The saddest thing is that l’m not surprised to hear how badly this poor teacher has been treated.

[HedgesNotFences]

The teacher taught a Yr 6 boy how to use a glue gun. He didn’t follow the instructions and gave himself 2 “tiny” blisters from a glue gun burn.
The teacher was unable to tell the parent straight after school as she had to deal with a serious safeguarding issue.
The Yr6 parent took to social media then the newspapers. She then went to A&E (for 2 “tiny” blisters - recorded as such by A&E). She then went to the police. She then went to the Health and Safety executive. Then she contacted the school.
In the week after the incident she was outside the school gates setting up a petition to get the teacher sacked (the teacher had already been asked to resign by then and had left her position).
The teacher had to face a government tribunal where it was found she brought the profession into disrepute and wasn’t safe (because she didn’t have a TA to constantly watch over every single Yr6 who was using a glue gun).
Because of the shortage of teachers and the fact that she was actually pretty good, the tribe kindly allowed her to continue being a teacher. Though God knows why she would want to.

The parent gets to remain anonymous.

I hope the teacher has been supported through her ordeal - her mental health must have suffered terribly.

I consider a teaching career often, I’ve worked in special needs schools for years and loved the work I did. But then I read batshit stories of how teachers are treated and I remember how awful some of the parents are and I realise when I return to the workforce teaching will not be on my list of jobs to retrain as for a reason. There’s a reason a lot of good people won’t go into the profession and why a lot have left (thankfully teaching still does have some wonderful people dealing with the BS and carrying on). It’s such a shame as it ruins it for the many!

The parent and child are named and photographed in The Sun in the original story, so it's a waste of time for the TRA report to elaborately remove names and put [REDACTED] in every other sentence.

That’s hardly a scratch 🙄 who’d want to be a teacher?

FFS- the health and safety executive. The police. The hospital. Online witch hunt to get the teacher sacked.What a waste of people’s time.

And this ladies and gents is why teaching has become such an unattractive job. They have to deal with fuck wit parents like this.

Doesn’t the parent realise that if people didn’t go into teaching or just left the profession, home schooling would become the norm like in the pandemic? I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a massive shorthand of teachers in the next ten years.

Anyone else agree that this parent would be the first to complain if she had to home school her son because teachers didn’t want to do the job anymore?

I bet she’s the type that was all over social media during covid slagging off the teachers because her precious son couldn’t go to school.

Sad face mum probably believed going to the Sun would give her loads of cash for the story and then compensation.

@Hayliebells yep. I remember teaching at a school where the headteacher asked the member of staff to apologise to the parent who head butted her, to make the child involved feel better ( that her mother wasn't at fault.) I've never got over that.

My ds came home from school with a small burn on his knuckle from a chemistry lesson. I think he had got some instructions wrong during an experiment.
I asked ds if it had been written in a accident book and he didn’t think so. I told him to ask the teacher to enter it in the accident book.
Then we all got on with our lives.

Thanks Mumsnet for removing my comment that was clearly a sarcastic response to this one 🙄

Luxwana your post says so much about you and Mumsnet deleting my response shows itself for the classist site that it is yet again.

All this palaver over a glue gun! I’ve often wondered at the chaos that would ensue if British kids experienced what I did at my Nigerian secondary school - cutting grass with a cutlass. We called those tools cutlasses but they look more like what would be known in the U.K. as a machete. Anyway, it was a bladed instrument and grass cutting was usually a punishment, so students attending were probably not in the best of moods.

It never occurred to me that any of us could harm another or ourselves with the cutlass and there were never any incidents of harm in the almost six years I was there. It just reinforces my belief that, special needs aside, children act up or down according to what is considered acceptable in their environment.

British children are quite infantilised, and not just compared to children in other countries, but compared to British children in the past.

Probably because the parent is an arsehole.

I don’t think the mother was unreasonable to be annoyed she hadn’t been told about the burn. Normal procedure hadn’t been followed. However, she sounds utterly unhinged to have gone after this poor teacher in the way she has with police, HSE etc referrals. Children have to learn to deal with some risk especially by the time they reach upper primary. Lots of nurseries actually seem better at facilitating that than primary schools- possibly because of the lower ratio. If you can teach 3 year olds not to go near a fire or use a saw in forest school, 10 year olds should be trusted not to dick around with a glue gun.

