Well, Good Grief

[Piggywaspushed]

I am rarely reduced to gobsmackedness but this has me indignant, gobsmacked, dumbfounded and flabbergasted. Anyone else seen it?

www.tes.com/news/teacher-who-said-pupil-had-massive-breasts-avoids-ban

The TRA are pretty random with their decisions but I’m taken aback at this one.

I'm really confused - my first thought was that he was possibly gay, hence the £non sexually motivated," but the subsequent comments, and communication over SM...I don't get it. I've read LOADS of these NCTL hearings and many have been banned for FAR less!

Yes, the tights and short skirt thing is so not the words of a gay man...

Yes, the tights and short skirt thing is so not the words of a gay man...

It’s not, is it? But then the. “Mmmmma” kisses and stuff on texts? The description of him as a highly extrovert person who hugs everyone all the time? Obviously I’m resorting to stereotype but it did occur to me, if I’m being honest. The whole thing is bloody bizarre. What sort of adult gets a job in a school and doesn’t understand that they can’t behave like the kids’ BFF?

The TRA are hopeless, there have been other disappointing decisions that they have made that just make you despair

jolly reading between the lines it sound like the kind of school where this kind of familiarity was either encouraged or at least not discouraged.

On a smaller scale a lot of schools do need to work on this : I come across many young (often male) teaches who are over familiar with students : trainee told me only the other week that they had had no input on boundaries and maintaining professional distance from parents and students. Lots of schools do not have clear, written guidelines on SM, for example.

I agree. It definitely sounds like the school bears some of the blame here.

Well, I hate those sort of informal we encourage strong relationships bollox but it will have been the school who ultimately referred him.

Surely even in those schools that don’t mind teachers hugging kids (or encourage it like those vomit-worthy videos where kids enter the classroom to hugs and high-fives although I’ve thankfully never seen one with teenagers) they’d draw the line at kissing (ON THE NECK?!).

I’ve seen a few threads on twitter about it and they are all unanimously WTF. Where on earth did they find the panel that decided it was ok?

They referred him because he revealed that he had the girl as a SM friend. So, someone there was alert and investigated further. It would have been better if his over familiarity had been nipped in the bud before, of course.

The horrifying point of the panel is that eh would be a loss to the profession because f his results and teaching. It is abhorrent to me that , had he been a bit crap, they would have sized the opportunity to 'hang him out to dry' but because he got decent results he is protected. That said, I would be surprised if he finds work as a teacher in the UK now.

They’ve used that line of ‘he’d be a loss to the profession’ to excuse other similar behaviour. It’s a joke.

My results last year were pretty good, now what can I get away with?

Where to begin??

Those text messages! How can they possibly say they weren't sexually motiviated???? Wow. Shocking.

I did teacher training 10 years ago and it was drummed into us then that you never ever have any SM contact with any students. We were also advised to have non-searchable names and anonymous profile pics and the more paranoid training advised against accepting colleagues as friends. The idea that this bloke somehow wasn't aware that what he was doing was a bad idea is utter bullshit.

Imo he should be in prison.