advice on a male teacher at DDs school please

[happydappy2]

My DD in year 9 used to have a wonderful female PE teacher who went on mat leave & might not come back. Currently a young male teacher has taken over and the girls feel uncomfortable when he watches them doing PE. One of them has looked at his social media & seen who he is following on instagram....lots of female body builders who pose in skimpy barely there bikinis (as is normal for body builders) but also some young women who pose in a very sexualised way in barely there bikinis....lots of boobs & bum on show. (Not topless but good as.) One girl has asked me if that is appropriate for a teacher & I'm struggling with how I feel about this. I would have thought all teachers have to have squeaky clean social media or set it to private. I've asked the headmaster for his views but wondered what others thought-am I over reacting or is this not really OK?

Of course I realise the many issues regarding the recruitment of teachers. But many teachers leave the profession often due to feeling bullied by either government policies, workload, or continual parental bullying. I've seen it.

This sort of crap may not seem directly related to the UKs difficulty around retaining teachers but it is part of the general teach teachers like shit attitude that pervades society.

As someone who taught in the UK for over two decades I saw it gimr and time again. Parents complaining with little to no substance to their complaints can cause hell for teachers already sick of the job due to teacher bashing etc.

It's not irrelevant. It shows this man has a poor understanding of appropriate public behaviour as a teacher who teaches teenage girls. Which is actually quite significant.

It means he has failed to make his settings private. It could be a deliberate act, in which case it’s inappropriate but it could just be him forgetting to press a button. Teachers have private lives. There are plenty of teachers on tinder, grinder etc looking for hookups for instance. Teachers aren’t saints and shouldn’t be expected to be. It’s not an issue for a young guy to follow young women on Instagram at all - he should just ensure that people can’t see him doing it. Him being interested in women who flash their boobs doesn’t make him unsuited to teach unless he behaves inappropriately with his pupils.

@RealityNotEssentialism

It's not irrelevant. It shows this man has a poor understanding of appropriate public behaviour as a teacher who teaches teenage girls. Which is actually quite significant.

It means he has failed to make his settings private. It could be a deliberate act, in which case it’s inappropriate but it could just be him forgetting to press a button. Teachers have private lives. There are plenty of teachers on tinder, grinder etc looking for hookups for instance. Teachers aren’t saints and shouldn’t be expected to be. It’s not an issue for a young guy to follow young women on Instagram at all - he should just ensure that people can’t see him doing it. Him being interested in women who flash their boobs doesn’t make him unsuited to teach unless he behaves inappropriately with his pupils.

Agree with this.

It may be that he’s been drafted in to teach this class at v short notice or that he just didn’t realise who he followed was public.

Still don’t understand why the op went in to the school all guns blazing about that from third hand info and didn’t mention his inappropriate behaviour.

OP are you a teacher at the school?

I just find it strange you’ve focused on the media content rather than gathering facts about why he makes the girls feel uncomfortable. It’s all 3rd hand.

How did a male pupil tell you? What was the situation where he came and told you? Why was the male child looking at his SM account?

Up thread you said it wasn’t a child that told you?

All sounds very strange

Op. I’m so confused.

You said

happydappy2 Wed 04-Nov-20 17:03:53
Bull he is not new to the school.....yr missing the point spectacularly!
I never said a child told me.....
Go t

Add message | Report | Message poster | Quote happydappy2 Wed 04-Nov-20 20:11:40
Vet it wasn’t my daughter who showed me the Instagram account. Another child from the school.
Go to post
Add message | Report | Message poster | Quote happydappy2 Wed 04-Nov-20 22:47:51
To all the men posting on here-I can see you a mile off.

To clarify, it was a male pupil who showed me the teachers SM and thought it was off, so stop blaming girls. All the insinuations about nasty girls whipping up hate are.....wrong.
Go to post

So you said it wasn’t a child that told you, but it was also a male pupil?

So male pupils aren’t considered children by you, but the girls are? Why?

@happydappy2

To all the men posting on here-I can see you a mile off.

To clarify, it was a male pupil who showed me the teachers SM and thought it was off, so stop blaming girls. All the insinuations about nasty girls whipping up hate are.....wrong.

Gosh that's an interesting drip feed. How strange you never mentioned it before

They lost me at the claim that anyone with a different view to them must be a man.

If it was a male pupil why did the op say it was a girl and then say it wasn’t a pupil. Surely that is something you would mention?

Anybody who doesn't support making abhorrent insinuations against a man who has done absolutely nothing wrong is a man now too?

Stop making ridiculous assumptions about people.

I think OP needs to talk to the girls and find out what makes them uncomfortable about this member of staff, what is he doing that is making them feel this way? The OP should talk to the safeguarding lead at the school; or the child’s tutor as a first point of call if OP is concerned that the teacher is behaving wrong towards the children he’s teaching.

I think the teacher’s line manager should talk to the teacher and remind him to make his social media private.

I find that strange and the unwelcoming attitude to new posters.

I go to threads via active and I post on ones that interest me.

This thread interested me because DS’s friend had unfounded allegations made against him and ended up having a breakdown and leaving teaching.

As far as I know, anyone can reply to a thread anywhere on mumsnet

@LolaSmiles

They lost me at the claim that anyone with a different view to them must be a man.

Exactly!

And tell your kids to stop stalking people on social media. Sounds like he follows body building accounts. Women in bikinis? So what?

