Teacher bullying and inappropriate behaviour

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Advice needed.

This is low level but I'll explain:

PE teacher female. Showing photos on her personal phone of her in dresses etc going out with friends, accepting followers on Instagram. I'm assuming as a teacher you shouldn't be letting children follow you on social media?

Screaming at children (that aren't athlete's) and making snide remarks about appearances and ability. It's done in a very mean girl way. It's hard as it's a lot of tone of voice and how she treats the able children different. The teacher is young and comments on the children's clothes, make up, nails and on the less able children's appearance in a negative way. Very passive aggressive.

It's difficult as when my child made a complaint the school got the teacher to apologise but nothing has changed.

I'd approach it from the safeguarding side. A teacher should never be showing a pupil anything on their personal phone.

Most secondary PE teachers I’ve encountered are awful to kids who aren’t sporty. Don’t know how they get away with it.

But yes the safeguarding issue is very important - she needs to be reminded that she doesn’t friend kids on SM 🙄.

It's not that low level really though - huge safeguarding fail to have your phone out in front of students let alone add on social media there should be an acceptable use of tech policy on your school website, throw that at them

All things you are mentioned are huge safeguarding issues and need to be reported to the Pastoral Director at your school, especially accepting children's requests on social media.
If the school don't take it seriously you can complain to Ofsted who will do a Safeguarding inspection.

The teacher should never show kids anything on her phone. Contact the DSL with all of this.

The teacher is young and comments on the children's clothes, make up, nails and on the less able children's appearance in a negative way-

How old are the children-what sort of things is she saying? There no make up or nail polish allowed in my DC’s school unless you’re in the sixth form. Are teachers allowed their phones out?

I would write down everything that is going on (in concise bullet points) and give it to the school-lots of that sounds very inappropriate.

I have said to my daughter to put everything on her notepad as it happens. They are 12/13. She only mentioned the phone and Instagram to me today and that really rang alarm bells so to speak.

The school has a horrendous Ofsted already to be honest

No you cant report to Ofsted
No they won't do a safeguarding inspection

If you report to Ofsted they will send you back to go through the schools complaints system

If they think it is a more serious safeguarding (potentially a qualifying complaint) they contact the LA who ask you to investigate and they then write to Ofsted with the outcome.

Very rarely they do investigate. This would not meet that threshold.

Ofsted have had enough of people contacting them. I am sure many driven by the inaccurate statements on Mumsnet!

https://educationinspection.blog.gov.uk/2023/08/30/more-parental-complaints-dont-mean-more-inspections/

This is from the NSPCC website, hit them hard from the safeguarding/grooming & social media angle. Send this link in a letter expressing your concerns regarding safeguarding failures and damage to children's mental health. Also, mention that the teacher's behaviour is a risk to the school's reputation. Schools usually hate any damage to their reputation and will be more inclined to protect that than their own pupils.

Also, copy in the governor's and state that you will complain to Ofsted if they don't train their staff on appropriate safeguarding behaviour.
https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/schools/e-safety-for-schools#article-top
Including social media in your staff behaviour Policy. Your behaviour policy for staff and volunteers should include clear statements that staff should:

• not engage or communicate with children or children’s families via personal or non-school-authorised accounts
• be aware of their digital footprint - the information about a person that exists on the internet as a result of their online activity
• only use authorised school accounts to send school communications
• use staff accounts for professional purposes only, including email, website and social media accounts
• take steps to avoid being found by children on social media, by selecting strict privacy settings, using a different display name and choosing an appropriate display picture
• not use social media in a way that would breach other school policies.

I'd be reporting to the headteacher and safeguarding.
I remember back in the 90's being tormented by a horrible female P.E teacher who would mock me for my unfashionable sports clothes (we didn't have a standard P E kit) and talk about seeing me outside of school and laugh with the popular girls about what I was wearing.
Disgusting.

If you read what I wrote, I said if it is not dealt with/taken seriously you can report to Ofsted. Parents should feel empowered to hold teachers and schools accountable, this is literally what Ofsted is for! I am a teacher and have previously been a DSL and all of these issues are seriously concerning safeguarding issues that warrant investigation.

OP indicates her child has complained already which would signify the school is aware and should be doing something about it. If they are not, you are totally within your rights to complain. If after you've gone through the complaints procedure you still aren't happy that they've dealt with it effectively, do complain to Ofsted!

Contacting children online on social media is a qualifying complaint.

Good luck and I hope the school deal with it swiftly for you.

Thank you for all the comments

I did read what you said. Ofsted do not investigate every possible qualifying complaint. They say 70 odd a year and some of those are certainly not immediate.

Ofsted would tell you to contact the school and they would eventually contact the LA. It may take them several weeks to contact the LA. The LA then might investigate themselves but tend to write to the school giving them the allegations and ask for a written response. The LA then write to Ofsted with their actions (if any) and their recommendation.

Sadly I am in a position where I have investigated many complaints over the past including some of the most high profile in the country. The threshold for any engagement by Ofsted is either political (incidents in the press and public outrage but below the level of their typical interest but a Minister gets involved) or very high

I'm going to think about how to manage this appropriately and appreciate all the advice. What I'm also concerned about is my daughter being targeted by the teacher after it's reported. The school is already in special measures and I had hoped to find an anonymous way to report. I don't fully trust them to keep information confidential. It's a difficult position to be in when you don't trust your child's school.

Not all schools even have a social media policy for their staff.
She may or may not be breaking their policy.
If she has apologised it means she was in error whether this was down to lack of training, sloppy policies, etc
What do you want the outcome to be and have you followed the complaints policy and then followed it up if there has been no improvement?

Female bullying always very hard to prove I’m afraid it’s subtle usually and often inferred by tone of voice and actions

@Snugglepuss27 you need to start your own thread you won't get answers on someone else's completely irrelevant thread.

Didn’t realise thought I had

Has she actually shown your child the social media because it may not be her personal page but for example a PE related page she runs. At a local school one teacher runs a page called the Travelling Geographer and he posts pictures from places he has been and comments on them. If she hasn't personally been shown, if as you say she isn't in the "in crowd" how does she know what was shown let alone you.

I am not saying this is the case but do take care to make sure any comments or complaints are valid ones rather than cloud actual issues with hearsay and supposition.

Hi
Sorry to hear about your experience.
Did you consider making a complaint to the Governor if not satisfied with the outcome?
Has the teacher done anything else inappropriate?

She most certainly should not.