Head who faced virtual ‘character assassination’

ONE Scottish headteacher – whose identity we have protected at her own request – has revealed how her handling of a low-key playground incident escalated into personal attacks on Facebook, sinister threats and, finally, the police being called.

She said: ‘I’ve been teaching for four decades and have an unblemished record.

‘Last year, one of my colleagues brought to my attention a piece written on Facebook by a parent that named me. It then descended into little more than abuse and character assassination. It got 1,000 hits on the night it was posted and there were others – mostly anonymous – who jumped on the bandwagon, leading to claims about my career in other schools that were a complete fabrication. It was pure badness.

‘We met with some of the parents involved but it just seemed to add to the problem and the barrage continued. After a few days, there were threats of violence and we had to ask the police to intervene.

‘The whole episode carried on, sporadically, for six or seven months. It’s easy to say, “Just don’t read it”, but the problem is what is said on social media spills over into real life. I even had a five-year-old child tell me one day that I shouldn’t be their teacher because of what they’d been told I’d done. My family, friends and colleagues were wonderful, but it began to affect my health and well-being and my ability to do the job at the time.

‘It crossed my mind to just leave teaching altogether. It niggles away at you because you can’t respond and there were people who wanted me to fear coming to work or even to go out of the house – but it didn’t break me.

‘I couldn’t now recommend joining the profession. We are professionals, we train for a long time and, mostly, we know what’s best but we are now being continually challenged. There is little respect for teachers now.’