Apologies for long thread so thank you for reading.
My 11 year old autistic son managed to get a place in a sought-after specialist school and started mid-Jan this year.
When I had visited the school prior or him starting, I recognised one of the teachers who lives on the same housing estate as we do and we had attended the same church.
We stopped attending the church in 2018 so it’s 4-5 years since our church acquaintance. At church my son attended the Sunday school that was sometimes run by the MIL of this teacher and this teacher’s daughter would sometimes go to the Sunday school. We didn’t really know her and her family other than saying hi and smiling nicely at her two little children.
When my son started at the school he said he likes this teacher and really enjoyed her lessons (she teaches his favourite subject). I said that we used to go to church with her but my son didn’t remember. I tried to jog his memory saying she’s X’s mum and Y is her MIL but he didn’t remember. Next day at school my son mentioned to the teacher of our previous acquaintance. She acknowledged it and they had a chat about living on the same estate, the church, her children. All fine.
But then the teacher makes a complaint against my son saying he is keeping a file on her private life, sharing information about her private life with other children and staff and she is distressed and fearful about what he might do next.
Obviously I confronted my son and he said he does say to people that he knew her before and they live near each other (we don’t know where on the estate she lives - it’s a big estate with multiple entrances. I have never seen her on the estate) but that is it. For an 11 year-old, it’s a bit like knowing a celeb if you know a teacher outside of school.
We had a meeting at the school (this teacher was not present) where they claimed my son had been going to her house, Googling her to find out information, trying to sell her car on we buy any car, hacking her Facebook and contacting her friends. I asked what evidence they had and they had none other than this teacher’s say so.
They wouldn’t have any evidence as it is all complete nonsense. My son never leaves the house without an adult (no exception - he’s not capable of being out on his own), he doesn’t have any social media and wouldn’t have a clue how to hack an account if he did (I’m not being naive - he genuinely wouldn’t know). In short, none of this happened.
I said this had to stop. At the beginning of this term, she is no longer teaching him. Fine. Except last week she had to cover a lesson. As my son entered the class she told the children and other staff member she did not want to be teaching this class as she felt uncomfortable around my son. It was a life skills class and they were discussing elections and voting. There are only six children in my son’s class, one of whom lives in the same area as us and the teacher. My son said that in the 4th May elections in our local voting ward, the candidates were mainly Conservative. This teacher went ballistic and screamed at him that he had no right discussing her private life in front of the class and she was very distressed. My son was shocked but stayed in the class. They continued the lesson and were discussing petitions and the number of signatures needed to get a petition before parliament. My son said if everyone in the town where we live signed, they’d be 3/4 of the way to getting it to parliament. Again, the teacher screamed at him saying he needed to keep away from her and her family and she wants to start a petition to have my son banned from the town.
I sent a strongly-worded email to the school asking her to stop with this nonsense. My son is a pariah at the school with children teasing him that he should receive the headteacher’s award for stalking. The email was sent last Thursday. I have not had a reply.
This Wednesday my son came home in a terrible state. He was told by two pupils independently of each other that this teacher was heard discussing her request to have my son excluded from the school! That afternoon, the teacher is covering a science lesson. Again, as the children entered the class she announced she was very unhappy and only doing the class as my son hadn’t stalked her for the past two days. She then told the class that she had been very distressed at the residential (held the week before) and had to keep her cabin location a secret as she was so frightened as to what my son would do if he knew where she was staying.
My son was too frightened to go to school yesterday as he doesn’t know what this teacher is going to accuse him of next.
I emailed the school telling them why he wasn’t in and could someone please call me as I want a meeting with this teacher.
No call, no email. My son went to school today under duress. I have phoned the school this morning asking someone to phone/email me - complete radio silence.
I am apoplectic with rage. Firstly about the complete and utter bullshit this lunatic teacher is peddling about my child and secondly about the refusal of the school to contact me. I should have turned up there but it’s not close (my son has transport) and I have been at work during school hours.
My husband thinks I shouldn’t be saying anything as it was a massive struggle to get him into this school (we went to tribunal) and he thinks my pushing of this issue will lead them to say the school can’t meet his needs, he’ll be asked to leave and we’ll be up shit creek. I think it’s my duty as a parent to stop this awful and unwarranted intimidation and bullying this teacher is subjecting him to.
Any advice would be gratefully received.
Thank you very much.