Posters on here are the kind of people that, hundreds of years ago, insisted old women must be witches because they looked at them funny.

So this teacher can never go abroad on holiday and look at women on the beach?

I find that strange and the unwelcoming attitude to new posters.

And loads of people namechange regularly to stay anonymous. Sensible thing to do. Just because you personally don’t recognise someone doesn’t mean they’re a troll. And the fact that they disagree with you doesn’t mean they’re not legit or that they’re a man (although men are of course welcome to post on here too).

Kcar I said a male pupil showed me, to clarify that I had seen the SM myself and it wasn't just taken on his word, without me actually verifying it.

I certainly haven't gone into school all guns blazing wanting this man sacked-far from it-I asked the HT if he thought it was appropriate.

I have encouraged the kids to tell their own parents if this teacher does anything concrete that they feel is wrong.

This happened a few weeks ago before covid restrictions-its been on my mind-hence asking for advice here.

The HT has confirmed SM should be private, to protect staff. So he agrees that this was off.

Its fascinating how many posters seem to think teenage girls are the problem here when clearly the male teacher could have prevented this entire situation by keeping his SM private.

Its fascinating how many posters seem to think teenage girls are the problem here when clearly the male teacher could have prevented this entire situation by keeping his SM private

Yes, he should have.

The girls aren't the problem. The adults wading in and writing to the school are the problem.

But he couldn’t. Because the actual issue according to you is that the girls feel uncomfortable. But you were only told that third hand.

You’re completely changing the story.

Kcar Yr imagining things-where have I said I was told something 3rd hand? The facts are in my OP-where questions have been asked, I've given clarification.

I'm happy with the HTs response so consider the matter closed.

Sounds like it’s been sorted then, OP. You told the HT and this happened several weeks ago. Is the Instagram account still up or something? Why is this still something that’s concerning you if the social media issue has been dealt with? Why are you talking about how the girls would do better with a good female teacher?

What happens if the good female teacher is a lesbian??!?! Poor OP will implode.

So if this was weeks ago, has the teacher shut the account down or set it to private?

And if he has, what’s the issue?

Because in your op it was all about him making the girls feel uncomfortable. But the girls didn’t tell you this this came from a boy who isn’t a child. So did you or did t you raise that with the school because that’s the bigger issue? Have you told the parents of the children or the not child who told you?

Its fascinating how many posters seem to think teenage girls are the problem here when clearly the male teacher could have prevented this entire situation by keeping his SM private

Mn is weird. There will be hundreds of people who will tell you that you feel this way based on him being a man and that's unfair. But those same people will have such a low bar for the behaviour and bang on about false accusations.

We all know that convictions for sexual assult/harassment etc are abysmal.

Remember the 14 year old girl who was raped twice, and everyone on social.media was asking why she was out that late when A) she was only out that late because you know someone took her and raped her and B) she was raped the second time getting away by the taxi driver.

The victim is always blamed . So all thse stories about upstanding men who's lives were ruined by false accusations and quit everything, well the statistics don't really add up do they.. men walk out of court free after raping women based on underwear she was wearing he wouldn't have even known about until he'd raped her.

Girls are in class with their rapists ffs so to pretend girls are suddenly listened to and believed enough on order to have male teachers leaving the profession in droves doesn't really make sense.

Someone should read the school scandal thread , see all the teachers who married their students then say its all bull shit.

Yes all he had to do was lock his accounts. Any idiot knows that rightly or wrongly, you have to be careful what you post. Ajd keep account private.

People have lost their jobs over it.

The fact he's young and a man doesn't mean he's exempt or should be let off this breech.

Yes if there's nothing concrete or no actual facts then that's it, nothing you can do , but we all knew teachers who have us the creeps...how often were those feelings wrong...

You were right to tell the head about the SM. Hopefully he will take the advice.

I wish things were as clear cut as many people think on here.
I wish kids always did tell the truth in these situations. But I know that's not always the case, because a situation arise when I was at school where an accusation about our French teacher was completely fabricated.

I don't know how it started really, but it became some sort of contagious thing. A few girls decided that when he looked at our work during lessons, he leaned over in some creepy way. They then tried to persuade the rest of us that he did. He didn't. But in that way that can happen with a bunch of girls, others started agreeing with these 'popular' girls.

I can remember sitting in a couple of lessons watching his every interaction to try to work out why they were saying this. And absolutely nothing untoward happened. Yet at the end of both lessons girls crowded around talking about how word he'd been. I said I'd never seen anything and of course I was ignored and told I was wrong. And I believe that they did tell someone in authority. But as a 'denier' obviously I was kept out of that loop.

I didn't get it. I knew they were making it up. But yet people were flocking you agree with them. This was a perfectly ordinary teacher. Not a favourite of mine, nor did I dislike him. Just a normal guy.
I don't know what happened to the guy. But nearly 50 years on, that still occasionally preys on my mind.

but we all knew teachers who have us the creeps...how often were those feelings wrong...

Are you suggesting that this teacher is a rapist? Or that teachers who gave us the creeps were rapists? Absolute bullshit.

To be frank, if a teacher wanted to groom a pupil he'd be their best friend and they'd think he was marvellous.

Saraclara Safeguarding in schools, is to protect teachers as well as the children. Rules such as never being in a classroom alone with a student (so if they accused you of something, you can prove it didn't happen.) Rules such as keeping yr social media private. Schools have a duty of care to protect their staff-hence the rules are in place for their benefit.