Class TA is the mother of one of the children

[chugmonkey]

I'm prepared to be flamed here as there's bound to be some people who are also working in the same class as their child but I just think it's completely inappropriate.

My dd has just started year 6. In her class is a bright, sporty, all round 'golden boy' who also happens to have quite a nasty side to him. His mother completely indulges him and won't hear a word said against him.
He has been really horrible to my DD on a number of occasions and we have had to go through the head to get him to stop because he just lies to his mother and gets away with it.

I know a number of past and present staff members who share my views about this mum's 'blind spot' when it comes to her child as mum also happens to be a TA at the school.

When I saw the staffing lists for this year I was surprised and pretty irritated to see this mum as TA for the class her own son and my dd are in.

AI just being U because I think she'll continue to favour her son or is this just an inappropriate situation anyway?

My mum taught me as she was the only teacher in her subject and it was compulsory for the first three years of senior school. That was fun!

I've taught in both my dc's primary school classes, my dh works at the local secondary school and has taught one of our dc. I've done secondary supply too and taught one dc. It's never been a problem at all, but we are professional and would not behave like the TA in the OP.

It's common where I live (teaching staff with own kid in class). I haven't encountered any problems linked to it. None of the kids seemed to be foul, either. At secondary, I think DS shares a French lesson with HT's child (HT is the teacher, too).

I was a regular volunteer at DC primary school.
I would never regularly volunteer to help out if I were banned from DC's class.

My DC’s school has a teacher with 3 kids at the school, an teacher whose nephews are there, 4 TAs with children there, a lollipop lady who is the HT’s aunty and 3 teachers who actually went to the school as children. You’d think this was a school on Pitcairn or something but no, it’s actually pretty urban!

There is a very strict policy that prevents anyone from being in the same year group as a family member. It’s only small primary school so I can imagine it gives the HT a migraine trying to allocate classes to teachers and TAs.

I don’t think your situation is appropriate at all,OP.

What is your DDs teacher like? That's the key to if it'll work well or be a disaster.

Oh dear, that situation sounds far from ideal. And as a TA myself, I can't think of anything worse than being in my child's class.

There are both TA's and teachers at my school who have children who are pupils. They do not work with their child's class. I can't imagine why the school doesn't simply assign her to another class?

I once taught a class where one of the kids was my TAs daughter. Luckily my TA was totally professional and the child was pretty sensible about it all as well. At my own child's school I know that last year one of the TAs was in the same class as their child.

I'm surprised it's allowed though to be honest.

That does seem odd. At our school lots of the TAs have kids in the school but not in the same year group as their children. A friend of mine whose child is in the same class as my eldest was the TA in my younger child's class last year, in reception, but this year her younger child is starting reception so she has been moved to a different year that neither of her kids are in this year. She said she wouldn't have wanted even to be in a different class but same year as her daughter because in reception it's all free flow and it wouldn't have been good for her daughter to be coming to find her all the time. It was good last year though as she would tell me lots of lovely stuff about my son at school and how well he was getting on!

DH has taught both our children and I would say he is stricter on them rather than letting them get away with things.
In this case it's the TA not class teacher so I would just go via the teacher like you would/should if it was any other child.
The fact that his mother is TA should bear no relevance.

Our school is like this! We have various ta's who are parents/grandparents and they have worked in their child's class. These are the same children who the majority of big parts in nativities, assemblies, are the golden children,they get the most rewards during the year obviously it's not nepotism and these children thoroughly deserve it

Not a TA but my DD’s teacher. Her daughter was a very entitled brat who was unsurprisingly not very popular with the other kids. The daughter frequently used her mum to force one of the other girls to partner up with her or to push her way into other friendship groups. For instance the kids chose their bedroom groups of four for the school residential. The teacher moved my DD out of her group of friends and substituted her daughter, so DD had to share with girls she wasn’t particularly pally with.

Apparently she was even worse with her son a few years later. Awful woman.

Girl swept the board at prize giving too.

I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, but it very much depends on the people involved. I am a TA and have been in classes where the teacher has taught their own child. They had to put some work in to help the child compartmentalize home and school, ( Dad is "Dad" at home but Mr X at school etc) but there were no issues that I saw, and everything seemed to work out ok. Similarly I have been a TA in one of my own children's classes. It was fine because of the kind of kid he is. I know it wouldn't work at all well being in my youngest child's class, so I give it a big swerve!
I think it's a situation where the teacher/TA needs a lot of self awareness. If the parent is blind to their child's faults it does sound like it could go a bit wrong.

Dgs is currently in yr2 and two children in his class have a parent who is a TA in the school - one in Nursery/Reception and the other in Yr 5. The yr 5 TA worked in Reception or yr 1 for years but was moved whilst her dc is in KS1. The other parent only started to work at the school last year and Nursery and Reception have their own separate playground and entrance/exit. It seems as if the HT is deliberately keeping the dc and their respective parents separated as much as possible.
My dd chose not to list the outstanding school where my sister works as a preference when applying for a Reception place for her ds because she knew my sister would be overly harsh with him and would delight in telling the family of anything and everything he did wrong whether he was in her class or not. However if her dc or dgc were at her school she would be incapable of believing that they had done anything wrong and would be on their 'side' to the detriment of other dc.

Thanks everyone, some really thoughtful responses.
In response to a few queries, this is a 1 form entry country school that definitely does have another TA capable of year 6 duties as she has been both my older boys TA in year 6 in the past.

I appreciate the point about the 'past and present staff members' shouldn't be discussing this child with me but they weren't, they were discussing the TA. This seems horrible but one is very close to our family anyway and the others have long since left but they have had direct experience of the same blinkered attitude from the TA in question about her son and they were sympathetic to my difficulty at the time and reassuring me that my daughter was doing her best to handle the situation with this boy reasonably.

I hadn't thought to make a formal complaint about this, more keep an eye on the situation. It's 3 days in and golden boy has already landed two of the plum year 6 privilege jobs.

In answer to another point, yes, it's true that other teachers see this child as 'bright and sporty', he is both of those things. They have not necessarily been swayed by that in the past though and have tried to discipline him where appropriate ( although his mother has had plenty to say about it she was kept in line by the old, very experienced headmistress) but now, after a change of headship and a complete change of all the teachers over the past two years, it's only the TA's that have seen how the situation has been and the newer teachers may be yet to figure it out. This is my worry, essentially, he has a clean score sheet and his mum in his class to back him up, a mum who has a history of not being able to put her 'mum hat' down when she should be wearing her 'professional hat'. What chance to kids like my dd have to stand up to him?
I'll keep an eye and hope the new year 6 teacher is switched on and not too pally with the TA.