Advice

[TheAdeptZebra]

My daughter has been to school today and a teacher has called her and idiot and pathetic is this acceptable. I know my child's behaviour isn't perfect but I need advice on what I can or if I can do anything

What a messy situation!
Totally unacceptable for a pupil to be spoken to like this.
Also totally unacceptable for a pupil to secretly record staff.
You need to go in with humility and calm. Address their concerns and raise yours whilst acknowledging that your daughter has made big mistakes.

Take the video to the HT. I fully agree the teacher should not have called your daughter an idiot or pathetic - they can think it and sincerely believe it but not say it out loud. Your daughter should not have videoed the teacher secretly either. It's very telling that in the midst of a disciplinary situation your child's first response was to call you to complain about the teacher's speech after they'd been caught truanting, and your response was to tell her to secretly record any interaction instead of being concerned about the truanting.

Do you know what was said/happened prior to the teacher name-calling? TBH dealing with truanting is pretty routine in secondary school, it would be very weird for a teacher to immediately go to this reaction right off the bat. It sounds like a teacher at the very end of their tether with a very trying pupil (still not right but understandable) or a teacher who isn't cut out for the role.

Take it to the HT and let them deal with the teacher - they will know if they have a staff member with a problem generally, a problem just with your child, or if it's a one-off under trying circumstances. You also need to honestly consider if your child's behaviour or speech contributed to this situation, and if it did work with the school to manage her better. I wouldn't be looking to get the teacher sacked, your child is unharmed, a bit offended maybe but nothing more.

There’s way more to this story than you’re telling us.
Parents like you and students like your dd are one of reasons why teachers are leaving the profession in droves

dont do that
it is not the role of the chair
they are volunteering and have enough to do

you need to follow the complaints policy which may involve the chair at an appropriate stage

i'm not even a teacher and i can tell there is a huge amount of info missing.
recording staff is unethical/possibly illegal.
on another note if the trust between your daughter/you and the school has broken down to his level it might be best to continue your dd's education elsewhere.

It's not illegal to record as long as there are no faces on the video I've checked with citizens advice a while back.

Everybody saying there is a huge amount of information missing- I agree. But I can’t think of any scenario where it would be acceptable for an adult to speak like that to a child. The child here sounds really challenging, so the last thing they need is somebody saying they are pathetic. It sounds like the adult is in the wrong job,

So to be clear, there is video of a teacher bullying a child and your issue is the fact that there’s a video.

Im sure it’s technically against the rules, but if as a teacher you break the rule against abusing children, it’s a pretty good bet one of the children will eventually break the rule against making videos. That would seem the lesser evil.

I think you might find that although your DD recording a teacher would fall under the personal use bit, you cannot share it or upload it to social media. I wonder how you would feel if the teacher secretly recorded your DD. Your DD will have censored her conversation knowing it was being recorded to put herself in the best light.

You may well find that she is breach of school rules over recording inside the school and may be sanctioned, and rightly so, you might want to check school policy. It is almost a Malfoy situation, Harry Potter reference, Malfoy dobs students in for being out of bed by being out of bed himself to tell a member of staff and gets the same punishment.

My focus as a parent is why my child is not where they are supposed to be and to support the school in solving that issue, not trying to catch out staff who have to deal with these students. Maybe also watch Educating Essex on Youtube to see what they have to deal with.

She can do two things at once. Suggest her daughter can improve her behavior, and suggest to the school admin that the teacher improve at not being a bully.

Killertomato7
There is clearly more to this than the OP is saying. The fact that even according to the OP she and her dd planned to record the teachers in the isolation room sounds decidedly odd. It is fairly clear that her dd has many issues with her behaviour in school. I frankly don't believe much of this OP is truthful.

Even the supposed comments sound ridiculous. 'You won't do it you are an idiot. ' It really doesn't sound like anything a teacher would say. Think the op might have been editing.

If the ability to openly bully children is what’s keeping a teacher in the profession, then I think the profession might be better off without them, notwithstanding the shortage.

Also, we both know that if there weren’t a recording, you would then be saying there’s no proof and the child must be lying.

You may well be right, but there’s no real point to this forum unless there’s a baseline assumption that OP’s are telling the truth about the facts of the case. At least to the best of their knowledge.

It's very telling that in the midst of a disciplinary situation your child's first response was to call you to complain about the teacher's speech after they'd been caught truanting, and your response was to tell her to secretly record any interaction instead of being concerned about the truanting

Yep, exactly this.

When ds2 (14) was caught truanting from a lesson the HoY called to tell me and to say that ds would be in two lunch time detentions. I said they'd have my absolute blessing if they wanted to make an example of him and make it a week or more (they didn't).

If ds had dared to moan at me about how he'd been treated when teachers were dealing with HIS awful behaviour, I'd have told him to suck it up and not to act like an idiot if you don't want to be called it.

I certainly agree with everyone that no member of staff in a school should call a student an idiot, or talk about them as "this idiot". Saying to a student "Don't be an idiot" when they suggest putting their hand in a bunsen burner flame is probably reasonable-ish. But that's not what happened here according to the recording and I do think I would take it further.

However; I would approach it in a conciliatory way, being very aware of the poor behaviour of my child. I would talk as much about what my child needs to do to do better as I would about what the member of staff said.

I too find it telling that the first reaction of child and parent was "better record that teacher" – flags at the very least a pattern of poor student behaviour and poor staff attitude.

@TheAdeptZebra what year is your DD in? Is it a really important one like year 9/10? If so you need to work with the school (not against it) to try to get your DD back on track.

Indeed

Even if the OP gets the teacher/TA/support staff fired, it won't stop her DD from being an idiot or pathetic.

Yep

Yeah, I’m sure you have.