My child was hit by a pen, thrown by a teacher

[Tiredallthetimelaura]

So my daughter who is in year 8 was in a lesson when her teacher 'cold called' her a question. My daughter responded she didn't know the answer and the teacher then threw a highlighter pen at her, hitting her on the arm. The teacher then did it again to another student, also hitting them on the arm. We have reached level 2 of a complaint, but it's always investigated by management within the academy. The school keep down playing what happened and not investigating what we ask. This teacher is still teaching, although my daughter isn't going in on the day of that lesson, which is greatly affecting her attendance. The school said they would move my daughter so she could do a different lesson (double Maths or double English), but we said no! This feels like a punishment to our daughter. She wants to do that lesson, just not with that teacher... and we agree.
Any advice on what/how the school legally should be handling this? Happy to answer any further questions Xx

Resilience really is becoming a scarce commodity, isn’t it.

Why teach your child the ability to write off an extremely mild incident when absolutely everything can be a trauma instead.

I had board rubbers whizzed at me in primary school.

I learned to catch and threw it back a few times, a meeting ensued and throwing things was apparently inappropriate so the teacher stopped doing it.

Some highlighters are long and thin, like pens. They're not very heavy, but thrown with enough force, they could do damage if the end is what hits the child.

In my opinion, it's the fact that the teacher threw an object at the child at all that is completely unacceptable. The amount of damage that the item could cause isn't the main point. For a child, it would be startling to have a teacher, whom she is supposed to respect, throw something straight at her.

I don't understand why so many people here think it's no big deal for a teacher - who has legal responsibility for the children in her care - to throw something at a child.

At the very least I would have expected the school to apologise to the OP and for the teacher to have been reprimanded. A proper apology and statement that it would not happen again might have been enough to allow the child to remain in the class.

As I've said in another post, I have experience teaching adults. If I had thrown something at one of my adult students, I would have been sacked.

There's no way the whole school ended up talking about it.

I have a bag of ping pong balls and frequently throw balls at/to people in class.

They are meant to catch them. Sometimes someone gets one on the head, sometimes I get one in the face! 🤣

But it's not because you weren't 'paying attention ' it's because you answered something with the 'wrong' answer that warranted an object being thrown at you

How would you feel if your child had something thrown at them when they couldn't answer a question correctly 🤔

Why on earth isn't it acceptable, in the case of the person you are replying to, not the OP's case, to lob a pen to someone who wants a pen? Is accidentally hitting someone when you do that an unacceptable risk? Is it really?

This is a bit of a drip feed
She was diagnosed with selective mutism and isn't actually even meant to be cold called in class.

No, teachers shouldn’t really be throwing things at kids but a pen on the arm does seem like a bit of a non event. I’m truly surprised LADO has been involved and is at all interested. The kids who said it wasn’t a game in their statements - what exactly did they say?

Since when is the preferred method for throwing things at someone frisbeeing, it's the method of choice for throwing something for someone to catch, because it's flat and not very hard. Yes maybe the teacher misjudged it , you seen fixed on her throwing it after the question was that not for your daughter to throw in to the next person she wanted to answer a question?

What is the perceived motivation for the intentional throw? Was she telling your daughter off or to listen? Seems odd if it was malicious to just pick a random child and throw a pen at them, even back in the day it was used as punishment and targeted, but you don't indicate any kind of conflict, which again would suggest accident rather than intent to cause harm. It sounds like the teacher was reckless more than anything.

I also wouldn't believe a bunch of teenagers when we're talking about scandalous gossip involving a teacher. Group think is an actual concept.

I’ve just googled how many people have been injured by a highlighter pen and there are no recorded incidences.

I think they were probably all talking about the OP and her overreaction, not the teacher at all.

OP you're getting some harsh responses here and unfortunately i've seen and experienced on many occasions that these posts always bring out that, because mums net as a rule is not very child-centric when it comes to emotional welfare in school, and also seems to portray teachers as saints who can do no wrong.

