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?

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.

I haven’t banged on about false accusations. I don’t have a low bar for bad behaviour towards girls and women.

But this man has done nothing, bar having his followers on social media available to view.

The op is chatting crap and has projected her own issues and wishes on to this. The op and her daughter are pissed off that a man is teaching pe and has gone into the school to complain over next to nothing.

This man has done his job. Nothing more.

(And I now expect even more of a drip feed from the op)

Creepy doesn't always mean just sexual

Sometimes there are people you can not quite out your finger on why they have that "vibe" about them.

Even ones you like.

I’m a teacher.

All my social media accounts are locked as tight as can be. Union and school advice.

In our staff handbook, you are liable for anything inappropriate posted on social media, and staff have been disciplined for this.

If the gut is a teacher and is posting these images in an open account, then he is in serious trouble. It needs reporting to the school, irrespective of how the children feel about the teacher.

He hasn't posted anything inappropriate!

And it's advice, not law. Plenty of teachers I know are on Facebook

Even the op knows rightly he hasn’t posted anything inappropriate. He has followed fitness women. That’s not at all the same as posting inappropriately.

And as far as social media goes, as pp says, it’s advice not law. My friend is a teacher. She has SM.

I follow a few fitness accounts. They do tend to wear 'revealing' clothing as they are doing fitness, in the gym or pool

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

The problem is you. You had no idea what was meant by the statement "makes them feel uncomfortable watching them doing PE"; you seemed puzzled and became aggressive when posters asked why you hadn't asked about this. The girl who asked you whether the social media isn't your daughter but you don't seem to have discussed any of this with that girl's parents.

I was groomed and abused by a teacher at school. None of us thought he was creepy. We thought he was our best mate, the only person who understood us, and at least two of us said we were in love with him. He was later convicted of abusing both of us.

Separately, we had a female PE teacher who ‘everyone knew’ was a lesbian. We girls would all talk about how we felt uncomfortable with her being in and around the changing rooms and tried to ensure we didn’t get too close to her when playing sports like hockey. Much later I met her as an adult - with her husband of many years. Of course she wasn’t a lesbian, just a sporty woman with short hair who wore track suits and was good friends with the other female PE teacher. And if she had been gay, who cares? She never did a single thing wrong.

I’m the first to say listen to what children are telling you, and encourage them to pay attention to their creep radar. But I also strongly agree with those that say this sort of gossip about teachers is extremely common and can be very harmful.

I was groomed and abused by a teacher at school. None of us thought he was creepy. We thought he was our best mate, the only person who understood us, and at least two of us said we were in love with him. He was later convicted of abusing both of us

Well exactly. I'm sorry to hear this 😔

He’s in the wrong. Report it to the school.

Your dd is in year 9 and weirded our about her pe teacher following sportsmodels and fitness models? Then let her check out her fellow male classmates SM. Is she going to be weirded out then too? And think this is"creepy"?

Come on op.
Pe teacher did nothing wrong. Or actually just 1 thing, and that is not setting his insta on private.
and jeez. Just because he watches the girls why doing PE he is creepy? ?? Uh no. It is his job.

You are just looking for reasons to start something here op...

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...

Sadly, quite a lot of the time the feelings were wrong. I used to think my 15 year old friend who had a 28 year old boyfriend was super cool and grown up (he wasn’t a teacher). It’s only in hindsight that I can see how damaging and wrong that was. The teachers who ‘gave me the creeps’ if you like were probably more due to them being old or weird and not because they were predators. Predators are able to prey on girls precisely because they don’t come across as creepy. Different when you’re talking young kids but not teen girls. There, you’ll want to be wary of the teacher that’s mates with everyone. That’s the one to watch out for.

I think parents like the OP are more dangerous than a young PE teacher forgetting to set his SM to private.

You should be ashamed of yourself OP.

@Goosefoot

Um. I am not sure.

As far as the bodybuilders go, sure, he may get a thrill out of them. However, it's also pretty standard for them to ear bathing suits that are barely there, just as it is for male bodybuilders. I think you might have a hard time finding one that doesn't.

But if the girls just don't like the way he looks at them, I am not sure how meaningful that is. My experience at that age was that a lot of young women rather like to make a controversy and gossip about their teachers and especially the PE ones, and once a rumour like that starts everyone goes around looking for any little thing they can spin into something else.

I tend to think it's better for teens to have PE teachers of the same sex as themselves in part for that reason, as well as several other good ones, but that doesn't seem to be the way of thinking at the moment.

I generally agree with all of your post.

Never underestimate the drama-generating ability of a 14 year old girl (boys are too in to football and video games at that age).

That said, I would make the school aware of his SM and ask him to remove/make private. That will be enough for him to be "on the radar" to other teachers.

@justawoman

I was groomed and abused by a teacher at school. None of us thought he was creepy. We thought he was our best mate, the only person who understood us, and at least two of us said we were in love with him. He was later convicted of abusing both of us.

