Does this message from a teacher sounds inappropriate?

[Zoe8998]

My daughter was in a prep school last year,
She was then 12 years old. Before her exam, I received a meesage from her tutor, his message is as follows:

"To my lovely xx (my daughter's name) . Pass on my best wishes to her and tell her to enjoy herself this week.

Best wishes,

Teacherxx"

I assume you're not male, Riders

No, but I said it to male pupils.

That's not really the point. A female secondary teacher can cluck over her pupils in a maternal fashion in a way that male teachers can't.

A male secondary teacher who calls female pupils 'my lovely x' is putting himself at risk of misinterpretation, unless, I expect, he is very camp with it.

There is a big difference between
'hello, my lovely'
and
'hello, my lovely Rachel'

The first is an expression, commonly used in a friendly, non-romantic way, and doesn't feel personal or creepy.

The second has overtones of possession. Appropriate for a close family member (because the child 'belongs' to the family) or a romantic partner, but not for a teacher.

What kind of trouble, OP?

Are you thinking that the trouble your DD is experiencing is caused by an inappoproate relationship with her teacher or are you looking for leverage with the school to shift the focus off DD's trouble?

Agree the message is kind of ill-advised, if only because the teacher is making himself vulnerable to accusations. I think the fact it was sent to you means it's probably quite innocently intended though.

And I agree with NobleGiraffe - it's fine to use it towards a whole class (eg 'Thank you to my lovely 2G for all their hard work'). And that's because the class do kind of 'belong' to the teacher - but in an appropriate way.

I just cannot for the life of me see, how a message routed through a parent can be inappropriately intimate. The very fact of sending it through the parent removes any intimacy or any notion of personal relationship.

This poor teacher

It's genuinely not anti-teacher paranoia, lougle.

I wouldn't send a text or IM to a colleague saying 'please give my lovely Jim my best wishes for his presentation today' even through another colleague. It would be unprofessional and inappropriate, even if we were friends.

If my manager (ie a relationship with a similar inbalance of power as a teacher-student one) sent a message like that through a proxy to me I'd be pretty WTF? Even if he meant it well. Similarly to the OP, I wouldn't quite feel able to complain about it - it's a bit nebulous - but I'd be pretty unhappy.

On the other hand, if a welsh colleague called me 'my lovely' I'd just think it was nice.

I think texts are by nature quite different from handwritten messages (for example in a card) and quite often rather too easily and too quickily sent without too much thought into the best wording. Could that be a possibility?

I need to retract my earlier comment as I thought they teacher had included kisses at the end of his message and I now see that is not the case!