How should you support and respect the trust of a school pupil who reveals she is pregnant?
A teacher tells of just such a case, where the young person's prime concern was that her parents should not know.
As a teacher, I like to think of myself as fairly approachable. I was in my first teaching job when a girl in my class told me she was pregnant.
The first thing is what do you say?
She told me that I couldn't tell anybody, but I knew I couldn't promise her that.
She was shocked and confused and I was a new teacher, and I didn't know what I was meant to do, what the legal repercussions were or if I was under any obligation to inform her parents.
I had to decide what to do without breaking her trust, so I told her I would have to tell the head of year and see how to proceed from there.
I did say that I couldn't promise not to tell her parents. She hadn't told anyone at that stage, including her parents, and she didn't want me to do that. What she did want was some advice, and she asked me what I would do. I couldn't answer that because ultimately it was up to her to decide on a course of action.
The head of year was not a particularly caring sensitive bloke. He was quite blase, and said that since she was over 16 we should just let her get on with it. He was happy to step back and let me handle the situation.
I didn't really think of it as a lack of support. He believed that I would do a good job and trusted me to get on with it and deal with it.
I went back to her and told her I'd spoken to the head of year and that we wouldn't tell her parents, and that if she wanted to talk she could come and find me. Soon after that she told one of her friends and her friend was supportive. But she knew I was there if she needed to talk.
The long and the short of it was I didn't need to tell her parents, since she was over 16. But if I had gone and told them after promising not to then I would have let her down very badly. Children respect honesty, especially if they already respect you enough to confide in you in the first place.
In the end the girl didn't tell her parents at all, and had an abortion.
Then she very rapidly got pregnant again after that - and had the baby.
She was a mother by 18.
- Have you ever faced a tough professional choice?
Call Stovin Hayter on 020 8267 4767 or email stovin.hayter@haynet.com.