Separately, we had a female PE teacher who ‘everyone knew’ was a lesbian. We girls would all talk about how we felt uncomfortable with her being in and around the changing rooms and tried to ensure we didn’t get too close to her when playing sports like hockey. Much later I met her as an adult - with her husband of many years. Of course she wasn’t a lesbian, just a sporty woman with short hair who wore track suits and was good friends with the other female PE teacher. And if she had been gay, who cares? She never did a single thing wrong.

I’m the first to say listen to what children are telling you, and encourage them to pay attention to their creep radar. But I also strongly agree with those that say this sort of gossip about teachers is extremely common and can be very harmful.

Yup, totally agree with you. And I’m so sorry about what happened to you. It’s definitely the charming ones that are dangerous. Teenagers don’t clock it because they are immature and they don’t have the knowledge and experience to see how deeply wrong it is for an adult male to befriend a girl who is still a child. That’s how predators can get away with it.

And yes at my school, there were copious lesbian rumours if someone had short hair or looked ‘butch’. It was total nonsense but as you say, we would voice our discomfort about how we thought the lesbian teachers were looking at our legs etc. I don’t know if any of them were gay (not that it would have mattered) but I highly doubt they would have been remotely interested in 14 year old girls if they were, so all this ‘discomfort’ was in our somewhat immature minds.

Hi OP, if the girls are getting "vibes" and feeling the "ick" they need to be believed. Irrespective of the SM issue ANY child who expresses feeling uncomfortable around a certain adult should be believed and the relationship investigated. The fact that a number of the girls feel the same way is definitely a red flag 🚩

I completely understand that it may be "Ooh I don't like the way Sir looks at me" and a few girls jump on the bandwagon as it were, but we need to foster an open attitude and let all children know that their feelings are valid and they should trust their intuition. If the children don't feel that they're going to be believed they won't report and (worst case scenario) they are left vulnerable...

Sadly, quite a lot of the time the feelings were wrong. I used to think my 15 year old friend who had a 28 year old boyfriend was super cool and grown up (he wasn’t a teacher). It’s only in hindsight that I can see how damaging and wrong that was

I used to spend a great deal of time going out if my way to prove everyone "wrong" even as a teen. Always thinking to myself I was being unkind or unfair or they haven't done anything. It didn't end well. I got into alot of jams. Situations I never would have gotten into if I'd listened to my gut feelings instead of talking myself out of them.

I certainly never found people creepy because they were old or tall or male or eccentric or whatever. I.was the school weirdo obsessed with horror films so weird didn't phase me in the slightest.

I'm.jusy saying we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss feelings all the time. Its not 100 percent, but certainly whenever I've had them, I've been right in some way, more often than I.was wrong. My mistake was not having the feelings, it was ignoring them.

I haven't said fire the guy. Nor would I push it any further.

But I wouldn't tell my child to not be " a silly little girl" or whatever other accusations are being thrown aroung about these girls either.

One day, probably not with this teacher , maybe not even at school ,.but someday,.somewhere those feelings could be the difference between being safe or not.

So we do need to be careful about how we dismiss them ..

I know a few trainee teachers. On the 1st day of their course this year they were told to make their social media private. On the 2nd day their lecturer took them through what a quick google could find of them online and they explained a few tips to avoid pupils finding them online. It’s a simple essential part of life as a teacher. It’s not rocket science and a bit weird tbh that he’s not sorted this out himself. The instincts of the girls should be listened to.

@happydappy2

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.

I'm not sure what that has to do with my post. This teacher was never alone with anyone from my class. I made it quite clear that after entirely non-eventful lessons, girls said, and others agreed, that this guy had behaved inappropriately when he hadn't. How do you protect someone from that?

This weird influence and the social need to comply isn't unheard of. These events where you get a whole class or year group suddenly claiming that they feel ill, and the subsequent investigation finding that none of them are, for instance.

There has to be a happy medium between unquestioning attitude that a bunch of pupils must be believed without question, and allowing abusers free rein.

If this happened weeks ago, and the school have dealt with it, and you’re happy with how they dealt with it, why are you posting asking for advice on a male teacher at DDs school? Surely it’s done and dealt with?

@Noideawottodo

I think parents like the OP are more dangerous than a young PE teacher forgetting to set his SM to private.

You should be ashamed of yourself OP.

No, I don't think so.

You appear to think he's guilty already.

When I was teaching I deliberately did not have any social media accounts. I also loved about 15 miles from school I worked at. Teachers are open to do many accusations it is only sensible they take steps to protect themselves or never be alone with s child in classroom. If just one or two in class with you leave door open etc.

You’ve got an agenda and you’re pissed off the school isn’t being run how you think it should be.

That’s the scoop here.

Your story has changed massively from the op and you have contradicted yourself.