to think my 5yr old shouldn't be pushed around by teaching staff

[youcantparkthatthere]

Hi First post, this has been niggling away at me for a week now. I recently attended a ceremony and my sons school which was been held in the local church. He is in a class of perhaps 16 children. As I watched the children file in I became increasingly annoyed at how one of the teaching staff was manging the children. it was clearly the childrens first time at one of these events and they were understandably unsure of what to do. Some of the children were going into the pew in front of or behind the one the teacher wanted them to go in. However the teacher/TA's response to this was to repeatedly, and IMO, too roughly take hold of the children and physically direct them into their intended seats. We're not talking here about a guiding hand on their shoulders, more like two hands firmly on their shoulders abruptly turning them in the desired direction and pushing them into their intended place.
To me this is quite clearly using physical force to get a child to comply with instruction, as distinct from a reassuring physical guidance. In my line of work, social worker, this would be considered a breach of the children's act and consequently illegal. Similiarly if any of the staff I managed conducted themselves in this way, I would at the very least be forced to issue them with a formal warning.
I'm not a bleeding heart liberal, I believe children need very clear mangement and a sense of no meaning no, (along with yes meaning yes, i.e. keeping promises etc). The main thing that is getting to me is the fact that I'm sure the school would discourage the children behaving like this to one another, so the adults should be modelling this in their own behaviour.
I feel I need to speak to the headteacher but I'm worried this will either be blown out of proportion or minimised. I also dont want my son standing out in a small school as the child whose Dad interferes/overreacts.
Any thoughts. It pisses me of that people think they can negate childrens right to respect and civility just because their small.
In the spirit of fairness I should declare that I find the woman in question very cold and somewhat abrupt with the children, in stark contrast to the rest of the school team, (wholly unsuited to her job imho!)Sorry if too long.

OP it's been a rule as long as t'Internet has been around that before posting in ANY online forum you LURK and you LURK and you LURK and you get a feel for what kind of discourse (getting all technical for a mo) is appropriate in that 'place'. You didn't do your homework WRT to the AIBU threads on MN, they have a bit of a different tone to the camping and gardening ones [hgrin]

That being said, you did get off lightly, you really did, as your OP did come across as very very pompous, which makes people assume that you ARE pompous and that what you saw was probably NOT out of order! All we have to go on is your opinion on what you saw - if the opinion we form of you is "up his own arse" then of course it will get ridiculed!

oh that's rubbish,post,pile in take tough with smooth
thats poor advice all this alleged etiquette and know the place.
not at all- make a comment,participate and dont throw rattle oot pram if not going as desired

oh and the other thing... this is mumsnet AIBU, on a FRIDAY think "pack of hungry hunting lionesses" - you might be Alpha male Wolf in your own little neck of the wood, but you're in lioness territory here, open Savanah, nowhere to hide!

my god cat youre swimming in lake cliché
lionesses,savannah,alpha male,lurk....its topofthepopstastic for clichés

There's nothing wrong with what people wrote.

This is MUMSNET, we're not in a meeting

You got a mixture of serious and funny answers. That's the way it is.

Your original herding description did not sound that bad but your next one does. Take it further, maybe she needs a bit more guidance.

Until then try and get on board with the humour- we're all against child abuse and there's a lot of respect for social workers on here - markedly different than other boards and the meeja.

'tis not rubbish advice posts in AIBU are dealt with VERY differently to those in camping!

hark at you like wise ole sage of mn,arrr its like this round these pats....
your chucked rattle wont reach me as it cant get by your obstructions of lionesses,alpha males,savannah and lake cliche.

well all have different levels of writing ability. And a social worker does have to be able to write. (reports etc.)

In my experience here people who come on with problems mean what they say; and ridicule is a dish I would reserve for people like Cameroonney, foxy,
Blair, Duncan Smith etc etc etc. People who do real harm,

I take back my rattle scottishmummy and accept your compliment with grace and a bow.

I love a good cliche me, nothing nicer with a nice cup of tea and a crumpet (apart from a hind leg of alpha male on a Friday tea time)

dont stop cat i was enjoying the ambient mixed metaphors,i really was

Oh. Hello Gabby chill1243.

How have you been?

We Chills stumble along, Teth. Keep right on to the end of the winding road.

i find it hilarious that people online are always in a relevant job position when complaining about things.

It is almost as if they are making it up so it makes there point have more validity.

only read OP, but I think you should do something. It isn't acceptable to push people around like that, when a gentle word would do so much better.

I saw a nursery worker grab a child roughly by the upper arm, and wanted to say "you wouldn't like it if I grabbed you like that, particularly if it wasn't your arm I grabbed, which it probably wouldn't be if it were MY DC I'd seen you manhandle"

But of course I didn't - I just gawped wordlessly and didn't think of a coherent sentence til 5 minutes later :o

As EX was collecting my DS from same nursery, he saw my boy being roughed around, and simply said to the carer "you're lucky it was me who saw that and not Boasting...."

