Escalating safeguarding concern…and unsure

[Goldfish0]

Hello…new here
several days ago my DS (10) reported to me that his teacher slapped and pushed his hand, for a trivial reason. No lasting mark on hand. I phoned school and relayed all and the DSL began investigating. No suspension, no identifying potential witnesses. He spoke to DS (with leading questions), teacher and then brought the 3 of them together for a ‘restorative conversation’, without my knowledge. DS is very specific and consistent about describing the physical contact. Teacher admits warning him about the ‘crime’ for which he received the slap&push down of hand. Teacher also admits she is ‘handsy’ and might have accidentally touched him when flailing her hands around (unlikely? when she is quite tall and he is a very small 10yo sitting down). School have shut the case saying no intent to harm etc. Twisting his words about his response to being asked ‘could it have been accidental’. they refused to report to LADO so I have done today but Head has convinced LADO that there’s no issue. Meeting with Head today - very combative and refused to consider my logical arguments why DS account is reasonable. Have said that he refuses to go into school and calls her a liar.
I will write a complaint to Governors but not hopeful for that. Also not sure if I need to write chapter and verse there?
what can I do other than go to Police?

thanks for reading if you got this far

What do you want to achieve?

If you aren't happy you can go through the school complaints procedure etc.
Though the likely outcome is one less teacher in the system and supply to replace them for the year.

What corroboration do you have?

If I genuinely believed that a teacher had slapped my child and the school were covering for it my priority would be finding my child a different school to attend.

Very little but that’s to be expected - no CCTV, no TA in class, not a hard enough slap to mark. No known witnesses (certainly no safe witnesses after a week of her still teaching class)
she does admit to warning him twice about the thing he was doing and admits she might have hit him by accident without realising.
school have simply believed her (of course she would say something like that)

So I'm guessing you're unlikely to get far with the police and governors then. You can still make the complaints and they will be investigated but as I said before if you genuinely believed a teacher slapped your child on purpose I'd be finding another school and that would be my priority.

I find it hard to believe a teacher would actually "slap" a child. Are you sure you're DS isn't exaggerating the situation? Either unintentionally or intentionally?

Children lie. Adults also lie.
One of them is wrong about what happened.

You need to decide on the balance of probability if the teacher meant to harm your child. Accidents do happen where physical contact is made. That's not the risk. The risk is if it were malicious.

If you believe it was malicious then yes, escalate away but the school have given you their position. If you're unhappy then move him. You can't make the story true just by complaining.

I also find this highly unlikely. And what harm has your son come to exactly? Mountain. molehill.

Like Hercisback I want to know what you want the outcome to be

Yes minimise the victim. I know one person who was thrown off her PGCE for slapping a child (this decade), and when I was at school my reception teacher used to give us Chinese burns when we did anything she didn't like.
That was after corporal was outlawed to protect children from teachers.

But no, teachers never harm children and they always speak the truth.

OP you're probably not going to get anywhere with it, but I hope you keep shining light on this abysmal treatment and it's great that your child has a parent who believes him. Can you move him to a different school?

I'm a teacher OP, I once smacked a child really hard in the face completely by accident. They had walked up behind me without me realising whilst I was gesturing to another child about how large something was. I felt absolutely awful, it was a really hard smack. Just to give an example of where something of this nature could happen completely by accident. Thankfully I had a TA in the room with me who was able to witness what had happened and how it wasn't intentional at all.

Btw I'm not saying it was definitely an accident OP, just giving an example of how it can be.

What was he doing?

It comes down to the fact that the teacher has acknowledged that she might have touched his hand. Your son says she slapped him.
There is no mark and no witness.

Why would the teacher hit him?
Possible reasons
Cannot control her temper
is abusive
Has no boundaries

Why would she not?
She will have had many occasions of children misbehaving and this is unlikely to trigger an assault
She has a job where any physical violence would end her career
She has detailed knowledge of safeguarding

Why would your son lie?
He has been told off and is annoyed
He dislikes the teacher
He knows that this deflects attention from what he has done
He knows you will go to bat for him and be furious

Why wouldn't he lie?
He likes the teacher
He never lies or does anything wrong
He knows you will be sceptical and ask questions

You can of course report it to everybody. However, there is no evidence and seemingly no motive for the teacher. There is however plenty of reasons for your son to either lie or exaggerate. Teachers are subject to many false allegations every year.