What is this behaviour by teacher?

[accesstheinternet]

Class of 9 and 10 year olds, about to go into lockdown, the class is talking about what it will be like and asking questions. Suddenly the teacher says out of the blue, first time anything like this has happened "and who will miss Charlie and his bad temper?"

Charlie is shocked and upset and the class sort of murmured "me" and Charlie's mother asks the teacher what was up when she saw her and the teacher said that she had spoken to Charlie and all was fine, apparently Charlie had lost his temper because someone had pushed him in the playground.

Then the next day Charlie comes out in floods of tears, saying that he had written down an instruction he thought had to be written down, the teacher had starting berating him and saying only he would do that, and encouraged the whole class to mock him, he had become upset at the berating and some of the class had laughed.

The teacher is normally fine.

Cheer up, Msbehavin. If this thread gets picked up by the Daily Mail, you'll be a heroine in the comments section.

fuckin snowflakes can't take a joke?????
by YaBigBastid (who once glassed a bloke for laughing at his shoes)

[quote msbehavin]@DaphneduWarrior - great username!

Of course they know that. They know that because they know I know them and their preferences, and they know that I care about them, and so would never want to make them feel uncomfortable. They know they can trust me because I prove it to them in my actions towards them.

They know I will never pick on them, because it's my classroom policy that I don't do that. I make it clear that's not how I operate right from the first day of term, and that creates an environment where everyone feels safe to participate in the way that suits and is comfortable for them.

I don't know where this impression has come from that I've got a classroom of kids cowering in fear of being teased. It's so far from the reality I can't even express how sad I am that my words have been twisted to the point where I am being accused of essentially tormenting children.[/quote]
But didn't you say that you'd say "don't do a Charlie" or whatever name? You don't see it that way but others see that you are picking on them and it won't make them feel safe.

As to you having a classroom of kids cowering in fear, that's not what I imagine at all. I imagine the one or two children who hear you say "don't do a Charlie" and hear the laughter and they die a little inside.

My son teaches in a PRU, he'd never for one minute assume he knows 100% of what goes on in the children's lives.

Humour can be very positive but not if it is cruel, if you make the child the butt of the joke it is cruel.

I'm sorry @msbehavin I'm not convinced. That post was only a couple of weeks ago and made no mention of this being "in the past". You also referred to having "come a cropper" with kids because you've put your foot in it due to not having been given up to date pastoral information by your school. I would suggest that if you avoid such sarcastic comments and treat kids respectfully, gently and positively you are far less likely to have this problem. Indeed, taking your approach in the way you speak to pupils will always leave you open to the risk of creating additional stress for pupils whose background you don't know.

It's interesting that your comment on that thread contrasts so much with your comments about knowing everything about your students earlier on this thread.

By the way, as a member of SLT, my priority is always the welfare of the pupils.

That's why I said 'in my experience'.

I encountered some 'horrors', quite bizarre - notably one tutor who was racially abused after parking across a neighbours drive who then reported him to the police claiming he was brandishing a shotgun and after I had given a supporting (of her) statement to the police reported me to the union for being racist and having a dangerous attack dog (she was an 11 year old rug at that stage). She was intent on DS1 attending the PRU pre-tribunal and argued that I had to drive him there because a petting zoo next door had albino marmosets and this would teach him about the food chain. WTF.

She submitted a sworn affidavit to tribunal saying he was fine and it would be detrimental to meet his needs. He loved art. She said he should not be allowed to do it. It would be detrimental. She only had to teach English but couldn't even do that. She'd ask him to name nouns. He had no idea what she wanted. She'd get cross. What are you sitting on? Chair? Good. What's in front of you? Table? No, no it's a computer!!

Then she'd disappear to the bathroom for 15 minutes. Then come back and tell me she had been injecting insulin for her diabetes and that some people had a 'real' disability and that I was lying about DS1 being autistic. Batshit.

After her we had a fantastic tutor who also submitted a sworn affidavit saying it will probably cost me my job but I can't lie.

