Teaching Assistant yelling at my child...?

[heartbroken22]

Dd 6 came home yesterday bursting out crying and not herself as TA yelled at her quite badly in lesson. This may have been the 5th occasion in the past month she's been picked on but yesterday was quite bad. Her friends had to ask her if she was okay as she was shaken up and humiliated. She said she felt her personal space was invaded and the yelling was quite loud.

Who would I complain too? Would you rather email or phone the school? I don't really want to speak to the teaching assistant directly but maybe someone from safeguarding...

But I'm not here to convince you, as with anything related to children and schools, there are those who just moan about how rubbish and ridiculously parents behave and how spoilt and entitled children these days are. It's really a bit blinkered. Those children will in 10-20 years be in the workforce, and some of them will be caring for the grumps.
I think that's what a lot of people are worried about! This future 'caring' workforce!

If your child is misbehaving, then the shouting is fair game, but....

My year 5 teacher back in the 90s was awful to me and I used to say I was getting bullied by her to my parents. They obviously relatively ignored me and just assumed that I was too chatty in class and had it coming from said teacher. 30 years later, I look back on the situation and realise that the teacher was just a bully and didn't like me for whatever reason.

Moral of the story is that sometimes teachers sometimes just don't get along with some of their pupils, and maybe we should be listening to the child's side of things.

So, treat them well.

There is no excuse for aggressive teachers just as there is no excuse for verbally aggressive co-workers, line managers, siblings, parents, customers and so on.

Equally pupils should also not be verbally aggressive. However when they are, there are consequence as there should be.

Indeed. But there's a half way between "my child is 100% lying" and "my child is 100% telling the truth"....

Problem is many parents are happy if there are consequences for staff but not so happy if there are consequences for their child

I don't think it is toxic within a school environment. Shouting (or a raised voice) is sometines required, especially amongst those who don't head gentle reminders. I am a TA and often have to remind kids of their tone or volume and they don't take the required actions to cool down or conteol their voices and the only way to get heard is yo raise my voice. All of my children understand that is my boundary and they have crossed it. They understand that I am displeased but never take it personally. Kids need to understand boundaries and when they don't do it young, it becomes harder and harder when they get older.

OP needs to find out all info first. As it might be a simple misunderstanding and they run the risk of getting it wrong by going in all g**s blazing.

Oh yes absolutely. I mean, I did chat a fair amount in primary school so there was some ammo for my teacher, but she just took it too far!

I wasn't asking for hypothetical scenarios and there is no excuse to shout at a child no matter what they have done especially in an educational setting where that child is in your care.

They also want consequences for other children. How many times do we see on MN that another child did something to their child and the teacher did nothing.

No one is saying it is right to shout at a child.

What people are saying is when a member of staff has to raise their voice slightly or use a different tone, many children see that as shouting, and will go home and tell their parents (but conveniently forget to to tell them what they had been doing for a member of staff to use a different tone)

No-one on here is advocating shouting at a pupil but sometimes it is totally fine to change your tone.

That is why you need to go in calmly and find out what happened and then if necessary ask your child to see if they can change their behaviour where appropriate. And equally the staff member may need to change the way they do things.

Far better to work with the school than against it

Oh how ridiculous. An adult shouting at a child once is not a sign of abuse. Sustained harsh talk is abuse. A lack of positive talk is abuse. But shouting is not necessarily abuse.

I shouted "stop" at a child today and they were really upset by this and cried. But I had spoken to him and asked him to stop arguing with the other child, and he didn't. If I had continued asking nicely, he would have continued arguing and upset his friend, possibly leading to a physical fight (there is plenty of history of this). So what's better? Him upset at a single shout, or two boys injured fighting?

As a parent whose child was actively
bullied by a teacher in primary school I’d say you know your child. I knew mine and I knew when she was exaggerating something and when she was telling me the truth. When she told me what was going on with this teacher and the way she had spoken to her and begged me not to speak to the head again because it would come back to her, and when another parent raised a complaint about same teacher she thought it was me and took it out on my child again in front of the whole class, I pulled my daughter from school until they agreed to never make her set foot inside that woman’s classroom again. I was the second parent that term to do it. She was a piece of work and how she was ever allowed to teach I don’t know. You need to speak to school - if your ki was being naughty enough to be spoken to 6 times the teacher should have called u in and the fact they haven’t raises some questions. Find out what is going on and why this TA is speaking to your child so much

Nothing that warrants being yelled at by an adult

Just out of interest, how do you expect the children to respect the TA when you are saying things like 'leave behavioural issues to me'.

Both adults, both qualified members of staff, both responsible for the children. I would find it incredibly patronising if you said I wasn't allowed to deal with behaviour issues in class. In my class, we work as a team. One doesn't treat the other like this.

Why don't you ask the TA what happened? Why is everyone saying 'speak to the teacher' like the TA is a naughty little child? She will be a qualified member of staff, answerable to the same people further up the food chain as the teacher, NOT answerable to the teacher.

Perhaps you would then understand exactly what happened, what was said and why your child has had to be spoken to several times. If you're not happy with her response, then you have the option of contacting the Head.

I remember speaking to the class once when we had a supply teacher in (you always expect them to push the boundaries when it's someone different in class). I spoke to them all and said I'm not happy with your behaviour and you wouldn't be behaving like this if Mrs X was here so don't behave like this for our guest. No sooner I'd said it, 2 boys got up to do a really weird 'dance' right in front of me. It was as if they'd heard me and thought, yeah, we're not listening to you either, so I gave them both a behaviour point. Cue, parents of one child at the door complaining about me so I was called across to explain. I was accused of punishing him for the whole class. Then they emailed the Head. Following morning they spoke to the class teacher because I'd upset him. Is it any wonder kids get away with so much when parents will defend their every action and blame everyone else but their child?

Find out what your child did wrong before you try and get the TA in trouble.

Spot on

Exactly. Perhaps the child had been told repeatedly about their behaviour and as a result of this, a stronger tone/louder voice was used as they just weren't listening.

Well said 👏

So did you find out why your child had to be spoken loudly to?

And what had happened the other 5 times when you mentioned that your child was being picked on?

Exactly

For me it depends on the situation. My TA is there to support certain individuals. Low level behaviour I would expect all adults in the room to manage but in my school TA’s certainly don’t raise their voice towards children.

If a member of teaching staff or support staff started raising their voice and shouting at children in the class then they have already lost the respect of the children or scared the younger children. In my school, in my class, if a member of support staff started shouting at a group of children then I would be there instantly finding out what was going on and supporting my TA.

It is not always the job of a TA to speak to the parent or speak to the class the way you have. In my school this would not be allowed.
It’s part of the teachers remit to speak to parents and children about behaviour. If you were in my class and undermined me like that then I wouldn’t be impressed. Doesn’t matter if it’s a newly qualified teacher or a supply teacher, you’ve just undermined them.

I'm glad to hear you would support your TA.

No one wants to yell at children but sometimes they have such a lack of respect for adults (usually because of the parents' attitude towards school/discipline/behaviour) and as such a firm/raised voice becomes necessary.

Would not be allowed?? I'm an experienced teacher and find that shocking. It's the creation of an obvious adult hierarchy in school that often leads to TAs not being respected. They need to be able to sanction and reward children like a teacher can.

Undermined them? Excuse me? If I need to remind the class of our expectations because the supply teacher is not (or is not aware), then I will do so. Turn the situation around - imagine if the Head or SLT walked in and the class was running riot and I was doing nothing about it then wouldn't it look like I wasn't doing my job? In our school, that would certainly be the case!