I know childcare is hard work, and we are all only human, but we should be able to expect more.

I cant believe that dikkertdjap is defending parents pushing their children around. As I said in my earlier comments the ill will on this thread is appalling, vis, "I hope you lose your job soon". as for the people who have visited the thread throughout the day and came back very seriously when their motivations were questioned only to now say, after my last post, "oh go off in a huff then" etc..... all I can say is that there is a lot of humble pie on the table before them being actively avoided.
Nonetheless, being a SW and all, I'm simply describing what I observe in such a way as the individuals can here it. As a SW I know how difficult that is to hear and I really understand the hurt you must be feeling.

I need to bath the children now, making sure I'm very careful how I do this, dont want an allegation do we, I'll then wrap them in hemp towels that we bought when as a family we supported a village school in an underpriveldged country rather than take a more convemtional holiday.

After that I'll read them a story in which nobody loses, nobody wins and everyone is of equal value.

That done, I'll then check out how my wife is feeling as a human being and woman first, rather than simply a mother.

Once I konw everyone else is allright I'll then take the sack cloth and ashes off my back and be grateful for everything I have.

After that I will have a fag, go to the pub and reflect, as all good social workers do, on how lucky I am to know people who can distinguish between when it's okay to have a joke and when not.

After that I'll have another pint and think about the kind of life that those who were in and out of this post all day must have. I will arrogantly conclude a blessedly simple one if all they can do is flit between post being crappy to people. That said, I now think they must have fairly awful lives if all they can do is seek oppurtunities to vommit what is clearly their own crap all over others from the comfort of thier own homes.

It's a real shame though because, despite the content of the majority of the comments, i did see the funny side and saw people who are much better at this kind of thing than clearly i am, I would have enjoyed the banter had it came a little later.

I'll take the advice to sit and watch for a while before deciding where to post in the future, personally I thought it was a bit indulgent to do this when people are describing things that, however petty to the posters today, are real to the OP. what has become clear is that there is a significant group of people who just cant wait to kick people about for a laugh, i note that they appear almost pack-like in other threads. you can question me as a SW all you like, but I know, pompous or not, that I am a fundemantally decent person who doesn't take pleasure at mocking others and I can sleep at night knowing that I haven't been shitty to someone beneath the guise of "just having a laugh"

You see?

You can crack a joke.

That was hilarious. I liked the bit about the hemp towels

I vote that next year OP is volunteered to accompany the class and sit them in church quickly and quietly.
I would suspect that she has never taken 16 5yrs olds anywhere at the same time and certainly not somewhere new.

Nonetheless, being a SW and all, I'm simply describing what I observe in such a way as the individuals can here it.

But your description changed radically in your OP you said:

We're not talking here about a guiding hand on their shoulders, more like two hands firmly on their shoulders abruptly turning them in the desired direction and pushing them into their intended place.

Which is a pretty standard way IME to get small folk to where they need to be - unless they were stumbling and falling over I would imagine what you describe as 'pushing' could also be described as 'propelling' the hands on the shoulders sounds like 'twizzling them to face the right way'.

This then changed to:

very roughly pulling the children by their collars, arms etc and basically shoving the children back and forth according to her wishes

If that is what happened then I'd expect there to have been some pretty vocal protests from the children including some tears plus at least one or two on the floor - once one 5 year old falls down at least a few tend to domino when they're relatively tightly packed. Did any children cry, was your own child marked from where the teacher was pulling on their arm, perhaps some redness round the neck from where the collar dug in?

If the latter then why the heck are you asking us what we think, you should have been straight onto that right away. If the former (which is what most people based their responses on) then honestly it sounds fine...

Dikker was out of order,no one knows your competencies or practise and she was talking dribble.but it does seem you're over thinking this and extrapolating a lot - but no I don't see you or sw profession under the attack you perceive.and some where in there was fair bit mirth too. And no I dont agree that anyone needs to tippytoe around mnto get feel,that's too precious.just post and roll with it.

Oh dear. I've been on your side OP and I agree that the comment about you losing your job was crappy. But I think you're making too much of this. Certainly saying that posters who revisit a thread must either have blessedly simple or sad lives is asking for a .
I'm here, at home, on holiday and stuck on the sofa with an illing child. It's either MN or concentrate on the dinosaur films playing on loop. The way MN is going today, I'll get more sense from the pink stegosaurus.

You. Are. A. Loon.

HTH

What Hully said at 19:15

And I hope you spell check your reports.

Quite quite shocking.

HTH too.

I have to say, Hully, I'm glad someone else has pointed out the shocking errors in the OP's posts.

I, however, wouldn't dream of judging him on anything so petty when there are far more serious subjects to hand...

such as the OP being up his own arse.

I never spellcheck on mn,it doesn't matter.work does.mn is online rattle tattle not requiring a great attention to detail