To think there should be serious consequences for children who make false allergations against their teachers.

[ReallyTired]

Sometimes children make vindictive allegorations that are later proved to be false.

For example allegiations of sexual abuse where it is quite easy to prove it did not happen. It is done out of pure and utter spite, but the stress of being suspended while the allegorations are investiaged can make an innocent teacher suicidal.

I think that if a teacher is exhonerated of a such an allegoration that the child should be permamentally excluded. With teenage children I think there should be criminal charges if it can be proved beyond legal doult that they lied.

The sad thing is that with children making false allegorations out of spite is that reports of real abuse do not get listened to.

Prehaps there needs to be extensive CCTV cameras in schools to protect children from the possiblity of being abused or teachers having false allegiations made against them.

Well, I don't necessarily think they are evil...

Really, I do think some of it is stories running away with them. And they don't get the consequences. Teenagers not great at thinking through repercussions IME.

I don't think that they are necessarily evil per se either.

But kids are astonishingly good at stretching the truth to breaking point to make themselves look good.

and they can be crassly stupid about realising the significant consequences of their actions....in fact this is almost a defining characteristic of being a teenager.

adults sometimes lie

Kids sometimes lie

parents often refuse to accept the latter, to every one's disservice

It is dreadful when such things happen and the poor teachers life is shattered. And sadly in many cases they will find it hard to recover from it - professional and personally. It is awful.

Of course the child should be punished for it.

In secondary school TBH it should be a talking to from the police, with parents present too, and a permanent exclusion fom the school - it is not fair if a teacher has to return back to school with that child still present; why should they have to face the cause of their nightmare evry day, they are the victim after all.

If of an age where they are of criminal liablity ten the teacher should be free to press charges against them, with full support from the LEA. Even if it is just to prosecute them for perverting the course of justice by bring false accusations.

TBH I would like to see the police.courts used far more with regards to teachers being assaulted. Scools sra eso quick to cover it up and keep it hidden, teachers really are not supported if they want to press charges. This should not be the case - they should be helped and supported. An assault is an assualt regardless of where it takes place.

Primary school would be a bit harder to deal with - but still needs a serious sanction. I would still like to see a community policeman/woman come in to talk to the child and parents regarding the serious of the matter. As too exclusion - would depend on how serous the allegation was, etc. But not an impossible suggestion.

We need to protect victims of crime - even when the perputrator is a child.

It is. I remember watching a group of pupils just pile across a very busy road to catch a bus. When I suggested that perhaps looking first might be a plan, they said "they have to stop. If we get hit, we'll sue". I pointed out that they'd likely be doing so from beyond the grave (and would lose), but teenagers are too often immortal and utterly in the right. Which is one of the reasons why I rather like working with them, but is also the source of many, many problems.

What is unfair to a certain extent is that despite all the checks and prying into the background of any person so bold as to wish to work with the under 18s, the state's protection falls very firmly on the side of the teenagers, no matter what the circumstances or previous good character. It is all too easy for a child or young person to make a vicious allegation that wrecks a person's career. Sadly there are far more disturbed children out there than anyone working outside teaching would have any idea of. Teachers are in a very vulnerable position, particularly, as is all too often the case, they do not have the support of their management team. For the balance to be redressed, every allegation would have to be extremely carefully investigated before any sanctions are brought (including suspension of the teacher concerned, which although designed to remove the teacher from the situation, actually sets everyone's smoke and fire detectors off and by telling the world that the head does not trust them enough to keep them on site) and to my mind, the threat of a charge of wasting police time at very least should be held over any pupil over about 14 making a maliciously false allegation.

There is a difference between a young 5 year old who says something silly that gets out of hand and 15 year old teenager.

I think that some older children know 100% what they are doing. I can understand a story running away with a younger child, but there are a few children who quite diliberately set out to destroy a teacher.

Infact some children threaten to make false allegations if they don't get their way.

Mb, good point. yes youre right, in the context of school it probably is more common that way round. a sad indictment of our times i feel.

i agree with duchesse's last post.

and second kerrymums question too

Kerry- that's precisely it. If a child makes an allegation of a serious nature, it's the norm to shoot first (ie suspend) and ask questions later. Which leads to exactly your reaction among the pupils and parents, even if there is no basis for it.

agreed.

I once posted about a mate of mine who'd been attacked by a student and someone on MN posted and suggested that he might have sexually assaulted the teenager and that might be the reason for the attack.

no evidence to support that supposition at all. But that was her 'natural' line of thought

Blimey.

I teach in a school where there are a shocking number of allegations against staff. The children tend to get a short exclusion. I had it happen to me a year ago and it was very stressful.

I worry about this all the time as dh is a teacher and we are foster parents

It would be perfectly normal for him to be immediately suspended even if he wasn't in the school as that is proper procedure while it is being investigated

He had some girl shout loudly in a corridor he had hit her. The entire school was there (trying to run down the corridor away from the fire alarm - this girl was running towards the "excitement" - she ran into him). Luckily about 40 people saw her ran into him and fall on her arse

These things happen a lot

The number of staff suspended is very few. None for the last few years. We educate a lot of children who are mistreated at home and that is the root of the allegations.

Someone on Mn once posted that her headmaster saved her from falling down the stairs by grabbing her arm.

By the end of the day the rumours were rife that he had pushed her down the stairs. thankfully this was when we were growing up, and nothing came of it.

These things happen and in the current climate the 'no smoke without a fire' attitude is all too common. Much of this verges on the slanderous, to the great detriment to the professional reputations of the teachers and other staff involved.

A bit of good news. My friend's nightmare is over. It was so obviously bollox that he had molested the girl that the girl retracted her story.

Still he has had two days of hell and the girl has been punished by an internal exclusion.

so she gets to sit inside the school on her own.

That sends a really strong message to them all about how serious this sort of thing is doesn't it