Headteacher criticised my daughter's water bottle

[Suchevilforebodings]

Slightly annoyed at my DD's headteacher. She is 8 and in Y3

I packed her bag yesterday morning and noticed as I filled up her water bottle that it was leaking from the lid. Grabbed another only to see it was split down the side. Annoying but one of those things.
When dropping her off at school, we popped into the local shop next door and grabbed her a large plastic bottle of water with a spout lid.

She came home from school yesterday and said that her headteacher, when visiting the classroom, had picked up her bottle from in front of her and told the whole class that this kind of bottle was "very bad" as it "ends up in the ocean and kills sea turtles" and a "proper" water bottle is much better to bring into school.

She's a very sensitive child was really quite upset and being told she's killing turtles, which she loves, and also at what she perceived as being "in trouble" as she loves school, is a good pupil, and hasn't ever been told off.

I get that the head isn't actually wrong, and I wouldn't normally buy bottled water but it was a "needs must" situation.

Was this an appropriate way to bring it up?

I got water bottle shamed at work 8 years ago and still feel embarrassed when I think about it and I’m nearly 40

Of course she personalised it. She picked up OP's daughter's bottle off OP's daughter's desk and criticised it. It must have been utterly obvious to everyone that she and her mother were being criticised. It's very unprofessional behaviour by a teacher, let alone a headteacher.

How on earth would he not know who the bottle belonged to? He picked it up from OP's daughter's table.

It's irrelevant whether he knew it was a one-off or not. Talk about killing turtles is way OTT given that there is every likelihood that OP intends to recycle the bottle, and if he wants to give out that sort of message it would be much more effective and appropriate to do it by way of a note on a school newsletter and/or an announcement in assemblies.

Headteachers are not generally delicate little flowers, and they get paid really quite well to take on the responsibilities of their jobs.

If headteachers can't work out for themselves that it is not appropriate to humiliate 8 year olds in public about things that aren't within their control anyway, then my heart is not going to bleed for them if that leads to them having to deal with a complaint about their crassness. Perhaps this one could usefully learn something from it.

A pp pointed out earlier that she a receptionist on just above minimum wage who has to treat everyone with kindness and respect and would get in trouble if she didn't or if she said the wrong thing.
If she has to take the consequences of saying the wrong thing, a headteacher on probably twice her wage certainly should.

I'm not going to complain. But I might think of a way to bring it up in a chatty way next time he's on gate duty.

Clumsy and inappropriate to single out a child like that.

Maybe point out that the fishing industry is single biggest contributor to ocean plastic pollution the next time fish fingers are on the school dinner menu.

Teachers often say things to the children that they want to say to the parents but don’t dare to! I’d be fuming OP and would complain. Who the fuck does he think he is?!

What a silly thing for him to say.

Aw, poor DD - I think that’s rubbish - I would have been so upset by that as a child - I was sensitive too, very shy and self conscious, this would have made me spiral. Thinking about it, if my new big boss said oh how bad it is you have a plastic water bottle in front of a meeting I’d still be mildly upset tbh. It is a clumsy criticism and it’s not something your DD could control.

Leaking microplastics aren't really a turtle conservation issue though
Not the case.
A recent study supported by ISARGO and the funded by the European Union discovered ingestion of plastics, by sea turtles, to be found in 95% of the dead turtles analysed.
Microplastics represented 74.42% of all ingested plastics.
This is largely because previous studies concentrated on meso, macro (obviously both important) and micro plastics but only down to 1mm. This study used sampling down to 0.2mm. Which showed up how wildly underestimated the issue of microplastics has been in the threat to marine ecosystems.
These creatures bellies are full of microplastics - so they stop eating. If anything they're more dangerous to marine life. You can see a plastic ring embedded around a seal's neck, and a plastic net caught in a turtles flippers. You can't see the digestive tract of a marine turtle until it's already dead.

If the HT is going to sanctimoniously bang on about killing turtles, he should 'educate himself'
(assuming he meant plastic reusable bottles, of course...)

I’d send a note to the head, explaining exactly why you’d sent your dd with a plastic bottle, and adding that your child was extremely upset by the personal example you made of her.

And I’d hope that the head would make a point of speaking to her with some sort of apology.

Mountains out of molehills.

Single use plastic is disgusting so the message is right but maybe not the delivery - but then you are relying on an ‘overly sensitive’ 8 year old to relay the story so I would let it go.

Ask to speak with him and ask what happened. See if his story matches. If it doesn’t say that’s not what I heard. Stay silent then. Let him circle until he either tells you what your child told you, or you need to confront him. Don’t ever say your child told you this version, only that someone did. Ask him if he agrees his behaviour might have been inappropriate. If he fails to offer to apologise to your child, ask what the escalation process is to the board. Your goal is simply to make him think twice before he pulls something like this again. Sadly some teachers are bullies; you must make it clear your judgement is not up for challenge via the proxy of your child.

See if his story matches

Don't most people have better things to do with their time?

He picked up the bottle and humiliated your child in front of the class. Whether or not that was his intention that’s what he did. He’s an adult, a teacher and in a leadership position, he should know better. I would be writing to him and alluding to these facts. Your child being sensitive isn’t the issue here, whilst the message he wanted to portray wasn’t incorrect he should have chosen his timing much better - like a class assembly and maybe a project around sea life instead of in a classroom and picking on one kid.

Good grief! That’s really unnecessary. If it helps my daughter doesn’t like her metal bottle so I ripped the label off a bottle of coop soda water and filled it with squash. Nothing said. She’s year 9, autistic, and very fussy about what she has

I would’ve found that mortifying as a child, it’s the fact that she was singled out and embarrassed. Surely that should’ve been obvious to him

No teacher, least of all a HT, should humiliate any child in front of others. This is totally indefensible. I’d be emailing her as soon as possible. A child might have a recycled bottle because the family can’t afford an expensive one.
Im surprised someone who has been on so many course and has so many qualifications could say something so crass.

Yanbu and he is a rubbish teacher and human being for humiliating someone like that

@LondonKara Can you please advise how to teach an 8 year old sensitive child the life skill of rolling with the punches? Would love to know how to achieve this.

How about something like....What a shame about your water bottle. Let's watch a film and have an icecream.

This is super helpful. I can see you have lots of experience with sensitive kids.

I’d be tempted to contact her and take a similar tone and request the installation of a water fountain instead of all those bottles that crack and leak ending up in landfill. Some of those bottles are less sturdy that the disposable type.

Our headmistress is a disaster too. The profession attracts wankers sadly

I have and I was one. I just don't think fanning the flames is a good idea right now. It's hot, it's the end of term, it was a clumsy comment.