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.

It's utterly ridiculous. This parent sounds like a nightmare. She's doing her son no favours.

It's also clear that many children are not allowed to use potentially unsafe equipment at home, hence they are over excited when using it at school. This children was probably exploring using the glue gun, telling their friends how it 'doesn't hurt' until they realised it did!

I wouldn't be up in arms beause a 10 year old burnt theselves with a glue gun and got a blister. I'm sure next time he burns himself he'll know to put water on it. But then I believe in learning through experience, within certain limits.

If we can't use any equipment in case a child is injured then we literally can't do anything.

This is the very reason that woodwork/metalwork was scrapped from the curriculum at my DC school which is such a shame as it's a skill that is now being lost to many.

Absolutely agree

I'm disgusted having read the report,,,im a teacher and think how she was treated by her school and trust was appalling!

I don't agree that she "failed to safeguard" pupils and it should never have made it this far!

Absolutely appalling!!

Yes, and that is why teachers should not leave students with pins, scissors, knives hot glue guns, steplers, axes, hammers, sawa etc without other adults.
And yes, kids brains are not grown enough at the age of 10-11. Anything may happen.

Children can't be left with scissors? I teach my 5 year olds how to use, carry and store scissors safely.

You are “that” parent…

My god, who didn't get burnt by the glue gun at some point at school. 🙄. And then get some on your fingers and make it stretch out like a spiders web! What is wrong with people 🤦🏻‍♀️

And people wonder why there's a shortage of teachers.

I really think parents should be allowed to choose. If your child can't follow instructions or take risks then you can opt for them to follow the risk free curriculum (lots of eco-friendly glitter and cotton wool, closely supervised) and the rest of us can opt for our children to have access to scissors, and glue guns and saws and hammers and sewing machines and knives and learn food tech and woodwork and metalwork and textiles

I wonder how many parents would really choose option one, even at age 10?

Burn myself constantly with glue guns.

What bollocks - how precious!

A friend of DS at Primary fell over and face planted the trim trail. Should the trim trail be removed as could be dangerous, mind the trim trail broke her fall otherwise she would have hit the playground

But better than removing the right to learn from all children- which is what is happening now.

Did you read all of that post, or just the first part?

So many kids get mollycoddled these days.

Absolutely everything is too dangerous, too risky, unsafe...

Basic skills such has how to use equipment safely should be taught in school.

I met a parent through the school run years ago, she seemed nice enough but a bit of a fuss pot.

We had a period of very bad weather, rain, gale force winds, typical British autumn/winter dangerous weather where you see lots of trees fallen in the road and umbrellas going inside out.

This parent refused to bring the children school as "there was no way she was risking their lives".

She also kicks off over every little injury, bumps accident that happens in school and wants to speak to the person who dealt with it for the full details. Literally things like,'child was playing and tripped over their own feet'. The end.

OH bribed DD with money to STOP bringing medical slips home/going to the office for every little thing.

Every post - this woman is a nonsense - is it any wonder why teachers leave!

I definitely don't tell parents if children have cut themselves with scissors or squashed their toe with a chair leg.

Under reacted if anything. Cold water but that was it. No dressing or first aid of any kind. I remember showing it to the teacher in the next class because I had to explain why I couldn't wear part of my uniform. She wasn't fussed either. Thankfully it was then the end of the day and my mum picked me up.

This incident happened after year 6 SATS. 3 months after this, he will be at secondary where he's expected to learn how to use a Bunsen burner, cook on a hob or handle chemicals for experiments. The child messed up by not listening and hopefully paid more attention at secondary where the potential for getting hurt is even higher.

Ours go straight in the bin. If they have had a head injury serious enough to warrant medical attention or round the clock care you'd be phoned to collect early.
I found 6 screwed up in the bottom of one of my kids bags last term

The only one I've ever kept was to inform me my son had slipped on a banana skin in the playground and grazed his knee. It had a print out of a picture stapled to the accident note - they'd taken a photo of him doing a daily Mail sad face pointing at the banana skin

I’ve had lots of incidents where I’ve not immediately been informed or my child not treated. One where I only knew something had happen after I saw my DDs ear bruised after she got in the car, I got her version which was someone knocked her to the floor. The teacher had left school already so I spoke to the head, said it’s not acceptable I wasn’t informed and I wanted the teachers side the next day, which I got. I wasn’t happy with the outcome so I followed up with an email stating my position on their lack of care and not informing me what happened.

Another incident when my child in reception told me a child grabbed her by the throat, she showed me with her hands what happened. We were home by this stage so I called the school, the HT answered, I told her what my dd said, I totally got the child who did this had behaviour issues but I wasn’t happy this wasn’t the first incident and I wasnt told. Five min later I got a call from the teacher who was driving home, apologising, she’d been distracted with the child who had attacked my DD ( I did see her talking to his parents, she had her back to me) again apologised and put measures in place, which they were already working on with the violent child.

I’ve also had incidents with my yr6 dd and bullies.

In every case with my 3 children I don’t kick off I discuss incidents with the school and give them opportunities to manage situations, if they don’t manage them, then I escalate. I certainly would go running to the media social or otherwise. As for the glue gun, my dd was 100% to blame, she told me herself she wasn’t paying attention.