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.

Really? They’re 10, soon to be in senior school and you don’t expect them to be able to follow instructions using a glue gun?

that mum is after money, that is all,
shameful compensation culture

I remember my brother setting fire to his hair leaning over a Bunsen burner. My parents just laughed and told him to be more careful.

I work in a field where I come into contact with parents and teachers. I'm constantly amazed at the terrible attitude from some parents who refuse to admit their child could ever do anything wrong. Even when presented with evidence that demonstrates otherwise. I'd never be a teacher.

do they still use bunsen burners in senior school?
i wonder how badly behaved they are in this lesson?

Read about this this morning. I'm wondering why her Union weren't involved? As a teacher I would have immediately contacted my union if something like this had happened. It's terrible.

Yay, another parent bashing / teacher moaning thread because we've not had one for at least a day 🙄.

Have you actually read the thread and the op?

Yes, I have and that is why I take issue with the thread title.

What issue do you have?

There's a subgroup of parents who seem to have an adversarial approach to teachers. I think they're often people who regress to acting like children around teachers, probably because most of their experience of school was as a child. It's a really weird dynamic.

If the parent is reading this: please know you’re a twat and no one supports you.

That parent needs to go and fuck themselves. What an unbelievably vindictive piece of shit they must be.

And I really hope they read that.

Because we live in a culture where the use of social media to spread rumour and gossip, to bully and whip up discord, shouting and stamping your feet for attention, creating noise and commotion over trivialities that impinge upon 'your rights' as you see them, wasting the time of bodies like the police on pathetic trivialities and reporting rubbish to the gutter press and whipping up local upset amongst thick idiots, is all acceptable behaviour and condoned by the 'gobs' in society.

The parents involved clearly falls into the group of people who behave this way- they are ALWAYS awful people. I deal with them regularly. They can not see beyond their own ignorant, tiny-minded, shit-stirring viewpoint.

In addition, teachers are continually under pressures like this. Any tiny thing can be whipped up into this kind of trouble and the teacher standards leave no room for de-escalation where applied by the kind of people who run academy trusts.

The teacher- who sounds amazing and who I would be happy to have teach any of my 3 primary school aged DCs- made some small errors of judgement , none of which, in this instance, amounted to anything at all. There are all kinds of factors that come into play here- dozens, many of which are not under her control. It was a very minor accident that led to a very minor injury. In most cases this would have gone nowhere near a disciplinary (and nor should it have) but it demonstrates where a teacher can end up when a) a parent is one of the worst type of parents, b) a teacher acts without using the protection of her union c) a Headteacher panics because the Press have hold of a story and the Academy Trust takes control.

The teacher got it wrong. Circumstance is everything. You can not apply rules as black and white in these situations- the nuances are vital.

What should have happened is :

1. Had this parent been a reasonable, decent, measured person, they would have telephoned the school and asked to speak to the Head, brought their concerns to his/her attention.
2. The Head should have informed the teacher there was a complaint/concern and told her to speak to her union rep and have that person present during a fact-finding meeting between her and the Head.
3. During that meeting the Head should have ascertained the facts and the union rep should have made clear the nuances and mitigating factors in brief.

It would very quickly have been resolved as 'requiring management support' ie a conversation about what should have happened, why it should have happened, why it didn't happen and what she would do should it ever happen again BUT ALSO what the school needs to do to resolve the issues that contributed to it happening.
The Head, the teacher and the parent should have met and discussed the outcome and the teacher, I am sure would have wanted to apologise to the parent and the child - and if they were decent people, the parent and child would have accepted the apology .

It is disgraceful that the teacher has been put through this. She sounds wonderful both as a teacher and in how she handled this.

It is the Headteacher and Academy Trusts fault that it reached this stage. It is the awful parent's fault that the teacher was subjected to social and gutter press scrutiny and that her child has missed the opportunity of being taught by this very rare creature- Ms Sarah Mead. I hope she comes to the North-East to my children's school and they have the benefit of her gifts and commitment.

No newspaper should be publishing stories like this one without first saying have you contacted the school and made a formal complaint under the complaints policy and if so what was the response. If they haven’t done the proper route then it shouldn’t be published.

I agree.

I wonder how the parent feels now?

I’m afraid you would not ‘have’ been a very good teacher had you taught your pupils that ‘would have’ is good English .

We're talking about the newspaper that blamed the Hillsborough victims for their own deaths.

Why are people surprised to see them print unethical garbage.

Yes, my DD who burnt her hand (see above comment) was extremely happy that she got to use one when she did her transition day at high school last month.

This.

I meant ‘would of’ in my previous post. Bloomin autocorrect, that will teach me to proofread!

I'm not remotely surprised. But I still think they shouldn't publish without the person having at least gone through the first stage of a complaints procedure.

Even the stories they publish about someone finding a spider in their butter, generally involve the customer having complained to the company already.

I looked into training as a teacher once I graduated and at the school I went to shadow a teacher for the day about three teachers said to me “don’t do it” because of things like this, and I’ve since met quite a few teachers though baby groups and they all say the same thing, I’m so glad I listened to them.