You get a get a wide mix - people who are great teachers whatever the setting but have other commitments and then some real outliers who think they are fantastic but are deluded.

Just my limited experience.

So this highly specialist school which is a PRU that takes children from year 7 to year 13 also operates like this.

“In my school only form tutors get told sensitive information which is passed on to other staff on a strictly need to know basis - I've come a cropper many times with kids due to not having been told that mum and dad just got divorced/grandma died last week, etc. Some schools really aren't great at passing on this information to teaching staff.”

You REALLY don’t know your children at all! You don’t know if a parent or grandparent has died and you don’t know the first thing about their home life - it’s THERE!

If you haven't taught a wide variety of children with challenging backgrounds then I genuinely think it's quite difficult for you to understand where I'm coming from.

But there are several posters here, including me, who HAVE taught a variety of students from challenging backgrounds, and still think your approach is problematic. You complain of teacher bashing, but no-one is doing that.

@msbehavin
You say you only tease those you know can take it.
You also say you work in a PRU
I'm not a teacher, nor a parent. I have though explained earlier how a teacher like yoy screwed up my self esteem and also almost wrecked my education, though i was able to pull that back.
I now work as a mental health nurse. I imagine a fair % of your kids are either under CAMHS, or are potentially in line for mental health issues in adulthood. So I am saying this as someone who does know what they're talking about.
I bet you anything those kids who you say can take the teasing are putting on a masks. They're likely to be troubled kids but I bet the persona they have on the outside is actually masking quite vulnerable and fragile inner self, especially those who possibly have had years of "harmless teasing" at home and are already thinking theyre useless and won't amount to anything. They ain't going to let their peers know that though are they? So they'll laugh along to keep up their image.

You’ve said previously that you’re an SLT member. I hope you’re not this unpleasant to your staff. If they are using even one child as the butt of their jokes I hope she is at least this unpleasant to them.

Look @EarringsandLipstick, you just don’t seem to be able to understand me and there’s no point trying to continue this conversation as we’re never going to be able to communicate effectively with one another. We’re coming at this from entirely different perspectives.

You can honesty think what you like of me - I really couldn’t care less.

I love my job, I love the kids I teach, they enjoy coming to my classes and the parents are full of gratitude for the work I do with them. That’s the only feedback I need. I’ve had a very successful and highly regarded teaching career so what mumsnet thinks of me is really not important. There will always be individual children who don’t get along with a teacher for whatever reason. We can’t get it right 100% of the time. But I try my hardest to, and that’s the important thing.

And @boomwhacker, please don’t try and use your detective skills to undermine me. Thanks for the ‘advice’. I’ve come a cropper due to SLT not giving me essential information - such as that a new child to the school’s mother had died, and we were studying a book about a child whose mother had died, which upset the child and got me in trouble for my choice of book. Obviously if someone had told me, then I would never have chosen that book! That’s what I mean by coming a cropper. Not through anything I said. The welfare of kids comes first with me every time too. I just don’t see eye to eye with you on the best way to go about relationship building. That doesn’t make either of us wrong. We’re just different in our approaches.

Over and out! Please don’t waste your time replying as I won’t be back.

If child is referred to a PRU but can't be reintegrated to m/s why are they not referred to a specialist school that can meet their needs?

I think msbehaving made up the PRU as a way to explain how she knows her students so intimately but forgot salient details like the fact that they wouldn’t stay at the PRU for seven years.

I just don’t see eye to eye with you on the best way to go about relationship building. That doesn’t make either of us wrong. We’re just different in our approaches

Well I think what people have been saying, as parents, former pupils, teachers and mental health professionals, is that this is not a case of a different approach but a wrong approach.

I’m just frustrated that so many people can’t seem to understand that a teacher is perfectly capable of getting to know children well enough to be able to joke around with them in a way that makes them feel safe and comfortable.

To be fair, the specific experience of yours that you are talking about refers to a minuscule minority of children in a completely non-standard setting, and in this case, you've described a particular version of such a setting that is even MORE specific and specialised, none of which you mentioned until you had already posted several times.

