Newish to school, witnessed a verbal dressing down...

[PeaceFilly]

I've been working as a LSW (support worker) in a medium sized secondary since last September. Today I saw a male teacher really really shouting at a student. It was really shocking. I thought it was aggressive and only seemed to be about a bit of missing homework. I was hanging around slowly clipping something to a notice board to see what happened and it went on for at least five minutes. I was actually too scared myself to walk past what was happening. Should I do anything about it? I'm new and don't want to be seen as a troublemaker but I have to admit that tears sprung into my eyes thinking about if my own son was ever spoken to like that. The student tried to respond but the teacher just kept shouting.

It's not great to properly shout at kids like that, but it's hard to judge properly unless you actually know the context. I don't mean to be rude, but if you were scared to walk past someone being told off, and were tearful at some shouting, you might find that working in a secondary school is not really suitable for you.

Find our what happened. You have no idea.

As a teacher I would be horrified if I saw another member of staff shouting for that length of time at a child. I don’t believe there are any instances where that is appropriate - we have extensive training and techniques given to us about effective behaviour management. We aren’t punching bags or there to be abused no, but they are children and we are adults.
I’d report it informally to my line manager (which for me as SLT is the Head) if it was me. There are behaviour policies for every school - I guarantee it doesn’t sanction shouting and intimidation.

@lughnasadh err no I'm not "making shit up" why would I?!
Yes I don't know what happened. But from what I could glean it was down to a missed homework. I don't know the student and only slightly know the member of staff.
And thanks for the implication that Im not up to working on a secondary school. I'm perfectly up to it and have seen all manner of discipline, but I have never ever seen the sustained volume, towering aggression and bullying verbiage I saw today in any scenario and I went to a city comp in the 80s. The child was hardly some gobby year 12 it was a year 7/8?!

Why would the op make it up??

Op I used to work at a primary and the way pupils there were spoken to and dealt with made my skin crawl...one of the worst perpetrators was my sons teacher at the time. I complained several times to the head and nothing happened...I was a govenor at the school and raised it...nothing happened.

So I discreetly, non threateningly but honestly took the teacher aside and gently explained that if I ever, ever heard from my son that she had been anything less than respectful then It would be me she would need to speak to next.

There are so many great teachers out there, but there are some genuinely nasty ones too.

Unfortunately there is a lot of denial about this in schools.

Speak to the DSLO.

Your version of aggressive is another persons firm. You don't know the history of the relationship between the teacher and student, teachers rarely 'snap' unless provoked more than most people would normally tolerate. I think you might find working in a secondary tough OP.

That’s awful - please please please do report this.

This is totally unacceptable and someone has to speak up for these kids, if not you then who?

There a power tripping bullies in all walks of life

The first two replies to this post are so oddly hostile - why on earth would the op have made it up?

I think you should report it too, op. I was yelled at like that when I was in primary - a couple of times, by the same teacher - and it really affected my self-confidence. I always remember on one occasion another teacher came into the room while it was going on and I was crying by that point, and she just ducked right out of the room. She was a nice teacher but after that I always felt let down by her.

Anyway, good luck. It's a tricky situation for you.

If you are genuinely concerned for the child's welfare then I would report it as a safeguarding concern and it can be investigated by the appropriate people.

If the teacher was shouting at close range, it's arguably a risk re Covid as well.

If you don't think it meets that threshold, then leave it alone.

Wow that sounds bad. I would definitely find someone to speak to about it. Terrible to think what that one teacher is doing to the confidence of kids.

Your school will have a whistle-blowing policy which will tell you what you need to know, including who to report this to (probably the Headteacher).

Sounds very inappropriate and wouldn't be acceptable in any workplace

I'm perfectly up to it and have seen all manner of discipline, but I have never ever seen the sustained volume, towering aggression and bullying verbiage I saw today in any scenario and I went to a city comp in the 80s. The child was hardly some gobby year 12 it was a year 7/8?!

Fair enough then - my apologies, OP. I'm not defending the shouting, especially if it really was just over a piece of missing homework. And the fact that you say in your later post that it was a yr7 or 8 definitely makes it worse. I can imagine a teacher finally having a full-on rant at a tough year 11 kid after every other method of getting through has failed, but this does sound unreasonable.

@GreyWall

Your version of aggressive is another persons firm. You don't know the history of the relationship between the teacher and student, teachers rarely 'snap' unless provoked more than most people would normally tolerate. I think you might find working in a secondary tough OP.

True for most teachers, but there's always been teachers who snap far too often and far too soon. I wonder what causes people to be in denial of this?