To think the TA should have handled this differently.

[VivaLeBeaver]

DD is 9yo, she is playing with friends in the playground and one girl says to DD "try and pick me up". DD is quite a bit smaller than all her ffriends. So she trys, staggers a bit and they both fall over with DD on top of this other girl. DD giggles at this point as she thinks the falling over was kind of funny. They get up, the other girl seemed OK at first but then decided her leg hurt a bit and she and the other girls decided to tell the TA that she was hurt. Now the TA is the mother of the girl with the hurt leg. So this girl goes to her mum, starts limping when seeing her mum and is now crying, tells her mum that my DD has fallen on top of her and that my DD then laughed at her.

Sounds like my DD was now too upset to stand up for herself and say she didn't laugh but was generally giggling. One of the other girls did try to stick up for DD but was ignored. Sounds like it was quite a severe telling off and has left my DD very upset.

A few minutes later its end of playtime and girls have gone inside. Another TA who is good friends with the first one (but nothing to do with DD's class) then corners my DD in a dorrway and tells her off again.

I'm very annoyed. There seems to be a total lack of imapartiality by the TA as her DD was involved. I don't think the girl told her mum it was her who asked to be picked up. I don't think that its fair having an obviously upset girl told off by 2 TAs. If they do feel the need to tell her off then surely once is enough. Its taken DD nearly 2 hours to stop crying.

DD is normally fairly friendly with this other girl, they have the occasional spats as kids do. DD has been saying recently that the girl can be a bit mean and physically push DD and tell her to go away. DD had already told me that she didn't feel she could tell the teachers as they're all friends with the girl's mum.

All sounds very unprofessional. Often people are incapable of behaving like professionals when it involves their children.

If you feel it needs addressing, then have a word with the teacher / head.

There is no head at the school, she left. Deputy head appears to be very friendly with the TA. I am going to speak to her on Monday but don't think I'm going to get very far.

I think it must be hard working at the place where your kids are but you need to stay professional.

When I was working in school and doing playground duty, if ever there was a dispute involving my ds my policy was to let another adult deal with it. Only way to be fair.

I assume the account of this is what your DD has told you so it is possible that it is not the entire truth either. I would mention something to the teacher if your DD was very upset and see if ahe can get to the bottom of it but I would try to avoid saying that the friend has definitely lied and your daughter is definitely telling the truth.

I'm not sure that DD's friend has lied as such, just that she thought DD was laughing at her and DD says she was giggling. I suppose DD could be fibbing and could have stood there and laughed at the fact her friend was hurt. But that would be very unlike DD (yes I'm biased) but also another girl in the school backed DD up to me outside school. She saw DD crying and came over and told me what had happened and it was the same as what DD had said.

I won't accuse the other girl of lieing, I'm more annoyed with the way its been handled. Even if DD had been in the wrong I'd have thought it had been handled badly. I do think the TA needs to let someone else handle theses situations.

Giggling or not, her own child or not, hurt or not, a child who picks up another child in the playground deserves to be told off quite sternly.

They were playing, maybe I'm wrong but I don't think that picking up a kid warrents a telling off, especially not when the kid has asked to be picked up. If so maybe she should have told her own daughter off for askign to be picked up.

And been told off by 2 adults one afetr the other when she's crying and upset.

Yes, pretty sure that any school rules will be clear on that sort of thing, for obvious reasons. Many primary schools won't allow physical contact of any kind. And staff backing each other up isn't necessarily a bad thing, however telling a crying child off seems stupid really.

It may be that one TA told her off and another one mentioned it. I would check what happened with the TAs before saying anything. Did you suspect the TA was favouring her child to the detriment of others before this incident? It must be quite difficult for teachers/TAs to deal fairly with incidents they haven't seen and only have the childrens accounts to go on.

Are you saying the kids are idiots SGM? Or the staff?

YEs, many schools have no physical contact. It is a shame, especially for the little ones, but picking up children on tarmac is pretty dangerous and really not a good idea.

She has got form for favouring her own kid, but nothing really thats affected us before. Just stuff like when her kid was upset/sad over something she got to spend playtime in the staff room having cuddles. No other kid gets allowed to stay in the staff room at play time.

Staff don't make the rules, at least, most of them don't.

Goodness, my dd and her little friends are constantly hugging each other, holding hands and yes - dare I say - picking each other up!

dd is one of the smallest in her class, so probably gets picked up more than most.

I wouldn't have thought that this should merit a serious telling off!

There isn't a rule about not picking each other up and it sounds like the thing sahe was getting told off for was for "laughing at the other kid". DD is adament that she wasn't laughing at the other kid but was giggling as they fell over, they were having a giggly play session and I can see if they're both messsing around like this that there would be giggling. My DD just carried on giggling longer than the other.

The other girl has gone running to mummy, and either genuinely thought DD was laughing at her or on the sly things its a good opportunity to get DD into trouble. The mum and another TA have taken it in turns to tell DD off and both of them make DD says sorry to the other girl for laughing at her.

Have never worked in any school with a no physical contact rule. Nor had any playtime policy that would set out such rules on the type of play forbidden.

We have a friendship charter and a bullying policy. That's it.

I am now a TA (was a teacher) and would have wanted to know what happened and why, and listened to both girls seperately. But I would have told them both that lifting each other up is a sill game to play where there is a hard concrete floor to fall on. I;d have checked the hurt girl was ok - if no, sent her to first aid, if yes, sent them both off to play with a stern reminder to play nicely.

Loopyloops - where do you know with such policies?

Most schools I know (worked in primary and secondary) don't even have a policy on no physical contact between staff and children, let alone between the little children themselves.

Infact the only place I have worked at with a no physical contact policy between staff and students is a prison, and even then some physical contact between students themselves was permitted.

I'm a secondary teacher but have worked in two primaries, both with this rule (not in the secondaries though). I don't know if it was perhaps a regional thing (both near to each other, maybe all local schools did).

Maybe a regional thing - definitely not my experience across Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.

TBH I think it is a ridiculous policy esp in primaries and completely unenforcable.

LoopyLoops, why is staff backing each other up not necessarily a bad thing?

At my DDs' school, all the TAs either have relatives with children there, or are friends/neighbours with the parents. This results in all sorts of favouritism and people "backing each other up". Why do we have to put up with TAs who are not 100% dedicated and professional, like the majority of teachers? OP, I think what you described is very odd, although our school does have a "no touching" policy and it does make things easier. On this occasion I would have thought your DD should have been told not to pick up children in future however much fun everyone is having because if you drop/fall on someone then that's what happens, but not "told off" for giggling. As you say, the other child has probably interpreted it that way accidentally. Or not.

Definitely say something, but not sure how far you will get. When's the new head due?

Staff backing each other up is usually a good thing, as it reinforces the consistency of rules to the children. In this case, it may have been over the top, but you will often find that children play up for some teachers and not others, so when their favourite teacher (or TA) lets them know what they have been like in another situation, they can begin to understand that the school is one place where the same rules and standards apply.

I am going to say something on Monday to the Deputy head. They're not getting a new head, they decided they're going to save money by not having one. The old one left a year ago.