Malicious rumour being spread about me - advice please

[Quistis]

This is a bit of a long story, so I apologise in advance - I'll try to be brief!

I'm a teacher, but I don't work in schools right now (might go back to the classroom one day!). I split up with my husband in 2017 and we have 2 primary aged children together. My ex's mum is a TA in a school I have no connection with, but is in my area. Ex is not in education, but his girlfriend is.

Apparently, during my ex's mum's safeguarding training, there was a presentation during which a social media post was used as an example of bad practice. Apparently the teacher who made this post was subject to disciplinary action.

My ex's mother has decided that this teacher was me, that I made the social media post and was disciplined for it. She thinks that she remembers the post from when I was still with her son and we were all friends on social media. This is absolutely false; I have never been subject to disciplinary action in the whole of my career, and I have never even been informally warned about anything that I have put on social media.

I have tried to tell my ex this, but he, in his words, is obviously going to believe his mother. I tried to tell him that surely since this post was allegedly made when we were together, then surely he would know, since the disciplinary action would've occurred during our marriage, but he still won't believe me, saying I could've kept it secret (which is ironic considering the nature of our breakup, but that's another story!!)

Obviously one concern I have is that this malicious falsehood could be spread, since no doubt my ex has told his girlfriend. Thankfully she works in another school that I have no connection to, but we all know what education is like - things can spread like wildfire.

But my other concern is this: my ex was banned from repeatedly taking me to court for more access to the children (he has 40%, including half of all school holidays) as it was deemed harmful to all of us that he keep doing it. Now he needs permission if he wants to apply again, and I think he is trying to build up a case that I am some sort of safeguarding risk, as I'm pretty sure that's the only way a judge would permit him to apply to court.

The chances of these things harming me, I think, are pretty slim. However, the risk is still there, and I want to nip this in the bud. Since she won't change her mind about my alleged guilt and nor will he, what can I do? Someone in my family has mentioned emailing her school - has she broken some kind of a rule? At the very least, surely she's been unprofessional? I'd like to see the safeguarding training myself, too, so I can see what she is attributing to me - I have no idea how bad the social media post was, but it can't have been good if it was in safeguarding training.

This whole thing has triggered my anxiety (that started when we broke up as a result of his behaviour 5 years ago and since then, always waiting for the next court papers to come through the door) so I feel I must act. What should I do?

Thank you so much in advance.

I should add that whereas I don't work in schools, I do work in education as a teacher, so I am concerned about my professional reputation.

I think my first port of call would be my union: they will have experience of dealing with this sort of thing.

I agree, first port of call would be your union.

I would also (unless the union advised me against it) contact the head of the school where your ex's mum works and explain the situation, and ideally they would tell the ex's mum that her behaviour is inappropriate. In general, I feel it's not appropriate to discuss specific examples of safeguarding with those who don't work at the school. I don't know if she'll have broken a specific rule, but it's not good practice.

Hopefully, your ex's girlfriend, if she is a teacher, has enough sense not to discuss something like this.

The bar for being disciplined over social media in schools is really quite low. It's not generally the sort of thing that would make you appear a risk to your own children, either.

Presumably, technically, this is defamation, so in theory you could pursue a civil case for that, but I would imagine that would be difficult and expensive.

This is really familiar. Did you submit it to Whistleblowing Teacher on Twitter?

Just to add - in every school I have worked in either HR or the HT would have been willing to provide a purely factual statement to the effect “Quistis was employed at St Jude’s Academy from 1 September 2015 to 31 August 2019. During this time she was not subject to any disciplinary action, verbal or written.” If you could secure these statements to cover the period in question you might feel more confident about refuting any malicious claims that your ex may attempt to bring. Good luck

Yes I did! But I found I could put more info on here. It turns out the safeguarding training happened several years ago, so I don’t think I can do much about it now.

I think if the rumours are being spread now, then you still have standing to contact your ex-MIL's employer and discuss this with them as a minimum.

I would also still get union advice, too.

The more I think about this, the more I think it shows a worrying lack of professionalism from your ex-MIL, so I think her employer should be aware.