 | | He said: “One school I worked in had two teachers who initially came across as quite homophobic and did their best to cut me out of social activities, yet after eight years when I left for promotion they said that working with me had changed their opinion.
"So I believe that in that instance, being ‘out’ with colleagues had an overall good effect on those staff. However, in one instance, the headteacher found it difficult to discipline a child who had targeted me with regular name-calling. This gave me the push I needed to seek promotion elsewhere and luckily I left that year.
“In my present school a child threw food at me, but I did not see who. My car and engine were later damaged by an egg and flour attack by the same year group. It was ignored by the head until I made a big thing of it, and the situation made me very anxious and stressed.
"Only then did he feel that he had to act and the police were then involved. I also suffered name-calling by a member of the same year group on their last day before leaving.
“What is worse is that in both of my schools, the headteacher and governors chose to exclude 'sexual orientation' type phrases from school policies, but did include gender, disability and race.”
Case study courtesy of Teacher Support Network
March 27, 2007
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