A concerned mother has withdrawn her children from school after claiming she recorded a teacher berating her daughter and calling her a 'liar'.
Melissa* had become concerned for her 5-year-old daughter, Stacey*, after she came home from her school in Queensland shaking and crying.
Melissa believed she was being bullied by other students and tried to contact the school to find a solution, but to no avail.
Taking a page from a spy novel, she decided to sew an audio recording device into Stacey's scrunchie to get to the bottom of what happened to her daughter.
After sifting through hours of audio material, Melissa claimed she heard the voice of a female teacher yelling at her daughter and accusing her of kicking a student, lying and intimidation.
A concerned mother has caught a teacher berating her five-year-old daughter Edie and accusing her of lying and harassment on a secret audio recorder (stock image)
“Unfortunately… you lie through your face all the time,” a female voice can be heard on the audio tape obtained by A Current Affair.
'Lies, kicking, disrespect, resistance and intimidation.
“You kick people on the street, what happens to you?” she asked another student.
“Uh, you're going to be arrested,” the other kid replied.
Stacey was then asked: 'So do you want that? Would you, as a ten-year-old, want to spend your time kicking people and getting picked up?'
Another student could be heard asking the woman in the audio clip if they were “feeling okay,” to which she responded by saying they were frustrated that her lunch break was being disrupted.
“It's really frustrating when I come back from not even having a lunch break, when I still have ten minutes to eat my food, to find you're kicking people,” she said.
'Excuse me now. And seriously think about the amount of things I have to do now to say you got kicked…for no reason. It's not on!'
She then berated Stacey for falling behind on an art project despite taking two days off from school because her grandmother had died.
“It's at the point where I can't catch up with you anymore. If you haven't done them, it's because you're not there,” she said.
Melissa said that of all the comments she said the teacher made, calling Stacey a liar was the most hurtful.
'The comment that upset me most was: 'You're lying to your face.' “I would say this is verbal abuse, she is five,” she said.
Stacey said she is “sad” and has since become isolated from other students.
She has since withdrawn both her daughters from the Queensland school, the only one in a town of about 800, and called for the teacher's dismissal (stock image)
The mother claims the school failed to inform her of any incident involving Stacey that day and refused to allow her to contact the teacher.
In response, she removed both Stacey and her older sister from the school and called for the teacher's dismissal.
“There is no higher priority for the department than the safety and well-being of students,” the Department of Education said in a statement.
“The department expects all employees to act appropriately and with exemplary ethical standards, and takes action when these expectations are not met.”
“The department is aware of a recent allegation against a state school employee.”
“Allegations against staff will be handled according to department guidelines.”
Ny Breaking Australia has contacted the school for comment.
*Names have been changed