You really can't blame people for thinking that you were talking about secondary teaching in general when you made no reference to your comments being about this one specific cohort in this one specific setting until after you had been challenged several times on your approach.

A further impediment to understanding your point are statements such as this:

But in my school environment, I can be 100% confident that I know exactly what is going on at home. Please stop undermining my professional judgement by implying that I don't.

followed by:
Yes of course we can never be 100% sure we have the whole picture. We do need to constantly be on the alert. I'm very aware of that.

Look, I know I'll never know 100%. But I know a good 90%. Which is enough to make the right judgement calls as to who can take a joke and who can't.

Alongside:

I am a very reflective practitioner

I don’t need to rethink my teaching.

and

In over a decade of teaching, I’ve never had a single complaint from a child or parent.

That was in a previous school that I left because of the highly competitive parents who complained incessantly about grades. ‘You told my daughter that she was going to get a B’ blah blah blah.

I genuinely can't tell whether you are reflecting on your practice as a result of this debate or not from your posts, which does make me wonder whether you are as clear as you believe you are with your students.

you just don’t seem to be able to understand me

I understand you fine.

You've no answer to my points, that's the problem. You can't adequately explain how your teasing / joking approach doesn't run the risk of causing upset to vulnerable children (not that it's acceptable for any children).

You could have chosen to answer my questions but you are running away from them.

The welfare of kids comes first with me every time too.

Not every time though?

Not for the kids who don't enjoy your jokes and whose upset you are unable to see? Their welfare isn't something that essentially concerns you.

@katakata

Cheer up, Msbehavin. If this thread gets picked up by the Daily Mail, you'll be a heroine in the comments section.

fuckin snowflakes can't take a joke?????
by YaBigBastid (who once glassed a bloke for laughing at his shoes)

This really made me snort 😂

Ime PRUs tend to attract teachers who adhere to outdated methods of teaching, have fragile egos and think they are all knowing saints
That's really unfair and there's no need for it just because you disagree with a poster's methods.

I've taught with former PRU teachers and have friends who work in PRUs. It's a mix, just like mainstream.

I've developed as a professional having worked with PRU teachers. Their insight into adverse childhood experiences, trauma in the classroom and how terrible the SEN process is changed my teaching and outlook on many issues for good.

@ChloeDecker

Thanks MistressoftheDarkSide completely missed that this happened in France. This is also useful as it can be hard to compare the two approaches from here in the U.K. and in France.

Posters here have given their perspective in U.K. schools, which may not help the OP and Charlie, although it might do!
One main difference is that in France, if a child doesn’t achieve the grades they will have to repeat the year (redoubler) and this might affect a teacher’s/parent’s/child’s approach. There are also no assemblies, no plays, clubs etc that are often used in the U.K. to help teach social reactions to situations and have a different output for a child’s emotional health.

Although this is only one opinion, this might be a useful read about French primary schools. It also mentions Peter Gumbel and a book he wrote about French education:

www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/07/sons-experience-in-french-school

The end quote from the article sounds pretty apt based on the way this thread has gone!

Now, if French schools could become less rigid, and if British schools could be more consistent, then we might all be on to something.

@ChloeDecker the article is slightly misleading. She says that in the UK how great the school is depends on the head, as though it is different in France, but I would say exactly the same applies in France. We went through two horrendous schools in quick succession and then found our current school which has on the whole been great. There are private schools but they are cheap as chips - 160 - 600 euros a year, subsidised by the local church I think - but not Catholic - RE is optional. Quote from article is School in France has no assembly, no school plays, no music, no clubs but in fact in our small town we have sports clubs galore, with amazing facilities, a music school, art clubs, basically all the things you'd expect from a private school just not on site. All the clubs are subsidised heavily and very accessible, with really good quality teaching mostly, and all the children from the schools can choose whatever they want to do, so the children are all at the clubs with their friends from school. There is a hastily thrown-together entertainment at Christmas it is true that end of year and xmas performances are nothing like UK ones, but they aren't hastily prepared, they are just not very showy, and the children also do shows with their dance club or gym club or whatever club they are part of. There is no pastoral care very much depends on the school

I think there is some truth in the article but it also sounds as though the author was very unlucky in the second school and it is likely there would have been a better one in neighbouring villages or towns if she had sought it out.

