Mum Pulls Child Out Of School After Staff Member Put Tape On His Mouth

A mum has pulled her son out of school after alleging a member of staff placed tape on his mouth to shut him up.

The seven-year-old boy, from Auckland, New Zealand, was off school for two weeks this year due to the incident, missing the Christmas concert.

According to the angry mother, her son was one of a group of young boys who had their mouths taped shut with plastic labels during a lesson at Colwill School.

According to a letter written by the school's principal Rob Taylor, and obtained by Stuff, the head claims an investigation into the incident was carried out and found that it was a 'game that the children appeared to enjoy'.

In the letter dated 11 December, Mr Taylor says: "Even though you chose not to follow the school's complaint process, this did not stop me from dealing with this concern as if you had.

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"A careful and thorough investigation was finally able to be completed yesterday with the last of the parents of these children being interviewed. These things do take time, based on the availability of key people needing to be free to meet with us.

"All children involved and their parents, excluding [student], have now been interviewed appropriately by the school's Social Worker who informs me that [staff member's] perspective that this was game [sic] that the children appeared to enjoy and wished to play with her was by all accounts the correct version of this event."

Mr Taylor said he would organise counselling for the young boy if he had indeed been badly affected by the experience.

However, the mother said this was not good enough, and claimed that no one had taken the opportunity to apologise for the incident, which happened on 25 November.

She said: "I asked my seven-year-old what he thought about all this, and he said, 'When we do something wrong in class, we have to say sorry and that we won't do it again, why can't the teacher?'"

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And the woman says the issue was made all the worse due to the fact that her son suffers from asthma.

Adding: "I'm just absolutely appalled that a teacher would do something like this."

Her son, she says, didn't even tell her about the incident after it had happened, because he thought he had been naughty and was in trouble. She later found out through her daughter.

"One of the other girls came to her and said, 'Hey, your brother's mouth was taped for talking too much in class'," the angry mother said.

"He was a bit apprehensive of telling me because he thought he was in trouble."

The mum has since been standing outside the school gates and handing out leaflets and speaking to other parents.

She claimed she had wished for it to be handled internally, but that things had moved too slowly.

Mr Taylor released a statement from the teacher involved, which read: "I am very upset by what has happened and very sorry to [the student] and [the parents] for causing upset to your family."

According to reports, the police are now investigating the situation.

The school board is also reviewing the matter.

Topics: New Zealand, Police, World News, schools

Dominic Smithers

Dominic graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in French and History. Like you, Dom has often questioned how much use a second language has been. Well, after stints working at the Manchester Evening News, the Accrington Observer and the Macclesfield Express, along with never setting foot in France, he realised the answer is surprisingly little. But I guess, c'est la vie. Contact us at [email protected]

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