Search of 7 year old in the classroom

[user1497559689]

So today I go to pick you children up from school I picked the girls up first then went over to my sons class and waited for him to come out. When he came out he was with the teacher and stayed by her side so I went over and she said she needed to speak to me. She then proceeded to tell me that some of the other children in the class had told her that DS had a rubber in his pocket , when she asked DS she said he got quite upset but she could see the outline of the rubber in his pocket and then she said "so I told him to take his trousers off and give them to me and I removed the rubber from his pocket" they were her exact words). I stood there not quite believing what I'd heard so stopped her at that point and said " rewind back to what you have just said , did you ask him to take his trousers off in the classroom" she replied with "yes I did" at that point I will say I was not very calm n told her to never again tell my child to remove his clothes and she has no right to ask him to remove them , she stumbled a little at that point and said "well we was shortly going to go get ready for pe".
I went straight to the office but no one was available to see at that point so I have an appointment to see headteacher in morning.
Am I right to be furious or am I over reacting? And yes he has been told off for having the rubber and not handing it over x

L.l

It would never even occur to me to ask the child to take their trousers off! I would do as a pp said and say I hope it appears on my desk by the end of the day (then speak to you if it didnt) or be direct and say I can see it in your pocket.

The teacher clearly didn't think it was at all unreasonable though, theu clearly weren't embarrassed to tell you what they did and weren't eveocting yoir reaction. Out of curiosity, roughly how old is the teacher?

Also interested in how old the teacher is and how long they've been teaching!
I'm so shocked by this honestly
Report to the council and the governors as well as the headteacher.

RosePrincess87 I totally agree with you. She shouldn't be teaching children IMO.

Wow, this is shocking on so many levels! I teach secondary, but I believe primary safeguarding involves teaching kids not to do anything that makes them feel uncomfortable. Shocking to think that she might be the one delivering those lessons Would definitely be speaking to the head!

Alwaysrushingaround what does L.I mean?

Op, that is appalling definitely take him to the head tomorrow. He must have felt so humiliated

I'd go straight to the Head. I can't even begin to understand what was going through this teacher's head. It's just bizarre. She obviously didn't see it as a problem as she openly discussed it with you.

I'd love to see the heads face when you tell her.

That teacher is going to be in deep shit and quite rightly so!

Umm, I am not 100 % sure.So he was asked to hand over the rubber but didn't. Rubber was not his, that means it belong to other child or the class. That's stealing.
If teacher was sure he was stealing, and he denied to hand it over, what else can/should teacher do? Just let him off the hook?
If he is 7, he must have been aware that if he handed over the rubber, he didn't need to take off his trousers, or get humiliated in front of the class.
(I am a bit scared that I get flamed for saying this.)

Oh, come off it, irvine, are you seriously saying that a competent teacher couldn't have found any other way of dealing with this? It would be a simple matter of telling him that he would be in detention/miss playtime or whatever till he handed it over.

Certainly not handled well.

She asked him if he had stolen the rubber and he denied it. She should have waited for you to arrive and and take it from him.

The stealing and denying would also worry me, tbh.

Well, no that wasn't the right response from the teacher.

What I don't understand is, if DS was able to point blank refuse to put his hand in his pocket and give up the rubber, presumably after being asked multiple times and coming under some pressure, why did he then agree to take his trousers off?

I'm still not condoning her actions, but are you sure there isn't more to this that meant the teacher was at the end of her tether with him OP? He hasn't had PE kit all week so what has he been doing during PE? The teacher sounds like she's on the edge and taken it out on DS. Are you 100% sure he is not more disruptive than you realise? I would go into the meeting with the HT calmly and find out some facts. The teacher will get into trouble, that's a given. But if your DS is contributing to a stressful classroom atmosphere you also need to know.

Sorry but to the above comment, that's ridiculous
If the teacher is at the end of her tether then she needs to speak to her line manager instead of carrying on teaching a class of small children and humiliating them when she can't cope
Indeed, if he is contributing to a stressful environment the parent needs to know, but that is the teachers job to let her know in way of a phone call / a word at pick up time - not the other way around!

Ceto, to me, teacher asking to take trousers off is less worrying than him not admitting stealing. He takes off his trousers all the time for PE, in front of teacher and other children I assume. Also he had a choice of handing over and not taking off his trousers.
I do agree, teacher hasn't handled situation well, but all these responses just concentrating on teacher's action and dismissing child's action made me a bit uncomfortable.

Rules for searching pupils are usually closely defined and this is a total breach of all normal policy, and so informing the senior management is important.

There are a million and 1 ways to deal with a child who's nicked a rubber and many ways to sanction if that's the policy.

Removing your clothes in public is not one of them and is barbaric.

However take feel breaths before the meeting.

Make clear points about why your upset and ask them how they are going to deal with it. Your anger will become the focus if you let it take over.

Child was stealing - important not to lose sight of.

Teacher handled it wrongly - but agree with irvine on this one. I believe the teacher should be made aware not to do it again but I think she was naive rather than dodgy.

Not having his PE kit in school is totally irrelevant and a red herring - if they have PE, it should be in school as PE is the same as any other school lesson.

teacher asking to take trousers off is less worrying than him not admitting stealing

That is a bizarre way of thinking. You'd be happy to teach a child to take off clothing whenever/wherever an adult told them to?

OP I hope your son is ok this morning and that you get this resolved.

Thanks for replays guys il address a few of your questions, he is in big trouble with me for doing what he did that has not gone unaddressed because of what happened, he has lost his privileges at home and the first thing he will be doing this morning is apologising before we discuss anything else and I will also stand by whatever punishment the school decides to give him for his actions.

If he is being disruptive in class and not behaving and the teacher was at the end of her tether I would have greatly appreciated being informed of this way before it got to that point think school has a right to inform me of any issue that may be concerning them which they have never done, so if there has been an issue I don't understand why I have not been told x
He hasn't had his or kit as it went missing off his peg and I have yet to replace it as this will be the 3rd one this year I will have bought cos it keeps going missing along with two coats I've had to replace x

bloody, why is it bizarre?
I think if it was my ds, he would choose to hand over the thing, rather than choose to deny it but agree to take his trouser off in front of the class.
And I am not teaching my ds to take off clothing whenever/wherever an adult told them to.

I'm going in with a cool head this morning I did abit of research last night ready for this morning, and it appears that any child searched must be done with the same sex teacher with another witness present and must be done with a teacher who is authorised by the head teacher only outerwear can be removed and no clothing that covers under wear can be removed only police can do this.

I'm not and won't dismiss his stealing of the rubber, as that behaviour I will not condone or tolerate x

That is shocking behaviour by the teacher. I hope you get some answers this morning.

She's wrong on so many levels

Humiliation? Getting him to take his trousers off in front if the class, and her?!

Abuse of power? Telling a child to do something because she's more 'powerful' than him ..... not good life skills ... also teaching the kids watching inappropriate ways to get their desired response ... she should have sent him to the head or deputy ffs to escalate his stealingbif a rubber - make sure the head doesn't deflect away from the incident by the way using this rubber stealing - that was simple to solve - her behaviour was totally incredibly wrong!

Also teaching kids that if an adult tells you take clothes off it's ok ..... nope it's not ffs - there are weirdos out there kids need to learn to say no to things like taking clothes e.g. In sexual abuse situations .....

She was totally and utterly out of order

But he said "no" to handing rubber over to her, so why he couldn't say "no" to taking his trousers off?

Well he may not have said 'no', but didn't comply with her request.