How do you approach/deal with a teacher who shouts to get the classes attention?

[ShoutyStyle]

I have a child who is displaying signs of emotional immaturity, neuro-diversity etc. They are in the process of being assessed/receiving EHCP. We are getting them to school but not in every lesson. Several teachers are very shouty and this destroys their confidence. They are not being shouted at - the class is, but from a sensory and emotional point of view they can’t stand it. SENCO/pastoral care are helping but as a parent would you raise any issues directly with the teachers to help them understand how their shouting is undermining all the work we are doing to get our child into school/lessons? I am obviously and clearly biased but could do with an unemotional response as to how I can help to resolve this. They actually went into school ok today but have come home very upset and now not wanting to go in tomorrow. An adult would not stand being shouted at in the workplace - why do children have to endure this? Please be kind as I am very upset and just want a happy child to go into school as best they can without being afraid of their teachers.

I teach secondary. I 'shout' to get my class's attention (even if they're on task, a room full of teenagers all talking at the same time is LOUD, and there's always one who's making too much noise), but I don't ever shout AT them in an aggressive/telling off way (usually if a teacher is doing that, they've lost control of the class - I did it sometimes early in my career when I was still working on my behaviour management. It's not good practice, though!).

Yes this is it. Thats what l used to do. I tried never to shout. But Y8 last thing on Friday😖

@ShoutyStyle look at The Autistic Girls network, it describes our girls perfectly.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow I don’t think she is selectively mute in school but I know she will say as little as possible. She’s very respectful to staff members unless she gets into a high anxiety state but even then she doesn’t swear. She has become aggressive and very rude to me though but I’m her safe person. She’s never had a detention. Thank you for saying don’t toughen her up - I feel I need to for her to cope with high school but she is struggling so much and I don’t want to make it worse for her. I just think she will get where she needs to be in Her own time. And will probably go on to wow us all with her achievements!

A teacher cannot run her class around the needs of just one child. I wonder if mainstream is the right setting for your DD.

I'd do some work around sensory tolerances with your child. Experiment with them giving thumbs up or down to a recording of various noise stimuli. Then share your child's sensory overload needs with the school citing loud, harsh voices as a trigger if it is. It can often a problem with the white noise coming from others in class and child not able to screen it out. Referring to a teacher’s voice will not make any inroads.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions and input. It’s good to feel that I’m not the only parent out there struggling with a teacher that shouts due to loss of control rather than just as a general shout to gets a classroom’s attention. SENCO are on board for tomorrows return to school so wish me luck.

But would she volunteer to say something? Or would she not want to draw attention to herself? Because that is still a communication issue. How does she react when out on the spot?

My Dd ( mild) selective mutism went a long way to securing her EHCP. And the weird thing was, the child who wouldn’t talk to teachers chatted freely when looking round specialist provision😮because there were very few observers.

l ask about burnout because they become ‘more autistic’ in burnout and l wonder if this is what is happening? Is she very tired?

You should get an EHCP eventually. Toughening her up would just put more pressure on her when she’s already struggling. She needs a different environment.

As if there are so many other options

@CwmYoy quire clearly it’s not just one child. Why do you think they shout I’d it’s not aimed at my DD?

I teach languages. I'm not a shouty teacher, and I am lucky to work in a school where behaviour is rarely a problem. However, many MFL lessons involve up to 30 students all talking to each other at once in pairs. It's pretty much impossible to make oneself heard over them to stop the activity without either shouting or using a similarly loud noise. Occasionally we have ND students who find the noise of the pairwork itself a problem tbh.

A teacher cannot run her class around the needs of just one child. I wonder if mainstream is the right setting for your DD.

This is exactly what l thought when teachers were trying to adapt for my dd. It became apparent that whatever they did wasn’t enough. Thats when l knew it was the wrong place for her.

However options other than mainstream are impossible without annEHCP.

No EHCP but I’m working on that. She doesn’t need to go to a specialist school. Just reasonable adjustments (that she understands and can enforce) that her teachers follow.

This is what l thought. Cleared year 11, got 9 GCSE, fell apart due to shouty teachers at Alevel..

She was high functioning, only got diagnosed in November of year 12. She masked it for 16 years. Then it exploded out.