I've read the full report. The sympathy of the panel for the teacher was very evident, but clearly they had to go through the motions, and stick to the letter of the regulations.

Including the quotes from the head, a colleague and her new employer, which were absolutely glowing, is something they didn't have to do (at least not in as much detail). I imagine that though they knew she'd made a mistake, they really didn't want to have to do this. They posted with real understanding about her postion as SLT and safeguarding lead and also having to teach, leading to a clash of interests and lack of time at the end of the school day.

That's the most generous and sympathetic report I've seen from a panel who needed to carry out the job they had to do, and did it properly.

I'm amazed that the teacher has stayed in the profession. That says a lot about her.

Exactly the same as a Cub Scout. Annual thing on nearest meet to pancake Tuesday.

We were instructed to bring in, or perhaps provided with - memory fades - small tin cans like baked beans come in and and inch or two candle. Alkela brought in a large jug of pancake mix.

Candles lit and placed under the cans which got hot. Pancake mix fried, pancakes eaten. Most of us singed our fingers and nobody thought twice.

So within the next ten years, the non-procedure following child of the non-process following mum who gave him the vanishingly rare name will be heading for the world of work.
I hope he appreciates his mothers outstanding efforts to make him memorable and get him noticed.

Trying to find something in the Sun article to report to IPSO for inaccuracy: www.thesun.co.uk/news/18592571/furious-mum-school-son-burn-glue-gun/amp/

If anyone sees anything post here/pm me and I'll report- I have experience dealing with IPSO and The Sun (make me feel better)

And of course the Sun bothered to get the other side of the story? No. Publish the result of the tribunal? Doubt it.

It's appalling and could have happened to any teacher. I feel so sorry for her and feel like she should have been more supported by her school and whoever the subsequent bodies were that allowed it to go as far as tribunal.

The child refused to comply with instructions, so in order to manage the situation, she showed him the correct way to use the equipment (rather than the alternative - wrestle it out of his hands?)

He refused medical treatment.

Yes, she should have phoned home and logged the injury. That I believe is the part she held her hands up to. But as DSL, when you have a safeguarding issue to deal with, EVERYTHING else goes out of your mind.

My DS has SEN and was for a while in a PRU where one of the highlights that he still talks about was the DCs making boats out of balsa and using a glue gun.
I am now even more grateful to the lovely class teacher and TAs who made that possible and filled in all the risk assessments, no doubt running to pages for each of the 8 in the class.

I've come across this thread and read the report and the sun article (thanks for the links).

As a parent of a 9 year old just want to send my thanks to all teachers to the universe.

Not all parents are neurotic and I had many a scrape at school (incident with a Bunsen burner, ethanol in the air and burner and no safety goggles = loss of eyelashes and brows and some hair).

“BlessYourBlackCottonSocksOnTheRider · Today 16:00
Wow! My DC primary class was taken to a private school for the day as pay of their charity to the serfs. She used a soldering iron and got burnt. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a soldering iron burn but they’re painful. The teacher told her to deal with it in the next session. That teacher ignored her. She didn’t get any first aid. No one from the school told us and I didn’t know till she told me that night as she was going to bed. It was very sore and has scared.

I wish I’d sued now!”

And this is why so many teachers are leaving the state sector to go to the private sector. Because in the private sector it is more of a club for teachers looking out for each other. Difficult parents and difficult kids are asked to leave. As opposed to the state sector, where it is a witch-hunt of paperwork against teachers.

If you complained, that means no more days out for other state school kids. Thought about that one?!

The private school was only negligent if your daughter was too young to do this type of activity and if they failed to explain properly how do to it. If she was of a certain age, it was explained, she consented to do it, it was merely an accident.
Most of our state school teachers are constantly saying kids do not have enough practical skills these days - kids need to learn to cook etc, cut etc under parental supervision. We taught our kids to paint etc as well, sand, use saws - at home. The school classes are too big. Same goes with school trips. The kids need to listen and follow instructions. I always made sure mine also had phone numbers, addresses etc, knew what to do in an emergency, if they got lost etc. And accidents still happen.

