Teacher insulted pupil, apologised in front of class

[TheUnwillingNarcheska]

I want to start this by saying that I have never come across this before so I am not sure what to do.

Ds1 is in year 8 and his new form teacher was emphasising schools rules at start of term. I haven't met this teacher, Ds says older than the last one which would put her above 30, and I do not believe she is an NQT.

Talking of hair colour, she said "no blue, no purple, no red and no ginger. Why anyone would want to be ginger is beyond me." Looks round at pupils and realises that they have a natural ginger haired girl in the class. Teacher blushes and back-pedals by saying "oh but your hair is beautiful X"

Ds is very mature for his age and was angry because as pupils if you comment on the physical appearance of another pupil then you are punished. Discipline in this school is very strict.

Is this something I should report or not? If the ginger haired girl hadn't been in class then that comment would have been left to stand. Maybe she wouldn't have back-pedalled at all. I don't know.

Would you leave it or report it and if so to them or HOY.

I would leave it. It's an awful thing to say, but I would still leave it.

Tell your DS to challenge it in class if it happens again.

Teacher ballsed up, realised, tried to make up for it. Hopefully they'll have learned not to do it again. Report if it becomes a habit.

Thank you both. I was hoping it just a balls up and not a sign of something more sinister. Will make a note, move on and hope it is a one off.

It was the indignation of Ds that a teacher did something a pupil would get a lunchtime detention for

I would let ds know that I did not approve of their comment, but that as teachers are human too, it is entirely possible for them to make a mistake and say something they don't mean. Ask him to let you know if anything else concerns him about the teacher and that you will be keeping an eye on the situation together.

I wonder if she meant bright died orange hair rather than natural ginger/auburn.

Sounds to me as though she meant natural auburn is lovely but dyed ginger is not.

I think it was referral to dyed hair, not natural hair. I would be very surprised if she made continual referrals to hair colour and no doubt other teachers will pick up on brightly dyed hair of which bright reds and oranges are pretty popular at the moment. I would take "ginger" to mean orange. I hope the apology was accepted and the class can move on.

This sounds like an instance of this awful and quite frankly weird anti-'ginger'ism which I sometimes read of on here. I'm an expat now and it's one of the most bizarre things about Britain from my perspective. WTF? I'm a bit surprised everyone's instinct is to leave it. I probably would too, tbf, but would also seriously consider having a word with the HOY.

I think her intention was clear, and not flattering to her intelligence or understanding of the school's policies about personal comments.
However, she has presumably given herself a nasty shock and will have pulled herself up short.

Job done!

I am not in favour of a culture of reporting teachers for every second hand comment - your DS clearly knows it was a wrong thing to say and can be equipped to challenge it if he hears it in other contexts.

she means dyed ginger

Was prob going for cheap laugh. She apologised - move on

Yes, I think she did mean no dyed ginger - but the subsequent comment "Why anyone would want to be ginger is beyond me" is less explainable.

Ginger haired children gave always been remarked upon by other children and, years ago, teachers. Humiliation was part of school life! It is not new! I speak as someone who is 60 and has heard it all from teachers as well as children!

However - It was always wrong and unkind but lots of children just got on with it as did ones with skinny legs (Lucky they don't break - after Lucky matchsticks), large noses,(references to a religion), large ears (Elephant or Dumbo) and numerous other features and surnames that could be turned into "funny" nicknames. I include my own in that! The difference is that we now realise these labels are unkind and unacceptable and people complain. However a one off mistake is not systematic use of an unkind expression. I am sure the teacher will respect everyone in future.

Thank you to everyone. It is a situation I had never come across before and so I am glad I could turn to MN to garner opinion

Blu that was my thought too. Ds is very good at relaying info on what people said, doesn't embellish in any way and detests drama llamas.

But I will swiftly move on and hope it was just a huge mistake. They never tell you any of this crap you will deal with when you have children. What did people do before MN?

Agree I would assume her intention was to reiterate what Snr Management had told all form teachers to reiterate, that no hair was allowed to be dyed to any un-natural "look" - which includes the 'orange-y' look just the same as the blue or the green. It sounds like she used the wrong word, realised what she'd accidentally said, and was mature enough to be able to apologise for making that mistake. - what's to report ?