To complain about this TA?

[angryschoolmum]

I have name changed for this post due to ranting at a few people who I think are on here already.
My DD is 5, she left school today weeping due to the comments of a TA. She said that the TA had told the group 2 minutes left and so she rushed the last of her work. Then the TA said "this is awful" about her work.

I know sometimes 5 year olds tell few lies/fibs re school and what happens. When DD does this and I say I'll ask a teacher she will always backtrack and end up confessing she exaggerated/made it up. When I said I'd call school tonight she said "please do, I don't want to see Mrs XXX again".

WIBU to complain to the head as I don't think awful is a word to tell a five year old about their work? If she'd said something like "it's not your best", "we'll redo it tomorrow" or "I don't think you tried hard with this", surely that would be better at this age.

for what it's worth OP i think it's appalling that a TA would label a 5yr old's work "awful" that is not ok; it's stupid and insensitive

Thank you vintage.

Angry, some aspects of the school sound. a little unusual in terms of the way it is structured. However it does sound as if the staff have taken your comments on board which is really positive. I hope this has gone some way to reassure you and your DC.

It has, thank you Eddie. I know I am very sensitive with DD's school life as it is her main sense of stability at present. I asked without mentioning my health as it was not relevant. I now see I was over sensitive, however the contact from the school was a massive help to me.

My Ds at age 6yr 2mth was assessed as having a reading age of 13.6, comprehension age of 13plus and decoding 'off the scale'. It is possible to have early reading and balanced comprehension. He worked with a group much further up the school. He went on to be diagnosed with ASD at aged 9.

He's 19 now and in college. His rapid reading development didn't give him any advantages once he got into secondary school.

Hi dot, I don't believe DD's reading age at 5 will impact her further in life but it is good to know someone else has experienced a young child being placed with a much higher group. Up until this thread I actually thought it was fairly commonplace.

This is why I don't talk about reading in RL. I read fast, a standard novel in about 45 mins. I read with the upper years at school, at primary I was in with an older age group and I also have a photographic memory
It's caused me nothing but trouble, from a teacher saying I was lying about having read a book, to parents accusing my mum of getting me to parrot things because I couldn't possibly have been reading them

The TA was probably tired and the wrong word slipped out. She shouldn't have said it but I'm sure she is sorry. The class teacher was the place to go and discuss it first. I am glad you received a phone call we do care.

I am a TA.
Our children go to shared reading every week. Year 5 are sometimes paired with Year 1s.
My father in law had a photographic memory. It is unusual but not unheard of and he could remember and quote The Bible better than the vicar!
Teachers and TAs run After School Clubs at our school as we don't charge. Some children come from a deprived area. They can't afford to go to local activities so we run some for free every day.
I leave school occasionally at 3:30pm.
I usually leave school at 5pm.
I have been known to be asked when I am leaving by the caretaker because he is closing school at 6pm so I leave with him. Some TAs leave at 3:30pm school finishes at 3:15.
TAs do plan. I plan for my Spelling group of 24 children, I plan for my intervention groups, I plan for the classes I teach. I mark books every day. I try to do this when I am not on duty(3 days a week) or at lunchtime. Otherwise I mark after school hence staying behind or I take them home and mark them after tea. I also do planning and prepare work. I cut letters out,
mount work and run off some photocopying at home.
Don't assume TAs or teachers go home at 3:30. We also go in during the holidays to prepare the school for your little darlings so everything is ready for the first day of term. We have training days and if we complete that early we get to tidy the cupboards out. We have a longer lunch on those days because we rarely get the full hour we are not paid for because we are marking books, helping get a lunch for the child whose parents forgot to make sure they had one, looking for the sweatshirt that a child has lost that looks exactly the same as the other 27 kids sweatshirts and it hasn't a name on and neither do 20 others in the classroom or giving a bit of TLC to a child who has just fallen over.
I love my job!

Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to correct some misconceptions on this thread.

You sound like me hollin, speed reading lead to nothing but disbelief for me.

I'm not sure it's necessarily the comprehension age that's the issue, dotdot. It's perfectly possible for some children to have a high reading age and a comprehension age to match.

