I'm sure this is none of my business, but it's bothering me

[Puffinfoot]

I live across the road from a Primary school.

Yesterday afternoon, for a sustained period I could hear a man really ranting, screaming and shouting from the classroom opposite. Their classroom door and my windows were open, but the class is across a wide road and some green space and I could hear it in inside my house.

I'm not a teacher, I briefly worked in school some years ago and the one occasion there was shouting like that, it stopped very quickly and adults from nearby classrooms went to find out what on earth was going on. It was that unusual and not "allowed". (On that occasion a teacher had responded to a child doing something dangerous)

Presumably, adults inside the school must have heard and will have taken appropriate action to support the adult and children and necessary....?

What was he shouting?

I don't know, loud high pitched screaming and ranting, but I couldn't hear the words.

Could it have been a child with additional needs having a meltdown?

No it was definitely and adult male and coming from an infant class

It’s the end of term, could they have had some sort of entertainment in ? My GC have some historical show this week

You obviously weren’t in my primary or high school🤣. Both male and female teachers used to absolutely crack it and I’m sure could have been heard streets away. We also had one in high school who used to peg the old wooden dusters at us when they really lost it, generally before storming out. Another used to slam those old huge wooden blackboard compasses down hard on the desk in front of you if they caught you not paying attention, as in mind had wandered off and obviously staring into space, resulting in either broken compass or cracked wooden desk. Pretty soon got your attention! We always wondered how many boxes he ordered of the bloody things. Was in the days when we all managed and no one would think to go home and tell parents as we’d likely get a belting from them for getting in trouble at school. Very different to my kids era at school when parents would have stormed the place. We all managed though, all did well (probably as made to pay attention no matter how boring teachers were🤣), and trundled onto life with no ill effects.

If you live across the road, it would be nearly impossible to tell if the screaming was coming from a classroom with students present, an empty classroom, a staff room, an out of sight outdoor area and whether it was a staff member, a parent, an older student or the older sibling of an infant student. Could also have been a performance or something coming from a film the students were watching.

If it had been something serious then surely the police or ambulance would have been called.

I suppose it's possible but it was aggressive angry shouting. I'm not sure you'd want your year 2 child seeing that as entertainment.

It was definitely coming from the year 2 classrooms. The they both have doors opening onto a green within the school grounds that is directly opposite my house. The offices and reception are on the other side of the building.

Personally I'd call the school and discuss it with them. If it was so loud that it was disturbing neighbours, they'll have to call him out on it.

i suspect this happens a lot and explains why kids start getting anxiety early. They can’t really complain to their parents because they think it’s because someone was naughty and they all deserved it even though it’s difficult to work out what’s naughty anymore. Theres going to be a lot of angry parents on the horizon when more of this comes out.

Ring the school and speak to the head definitely!!!

@HoppingPavlova my primary school was like that. Pupils rarely misbehaved, but if they did, they knew about it!!
Sadly those says are long gone, the teachers are barely allowed to raise their voices now, even if some little horror is rampaging round the classroom and preventing others from having a good school experience

If you could hear it then it must have been heard in other parts of the school. If it was something untoward or dangerous someone would surely have intervened.
You should probably keep out of it

I would call/ drop into the school as well.
Sometimes schools get a supply teacher who shouldn't really be teaching. Not a criticism of supply teachers in general just that the school doesn't actively choose them. My DDs class has one who was really unpleasant to the kids when she didn't realise I was round the corner helping with reading. I told the head and they didn't hire her again.

Presumably, adults inside the school must have heard and will have taken appropriate action to support the adult and children and necessary....?

Never assume when it comes to the safety and well-being of kids. Maybe the other teachers were involved in something noisy on the other side of the building.

If it’s concerned you enough to post here I think it’s worth contacting the school about.

I work with a preschool. We had a member of the public raise a concern recently, it turned out to be nothing but I was still grateful for them raising the concern, we should all be watching out for kids.

I'm a teacher and I say you should contact the head and explain your concerns.

I had a teacher like this when I was at school. He would rant and rave, go red in the face with yelling. I remember a child correcting him and he lost it (the child was right, don’t was done out of ego). I’ve never forgotten it, his face, the child who would have been about 7 or 8 just shrinking into himself, even though he was already a fairly shy child. I recall thinking that I was on the child’s side because he had been right, it didn’t make me respect our teacher more.

Adults who cannot contain their anger shouldn’t be allowed to be near kids like this. It has an impact.

I hope whatever you heard wasn’t what you thought and some poor kid hasn’t had a bashing.

If other teachers here are saying get in touch then maybe that’s for the best and share your concerns - hopefully if you’ve never heard it before this is a one off.

Sounds a bit extreme coming from a year 2 class. Given that it would suggest a class full of 6/7 year olds. Not many male early years teachers neither. Thing is, you can’t know for sure where it was coming from or what the context was.

You should never presume other adults will intervene. Remember that case in the news not so long ago about a poor baby that died in nursery after being strapped face down onto a bean bag?

The vast majority of teachers are great, unfortunately others shouldn't be anywhere near children. I would try and record the shouting and report it to the school. If it continues I would report to ofsted and possibly post it on a local page to make parents aware (I would want to know if any of my DCs were being shouted at.)

Child welfare is everyone's business.

Well what harm can it do to report it?
It's better to be wrong and report it than be right and do nothing.
Maybe other adults did intervene, maybe other staff have concerns about his behaviour and your report will back them up or make it easier for them to complain about him.

If their is another explanation then no harm was done.

I would tell the school it would bother me, the children could be frightened and the teacher might need support. I moved my children re teacher behaviour and the school got investigated

Agreed. The mental gymnastics that goes on to try to explain away teachers' behaviour looks exhausting.

Call the school of course and say next time you’ll record it and send it to Ofsted. That’s not ok.

I think I'd go for the, is very thing ok route as you ve heard aggressive yelling from a distance away and let the school deal with it.