TES SURVEY REVEALS 75 PER CENT OF GAY AND LESBIAN TEACHERS EXPERIENCE DAILY DISCRIMINATION AT WORK

A survey completed by the TES and charity the Teacher Support Network has revealed harassment from colleagues and pupils leaves many homosexual teachers scared of going to work

"Faggot" and "gay boy" are terms most people consider taboo. But, for many teachers, they are just part of everyday life. A TES survey reveals that 75 per cent of lesbian and gay teachers have experienced discrimination at work. One in five said that they were scared to go to work as a result of school-based harassment.

The survey of 104 teachers was carried out by The TES and the Teacher Support Network charity, in advance of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender history month, in February.

Respondents said that they are regularly confronted with homophobic language. One gay teacher said: "The worst insult that students can say to each other is ‘faggot’ or ‘gay boy’. This doesn’t bode well for the acceptance of gay teachers."

Almost three-quarters of respondents said that they had been discriminated against by pupils, while 47 per cent said that casual homophobia was also to be found in the staffroom. A lesbian teacher from London said that she was frozen out by colleagues, after she danced with her girlfriend at a staff party.

Others found that colleagues were unable to separate their sexuality from their ability to do their job. One respondent said: "One colleague [told] the IT supervisor that he should look through my records to make sure I wasn’t accessing gay websites at school, simply because I was gay."

And a gay teacher from Yorkshire says that senior management regularly discriminated against him. "When transporting children to after-school activities, I was made to have an additional adult in the car with me," he said. "Heterosexual members of staff were not."

Teachers responding to the survey claim that harassment has led to problems including loss of confidence, stress, and reduced classroom effectiveness.

Patrick Nash, chief executive of the Teacher Support Network, said: "The negative experiences of homosexual, bisexual and transgender teachers are widespread, leaving them feeling stressed, alienated and unsupported. It is important that schools have codes of conduct in place, which relate specifically to homophobic issues."

While 60 per cent of schools have a code of conduct to deal with sexual harassment, only a third had one to deal with homophobic discrimination. Nonetheless, more than half the respondents felt supported by their colleagues, and said they would be happy to come out as homosexual at school. One male teacher from the West Midlands believes that being open about his sexuality has helped his colleagues to overcome their homophobia.

"One school I worked at had two homophobic teachers," he said. "But when I left for promotion they said that working with me had changed their opinion."

The annual LGBT history month, which aims to draw attention to the achievements of lesbians and gays, was launched last year with support from the Department for Education and Skills. This year, it contributed £20,000 towards the project.

The month has been highly controversial and has been criticised in the press. The Daily Mail’s ran a story claiming that "children as young as seven could be taught gay history". It also claimed that campaign lesson plans would introduce pupils in primary schools to sexual language and swear words.

This was in response to the teaching resources on the LGBT history month website which suggest that teachers should discuss with children the unpleasant names they call one another in the playground.

The website says: "This will provoke some embarrassment ... as many of the words will be sexual or swear words."

Sue Sanders, co-chair of teachers’ organisation Schools Out, which is helping to organise the month, said: "Children use the word ‘gay’ to describe anything they don’t like. People immediately assume that LGBT month is talking about sexuality. We are not. We are talking about identity. We want people to be proud of who they are."

A series of teaching resources is available on the LGBT history month website. Suggested classroom activities include debates on the difference between teasing and bullying.

Can’t be racist or sexist, but ...

Whenever Tony Fenwick walked into a classroom, his pupils would accuse each other of having gay trainers, gay coats or gay bags.

The 45-year-old English teacher "came out" at a staff meeting at his Hertfordshire school, "because it was a wet Monday morning, and I was bored". His head later told him that she would have preferred him to tell people less publicly.

He has experienced little direct homophobia from colleagues. But the pupils are not so restrained. Each time he began to teach a class, pupils would hurl insults at each other’s clothing and property. "Gay was a universal word for dysfunctional," he said. "It was used against objects. This was a school where racist and sexist abuse were non-starters. But homophobic abuse was rife.

"Once I had to spend an entire GCSE English lesson talking about homophobia because of a comment about a pupil," Mr Fenwick said. "And there are lots of teachers who will say, ‘don’t call him gay. That’s a horrible word’.

"You should have homophobia built into the bullying policy in every school. Otherwise, you’re saying, you can’t bully on the grounds of race or sex, but sexual orientation is OK. There’s a hierarchy of bullying."

The bitter taste of ‘lemon’ graffiti

When a 13-year-old pupil was taken out of school, Linda Brown (not her real name) did not imagine that she would be cited as the reason. But the West Midlands PE teacher was informed that the girl’s parents objected to their daughter being taught by a lesbian. "The year before, the girl had come to lunchtime clubs and after-school matches," Miss Brown said. "She went from joining everything, to nothing at all. Then she left. I was gutted."

This was one of the examples of homophobia the 37-year-old has encountered from parents, pupils and staff at school. Pupils have refused to change into their PE kit while Miss Brown is in the room. "You’ve got 12-year-old children thinking they’re superior to you," she said. "Even though you’re a member of staff, they think they can say things to you just because you’re gay. You’re a lesser mortal."

Pupils regularly shouted "lemon" or "dyke" as she walked down the corridor, or daubed crude graffiti on school walls. One pupil wrote "Miss Brown is a lemon" on the doors of the PE cupboard, knowing that she would come face-to-face with it several times each day. The graffiti was not removed for a week.

While senior managers were supportive, they were only prepared to take action when a culprit could be identified. So, last summer, Miss Brown decided to leave teaching for a job with the local authority.

"If I’d had a career without any of the abuse, I’d probably have gone on teaching," she said. "But you have kids you don’t even know, you’ve never spoken to, shouting things down the corridor. It feels like bullying. I’d like to see schools challenge that. Homophobia needs to be dealt with as racism was. Everyone needs to know it’s unacceptable."