I think people are missing the point- yes a pen cannot physically hurt her (although I guess if it went near her eye it could!) But it's about the humiliation, shame and unkindness of the act mostly I assume.
It clearly wasn't thrown for her to 'catch' asin for her to use, which is the only time it would have really been acceptable.
It was seemingly done in a cruel sort of manner.Which is why it's totally understandable you are complaining.

Welldone you for advocating for your child- she will remember that.
Others on this post are the sort who call others 'precious' or 'snowflakes' for simply caring about their children's rights and treatment.Sadly not everyone is as invested in doing so.Just ignore it.

I genuinely can’t believe the comments I am reading. How anyone thinks it’s ok to throw something at a child. Absolutely unacceptable.

What would you all be saying if a student threw their pen at a teacher? That it’s ok ?

OP I don’t blame you for feeling how you are and I don’t blame you not wanting that teacher teaching your child. Keep at it with the complaint.

What kind of teacher plays a game that involves throwing a pen at a student when they get an answer wrong ?

I am a teacher , I would never do that and I don’t know any other teacher who would either

I'd say to my child "explain the full circumstances please of what was going on here." And if the teacher, in the unlikely event of me asking, said it was a game, I'd say "tell me what the game was and what was going on". And if it sounded like a plausible game, I'd assume my child was being massively over dramatic.

Surely you understand that explaining the outcome you want, will help posters to advise? I suspect you just want the attention however. And you say the teacher had been off for 6 months - had she just returned from maternity leave?

Didn't the cover teacher teach them the curriculum?

I wonder what the cover wrote about the lessons she taught and how engaged they were when they were teaching. Now the teacher is back she will not tolerate any nonsense and they will have to learn. She should have known the answer if she enjoys that lesson. School is not a jolly she needs to learn to retain information.

What’s maternity leave got to do with it? Is that
a good excuse to throw pens at other children?

I was replying to op ?

Before even considering the outcome they want, I'd like to have a hell of a lot more detail of why the school have said it's not something they are worried about. They given a considered response on numerous occasions. They are not just saying "it was a game" over and over again. They are giving detail. The OP is not sharing it.

We don’t know this is the case. The teacher denies it. The OP wasn’t there. The OP’s daughter is a teenager, who we know aren’t always credible witnesses, particularly when something involves them.

Would someone, angry that a child doesn’t know the answer to a question, throw a highlighter pen with a frisbee action? More likely she’s thrown it in a playful “you might want to highlight the correct answer in your workbook for future reference”

Um, no you weren't, look at the quote history. You were replying to Hercisback1 . If you are replying to the OP, don't quote random people.

It actually is a crime! Look it up!

Wtf?! In the 1940’s they routinely caned kids hands and legs leaving welts and had them sit facing the wall with a dunce cap on for hours. Is this also ok? It’s 2025 not the 1980’s- a lot has changed in the world since then for good reason and yes, lots of people are actually traumatised by what went on in schools in past decades

I can still remember those chalk rubbers flying past my head (1970s), they’re quite chunky too.

I believe they did , but only because kids pick up things and run with them. When I was at school a teacher asked a short very overweight girl what her hobbies were, she said bowling, he said are you the ball. (Not ok looking back it was awful) At the time the class laughed and then it was the talk of the school because even then at 12/13 it was clear this was an outrageous thing for the teacher to say. Within a week not only were the whole school taking about it but there were plenty of embellishments too.

Add in to this scenario the fact that the rumour will be that the teacher aggressively threw a pen at a student, there will then be exaggeration of how that went down , "it nearly took her eye out!" then the child's mum is seen at the school, parents are talking about it because OP is 'reaching out', kids hear some of this, then the child is never in on wednesdays anymore reinforcing the rumour that she was utterly traumatised by the severe assault dealt out with a highlighter by the terrifying music teacher...
You can see how it would gain momentum.