Teacher pulled my daughter's hair, do I take it further?

[RingsLikeTinnitis]

So yesterday my daughter (14 year old. In year 10 at school) came home and told me the PE teacher pulled her hair. It was a supply teacher and is covering short term because the usual teacher has had surgery. Apparently she was "using my daughter as an example" of why they needed to put their hair up for PE. She had said something along the lines of "what happens if someone goes like this?" And then fully yanked my daughter's hair. It wasn't a gentle pull, it hurt her and she was quite upset about it.

Anyway I was picking her up early at 10 this morning for an appointment so I spoke to someone about it at the same time. The person I spoke to was the safeguarding lead and already knew about the incident because my daughter had reported it to another teacher and a few of the other students had also said something to other teachers too. She said that she will be having a strong word with this supply teacher and my daughter should come straight to her if she has any more concerns/problems with her. She's probably going to be teaching for the next couple of weeks.

Do you think you'd be happy with the schools response to this?

What’s your daughter’s record of behaviour otherwise like at school?

It’s fine

What further actions would you like to see?

What do you actually want or expect to happen?

The teacher was demonstrating why they need to put their hair up. It was a heavy handed demonstration by the sound of it and its probably best she doesn't do it again.

But beyond that? What do you want to happen?

Im not sure what else you expect the school to do. They are aware of what happened and are taking action.

Other than what? She has never been in any trouble at school, she doesn't get any behaviour points or detentions and has been on the rewards trip at the end of the year every single year so far.

Well the only other thing I guess they could do is send the supply teacher back to the agency and get another one, I wasn't sure if I would be wrong to try and push for that or whether to just leave it as is.

I would follow it up by asking what actually has been done about it.

It isn't fine to do it. It's is irrelevant what her behaviour is like

So, a teacher hurt your daughter during a physical demonstration about avoiding being hurt, when the teacher could have described the hair-pulling verbally, and you're being asked about your daughter's behaviour?
Nice victim blaming from @Atriangleabout .

I would withdraw your child from this teachers lessons until they are gone, if the school won't actively remove the teacher (which they won't, I'd bet my left nostril on that).

If an adult unexpectedly yanked the hair of any person on this thread, they would 100% feel shit and upset/hurt/angry about it. Why should a child, in a place where the emphasis should always be on safety and decent behaviour, be treated any differently?

We literally teach toddlers not to pull hair. We have an unspoken duty to not put our children in positions where they are unnecessarily upset. By a safeguarding trained adult, no less..wtf.

Imagine the message sent to the daughter upon ignoring it- that if someone hurts you, just suck it up. Imagine the message to this shitty teacher- hurt a kid and get away with it.

I would definitely make more noise about it. Especially as other kids have raised the issue too. It's a problem. Don't let anyone talk you out of your natural protective response.

Yes that's exactly it, I even said to my daughter why on earth didn't she just either make the action of someone pulling hair or pull her own hair or something.

@RingsLikeTinnitis kids exaggerate, it most likely didn’t hurt her head but her pride in front of her peers, so she’s turned it into something it isn’t would be my guess of the situation.

I didn’t expect anything less!

Tripplecooked that’s really not the point! Why does the teacher need to have hurt her for this to be a problem? No adult should be touching a child to demonstrate that.

Are you implying that I'm lying about it?

I think it was a bit stupid and unnecessary of the teacher but it was in context; it wasn't a random aggression. I don't think I would take it further.

Absolutely 100% not

I mean yes it is a possibility, however she did say it hurt and it jerked her head when she did it. The teacher I spoke to this morning didn't disbelieve her in how she described it.

That's absolutely not good enough from my pov. Teachers aren't allowed to hurt their students. I would be expecting the school to follow their safeguarding policy because a student has alleged a teacher has physically assaulted them, and other students have corroborated the account. I imagine their policy will involve a report to a LADO and an investigation, and that the teacher shouldn't be unsupervised with children until that is completed.

Sounds like a practical demonstration to me. She'll be a lot more pain if someone grabbed it while she's running past.

There was no reason for her to touch your daughter's hair at all, let alone tug it (and hard!)

If this happened with a supply admin at work i would insist they were sent back. At the minimum this would be a case for a formal written warning.

This person has demonstrated they aren't safe to be around kids. If they won't send them back, insist your daughter isn't taught by them again.

Pls asking what you want to happen.

i would want this bitch disciplined and made to apologise for being a vicious bully

How on earth is this relevant?

Scarily close to potentially victim blaming 😡