Bullied by a teacher

Bullied by a teacher

It’s normal for your child to complain about their teachers, so don’t panic if your child comes home with a complaint. Ask more about what’s going on, and why it might be happening.

These behaviours from a teacher constitute bullying:

• Public humiliation
• Physical punishment
• Ostracism or the use of excessive isolation
• Unnecessary and unconstructive put-downs
• Intimidation or unsuitable fear mongering
• Unjustly marking down grades as punishment
• Regularly making an example of a student in front of the class
• Personal comments or verbal abuse that relate to looks, sexuality, gender, disability, race, faith or family background
• Excessively strict punishment that is not appropriate for the behaviour and/or age of the child, or sanctions that haven't taken into account any special educational needs and disabilities

All of these are concerns that you should speak with the school about - follow our guide to meeting with the school. Do not meet with or confront the teacher who is causing concern.

Arrange a meeting with a senior teacher

Arrange a meeting with a more senior teacher (see our school reporting structure guide for information about school hierarchies) and ask for a plan to be put in place to ensure your child does not continue to feel like this. It may be helpful to emphasise the impact that the situation is having on them emotionally and ask for the school to work with you to address this.

Use our template Kidscape log and school contact record as a guide for how to record emotional impact. As with any meeting relating to bullying, agree on an action plan and a time frame.

Resolving the situation

These are some ideas for things you could suggest to the school to resolve the situation:

• Ask the school for the lessons with that particular teacher to be observed by another member of staff, ideally someone from the senior leadership team.
• Ask the school to review your son's behaviour record and to investigate and explain why the issues are only occurring with that particular teacher.
• Would there be any option to move class, if there is a different teacher with the same year group?