Chemistry and chemicals can be extremely dangerous and kids need to learn about this in a practical way, at home and at school.

This thread isn't an accurate report of what the issues actually are - nor what the teacher herself admitted to be true.

She's not in trouble because a child had an accident with a glue gun.

As per her own admission, she's in trouble because she allowed children to use a glue gun without proper supervision and without doing a risk assessment. She didn't ensure that the child received medical attention for a burn.

Scoff all you like, the CHILD sustained a burn on his hand. Without being properly checked, burns can get infected and become very nasty. Luckily it was a small area but a child still sustained a burn from using equipment at school - while not properly supervised. Additionally, the teacher basically shrugged when the child didn't go and get the injury treated. Children don't get to decide that they're not going to the medical room if they're injured.

Anyway, continuing with the reasons why the teacher was disciplined....

The teacher was on gate duty which is why she didn't tell the parent that her child had burned their hand - and that it hadn't been treated or checked. Nor did she fill in an injury slip - which is part of the mandatory risk management process in every school I've ever known. The accident book was not filled in either. The injury was not recorded anywhere - even after she had dealt with the "safeguarding issue" - which seems to have been the fact that some vulnerable children weren't collected from school.

The teacher admitted all of the above.

Lots of us think that teachers have a tough job. And they do. But they also have a duty to follow proper risk protocols. A child was hurt while in her care, and she's admitted failing to have the proper safeguards in place. She also admitted that she didn't inform anyone of the injury, nor log it in the accident book/fill in an accident slip.

At what point do we say - aaah, don't worry about it, you were busy. That injury probably wasn't a big deal. That's not the teacher's decision to make. The child had a burn on their hand and that needed to be properly recorded.

What if the child had fallen and banged his head, but seemed OK? But then later ended up unconscious with serious injuries? What if the child had fallen and seemed to be OK but had actually broken a bone (which is what happened to my DS - fractured elbow and no one noticed)? What if the teacher was too busy to log those injuries - would that be OK too? It's the principle of the matter and her failure to do what she was supposed to.

At what point do we say that it doesn't matter that the teacher a) failed to follow agreed safety protocols for using certain equipment b) failed to inform the parent of an injury that occurred and c) failed to record the injury anywhere? Do we just let teachers decide when they're going to tell parents and when they're too busy to follow the proper procedures?

It's perfectly possible for lots of things to be true simultaneously. The parent sounds like an arse, and it sounds like a huge overreaction to a single incident. However, the teacher also failed to follow basic safeguarding protocols and disciplinary action was warranted. The extent of the injury is somewhat irrelevant - an injury did occur, and there are processes in place for very good reasons which the teacher failed to follow. Which she admitted.

The teacher wasn't disciplined because a child hurt their hand using a glue gun. The teacher got in trouble because she failed to follow the risk and safety protocols in place. Very big difference. And unfortunately, that's on her.

I horrifically burned myself with a glue gun in Y7 and still have the visible scars. At no point did I or my parents think to blame the teacher because it was my inattention (think putting it down, forgetting it was there then sitting on it on bare skin). The parent is a drama queen. Poor teacher. Are accidents not allowed to happen these days or do we have to strip the risk out of everything just in case an accident happens and a parent reacts like this? I didn't go to A&E although on reflection a skin graft would have made it look so much better in the long term. 2 small blisters? Ridiculous.

Parents and their precious diddums. Why not have a chat with the teacher first?

The parent sounds a nighmare, but such parents exist and you generally know who they are in your school.

They're almost always the ones who only interact with the school when they have a petty complaint, such as this, they are usually the one who 'know m'rights' but don't consider they have any responsibilities. They will take little/no interest in their child's education, missing the annual parent/teacher meetings. I had one I'd never seen until the February of Year 11 when I was told 'he needs a Grade C, what are you going to do about it?'. I introduced myself with 'I haven't had the pleasure of meeing you before'.