your DD does have a second account you don't know about that is unlocked (lots of teenagers do and their parents follow their sensible account) or perhaps someone has impersonated her setting up an account and that account has been flagged to the school as having something inappropriate on it, hence thr warning to you.

I would email the head of year and ask for the link to the account you found as you'd like to verify if your daughter has a second account that you're not aware of.

You daughter has been there… 3 years. And the school has supposedly never been supportive and your daughter is unhappy and struggling…. Why have you not changed schools?

As an aside, I think you are seeing shadows where there are none if you think the head of year was trying to get one over on you

I would bet a lot that you are quite used to having “issues” with people @ThisNewCyanBiscuit ?

NC with at least one person by a chance?

She definitely has a 2nd account she doesn't want you to see loads of teen girls have nd/mh accounts where they record videos of teachers chasing them or police chasing them about its a thing. They lock themselves in the toilets while they record the teachers begging them to come out usually with a big grin on their face

OP, I think you are getting a hard time with this, especially regarding the HOY. None of us here can possibly know whether she meant to be smarmy or not. I’m very respectful of teachers in general - DM used to be a teacher and I have a couple of close friends who have been teachers for decades.

Most of my interactions with my DCs’ teachers have been very positive but not all. DC2 had a terrible HOY in Y8 - luckily she left. I recently told my close friend who works in the same school about some of the things this other teacher said (or did) and she was horrified. She said I should have complained.

If what im saying ends up being true you need to get on top of it because as soon as she leaves school and can no longer get this kind of attention from teachers she will try to get it from emergency services and do what the others do call an ambulance or police on themselves then set a camera up and post it

I think you have bigger things to worry about than HOY comment. I don’t think 15 year olds should be public posting on TikTok, if you are sure there is no concern, then great.

Spending that long between classes at age 15 is her responsibility. If she was having a “panic attack” or feeling anxious about returning to class she should have let someone know.

I can’t see why a child that age still on school grounds, but not in class is a safeguarding issue tbh. Especially if she was crying they might have just thought she needed some time to sort herself out before she went back to class.

I highly doubt what you are saying is true here. Nothing op has posted suggests this tall tale happened and im sure if anyone had to bang on doors begging the DD to come out while she recorded it the HoY would have said she saw the TikTok, no?

I can well believe it was said in a snide way.

I'd plaster on a serious concerned look and email HOY to say that you'd been reflecting on her comment about her safeguarding concern about your daughter's tiktok account. Ask HOY to point out the account and what their concerns are, because you take safeguarding concerns very seriously, as they know. Copy in the head and her class teacher. Not because you're calling HOY out and making them back up their comments, of course, but because everybody should have transparency when it comes to your daughter's safeguarding. And if HOY had seen something that was genuinely concerning they need to share it with you, her parent and the person who supervises her internet access.

As an aside, I wonder if the HOY will say that having the account is a safeguarding concern in general because people might message her on it. Be interesting to know if the school has a policy on children having social media accounts.

How would hoy possibly know she has tiktok if she isn't doing shit like this. Tiktok is the most toxic app to exist. Spend some time on nd/mh tiktok and you will see its so competitive whos the most unwell who gets the most attention. I bet 99% of these girls with these accounts the parents are oblivious

Guaranteed that there will be a long and chequered history of very poor behaviour from the OP’s daughter and her mother at the school.

Can those parents that are always complaining about schools locking bathrooms understand the issue now!?

If a school locks a bathroom during lesson time, they are a draconian, Victorian institution that doesn’t prioritise the health and wellbeing of students.

If a school leaves bathrooms unlocked and accessible during lesson time, then students like OP’s daughter can disappear into them, then bring her mum up to the school to accuse them of breaching the safeguarding policy.

Schools can’t win anymore. I despair as a teacher, I honestly do.

I thought similar in passing. I guess the safeguarding concern is that she could have left the school grounds and nobody noticed, (though how easy that is to do these days) but also, a child with MH struggles being upset locked in the loos without supervision could easily be self-harming.

Yes this is good advice.

The school is not responsible for the daughter's tik tok account. The parent is. The parent needs to parent. Why is your daughter so emotional? What steps are you taking to support her and her education? Do you ever leave her unsupervised for 30 mins? Is that a safeguarding concern?

But then, short of putting ankle monitors on students and tracking their heart rate on an app or something, how can schools possibly keep track of whether students are using the bathroom to self harm or simply go to the toilet!?

This is why schools lock bathrooms during lesson times, which is such an unpopular policy by the way. But when parents accuse the school of breaching safeguarding policy, what else do you propose? It spoils the reasonable use of the bathrooms for 95% of the student population.

I doubt very much the HOY has been scanning Tiktok for student accounts. More than likely is that another student has told a member of staff/HOY of the existence of your daughter's account or the HOY heard someone talking about it.

This isn't justification for that.

School staff are expected not to lose children. Teacher should have let HOY know they were sending a pupil, or asked them to come and collect. HOY should have either let teacher know to expect the child back, or walked her back themself. I would expect HOY and teacher to check in with one another during the break.

She is 15 years old and went to cry in the toilets on her way back to class. Do you really think that is a safeguarding issue? I would call that understandable bunking off in a safe place on the school premises. My son did that at a much younger age when he messed up a music exam. I felt sorry for him but realised he would have needed time by himself to calm down. I never thought to raise it with the school because they would have made a fuss and that would have stressed him out even more. If you are going to be pedantic about safeguarding then you can't really be upset when the school responds in kind.

I reckon another pupil has told a member of staff about your daughter’s TikTok. When I was support staff in a high school, pupils used to tell us all sorts of stuff about other pupils if they were worried about them. Take your daughter out of school. Let the school get on with teaching instead of all these meetings and complaints.