An adult would not stand being shouted at in the workplace - why do children have to endure this?
I think working adults are probably easier to control and better behaved than 1000+ teenagers/nearly teenagers in a secondary school. Just a hunch.

Ds (asd) also had some issues around shouty teachers and one of the things that helped was having a long chat one on one. I think they talked about their favourite books but Ds got to see him in a less scary light.

It also came up during CBT sessions and he did some exploration of the issues there too but I think the book chat helped more than anything else. Humanised him a bit and made it easier for ds to discern when the shouting is not at him.

Everything is still vertyr centered around your child though OP, with no understanding of how classrooms operate. It may be nothing to do with this teacher loosing control, but instead having a group of students that are incredibly hard to manage. Depending on the subject, it may be the only time this particular group of students are together. The teacher is probably as fed up as you with the shouting but sometimes there is no other way.

As for your comments about teachers.... You really showed your attitude there. Google teacher retention....

I'm not sure there's a solution to this in a mainstream school. I'm autistic and incredibly noise sensitive, so I do feel for your child, noise hurts. But there's no way you can expect 30 kids and a teacher to be quiet, and teachers will need to raise their voices from time to time.
Some sort of earplugs that still allow him/her to engage with the lesson, such as loops might help. Or perhaps a time out option when it gets too much.

Can you try and help your DD understand the difference between shouty-I-need-to-be-heard-above-these-students-working-in-pairs....and angry shouting? Maybe use some film clips of angry shouting to show what this looks like. Talk through how she feels when she sees that. Then what is happening when the teacher shouts? How she feels when the teacher shouts. Is she getting the fight/flight reaction to the "hey everyone listen" shout when there is no anger. Is that worth exploring with her?

OP, I've no direct experience but I am in a workplace group with a lot of neurodiverse members who discuss openly how they cope.

A lot of people recommend these earplugs - you can still hear they just make it better. There's all different sorts - some reduce volume, some cut out background noise, some make sound 'tidier'. People have said they're literally life changing. https://www.loopearplugs.com/

Another thing is I know a lot of my colleagues with ASD cannot say what they need, when they're being triggered by something. So a lot of people use visual cues, a card on their desk saying please don't talk to me right now, or a badge at conferences saying they aren't comfortable with social / networking type chat.

I wonder if it would be easier for your DC to have a visual thing to use if they need to use a pass - rather than saying anything. A bright coloured lanyard or even a hat or something - something they can pop on and walk out, and the teacher can see even if they're looking at DC's back so they don't need to ask where they're going.

Really? You could stand all day while kids talked over you, shouted out, shouted at you, swore, threw stuff at each other and made personal comments without EVER raising your voice?

The expectations these days is utterly insane. There is not a single person on earth who could meet it. I stood in front of a class of 30 today and had to shout. 10 students just were not interested in anything else but messing around, calling out and making rude comments. And when I did ask nicely for them to stop I got eye rolls and smirks and rude quips.

Adults do go to work and get shouted at. I do- by parents, by kids and sometimes by other staff. I have every sympathy with the kids but most of them don’t even see us as human beings and the parents are worse.

Difference being those adults chose to work in that particular workplace.
Kids/teens have very little say over the place they spend their days. Not sure it’s a simple case of ‘better behaved’ but I do agree with you that 1000+ tweens/teens crammed into one institution is not going to bring out the best in them 😜

The trouble with passes in class is they are often too anxious to use them in front of other kids or even the teacher.

A pencil case in a certain position or a post it works better.

This should be a perfectly reasonable and achievable thing to expect for your child, but in reality, if one child’s reasonable adjustments make behaviour management of the whole class significantly more challenging and affects their learning, then it’s no longer reasonable.

We have had children with SEN who can’t tolerate the noise in the dining room at lunchtime. The reasonable adjustment isn’t to make children dine in silence because normal school noise should be expected at school. Adjustment needs to be made to enable the child to cope, not eliminate the trigger altogether. Sometimes it takes time for a child to learn to effectively use the strategies that have been made available for them and getting there can be bumpy, but they are still the right strategies.

What else should the teacher do to be heard?

I bet you five quid the teacher isn’t shouting, just speaking loudly and firmly in order to be heard. Teachers being pulled apart for trying to control an unruly class is becoming such a common theme, it’s utterly depressing and ruining the profession as well as our education system. I fully support any teacher using a firm tone with my children if needed.