The issue is the content of the books that are aimed at 9-11 year olds may be less suitable for 5 year olds. So if a 5 year old is reading with a year 5 group then you either have to accept that she may be reading books that deal with upsetting content, or restrict the books that the year 5s are reading to ones that only contain content suitable for a 5 year old. Neither is an ideal situation.

Ditsy, you sound amazing! I have absolutely nothing against TAs, I know a lot and know how hard they work. Now I've calmed down I can see that it was probably an end of the day slip.

Thank you but lots of people do the same.
Sometimes you might just have had a very hard day and say something without thinking. You go home and beat yourself up over it.

Ditsy the TAs at my child's school are usually there when I have late meetings about my child. So 5 or so.

I really do think that there should be a letter sent out to every Reception parent setting out the role, responsibilities and duties, because a lot of people seem to think a TA is essentially a parent helper, but paid.

Wow, there are some nasty comments here at an OP who seems to be quite unwell. Actually OP YANBU.

I don't think it's acceptable for a TA to describe a child's work as 'awful'. OP has not demanded the TA be arrested, sacked or anything. She has contacted the Head, TA is going to apologise, end of issue. Accusations of 'what about the poooor TA' and that OP is lying are frankly nasty.

Yes, but in all fairness the being unwell has only been dripfed into the thread at this late stage in order to support her argument. (but explains the swiftness of the staff at the school to defuse the situation)

OK, removing the flimflam, it boils down to:

Child gets told work is "awful"
Mum complains
TA/Teacher/Headteacher ring to apologise and more apologies will be forthcoming this morning.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the word "awful" this has been a total storm in a teacup and the OP, rightly or wrongly, is now down in the staffroom as "that mother" And I doubt any "special relationships" due to hen nights and other such fripperies is going to change that any time soon.

...and maybe, just maybe.. the work won't be awful next time.

Surprised school gets closed at 6pm. Ours gets locked up at 10pm (secondary).

How hard is it to believe I have a daughter who is well ahead in reading in a disadvantaged area

This is NOT unbelievable. I currently teach a child who is 7 and reads at year 6 level.

What IS unbelievable is that any teacher would allow year 1 and year 5 to be accessing the same books. Goodnight Mr tom is a great example. This book contains suicide, child abuse, mentions sex and puberty and death. Some of my year 6s cried when Zach died.

In addition, being able to read and comprehend is one thing. Being able to answer year 5/6 questions like 'why d you think the author uses this word? What impact does this have? If they used a different synonym, how would those change the sentence? Give two examples.' is another thing altogether. You cannot do this at 5.

Oh my lord please not let this be true. Or those poor teachers have another 5 and a half years of dealing with the ops dd's dm. They'll have no hair left.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the word "awful" this has been a total storm in a teacup and the OP, rightly or wrongly, is now down in the staffroom as "that mother"

Yup! I agree.

Very occasionally a young child can read at this level so to those posters being unpleasant to the OP it is possible. One of my own children had the reading age of a 12 year old at 7. My youngest was a very good reader and was reading at 3 I tried to hold her back till she went to school but it was impossible. She could also write all her letters and would just ask her brothers if I steered her to something else. She was reading fluently in Reception but I can't remember how far ahead she was by Year 1.The other two were average readers. The eldest and youngest are still avid readers. The eldest reads about two or three books a week. I'm lucky to get through one! It is usually a Guided Reading book for Year 5/6 :)

My daughter learnt to read at two. She was never, to my knowledge put with years above to read, but was in the G&T sets. It's not just about being able to read the words, they have to be understood too. She is now 12 and while doing extremely well at school what she did at 2 and 4 doesn't seem relevant now.

To be fair I think you e really taken the comments on board. You've also explained why she's reading with year 5s, although I still don't think that's a good idea and mustn't be very good at boosting the confidence of those Year 5 children.

Ditsy4

I think that is quite unusual to have TAs working so many hours outside of school hours, but as long as you are paid for your time and not expected to work outside contracted hours then fair enough.

None of the teachers I work with would expect their TAs to routinely do unpaid work.