I am not replying witih more specifics about Charlie because quite honestly I haven't got my head round it yet and it won't help. The thread was a sanity check, because the whole thing was so bizarre, I was blindsided by it, and I got the sanity check here and that was great. I am not doing anything on it over Easter weekend and hoping my thoughts will be clearer next week.

Just read that you work in a PRU. Why am I not surprised?

PRUs tend to attract teachers who adhere to outdated methods of teaching, have fragile egos and think they are all knowing saints

They should be nowhere near children at risk of exclusion and those vulnerable that should be in properly specialist schools that can meet their needs

Not my experience at all. I’ve worked in one PRU and with several and the staff I worked alongside were adept at being exactly the teacher each child needed them to be. It’s a total privilege having tiny class sizes - something I’m forever lobbying for in mainstream, especially for children who struggle to access the curriculum.

I managed to engineer it (partly luck, partly relentless nagging 😂) with one of my two Y11 classes. I’ve had them since Y10 and we’ve battled their GCSE English together - including the lockdowns.

I know them really well and because there are only 11 of them I can differentiate my approach to each child in the same way I differentiate the work. I meet the kids where they are.

Still not saying how you are involved in this scenario, though, OP. It’s intriguing.

It’s also interesting that you didn’t initially mention that you were in France and only briefly touched on it when asked as that is important when starting a thread on a site, such as Mumsnet and getting the responses provided.

You also only focus on one part of that article but not the rest of my links including the well known book that was written about the issues in France and education that could and would affect the cultural environment that may have caused your situation. We just don’t know. Things like behaviour policies, cultural differences, differences in curriculum and the school day, differences in expectations and ethos play a big part in the outcome of your OP, that people in the U.K. just won’t be able to offer an insight for or have experience on here had you posted in good faith.

Have you talked to/asked people in France/Internet users in France about this issue? They would be able to help more directly by knowing the procedures you could follow and what should be expected, than those in Britain would.
Have you considered the stress of the current lockdown and huge rises in cases and few vaccinated and what that has on pupils/teachers in France, where you are? Do you know the complaints procedures for the school in question?
You’ve dropped a bit of a disingenuous bomb on staff in British schools on this thread, in my opinion and has got very heated as a result. I know that someone will be along to say that it shouldn’t matter where you are in the world (and in an ideal world I agree) but things are different in different countries and that does need to be acknowledged in a contentious scenario that you have found yourself in.

Whatever your intended approach though, I do hope Charlie is okay and the situation is calmly resolved.

@ChloeDecker I don't agree at all with you. Of course there are cultural differences, but how teachers by law should treat children in classrooms is very comparable, and because I am in France and know this particular school and this particular community I am able to overlay the advice to apply to my situation. The books and the theory you have mentioned are just that - wider theory. I needed advice about the behaviour of a teacher of a group of ten year olds which would in fact apply in either the UK or France.

I am dealing with a stressful and upsetting situation here and your latest post is not helpful at all. You might be "intrigued" but this is a real life situation and a bit of appreciation about the importance of confidentiality in relation to any information I have not given here would be appreciated.

The thread blew up because one particular poster posted in a way which has upset a number of people, about secondary school pupils, whereas my situation (as many have pointed out) is with younger children. To hold me responsible for that is somewhat unfair and again many posters - including a number of teachers - have pointed out that this has not been a general teacher bashing thread.

Thank you again to the vast majority of other posters.

OP, I hadn't realised, until your last two posts, that you were Charlie's mum. From the way you wrote your posts, I thought you were a bystander in Some way, perhaps a TA.

I hope you're ok, that is a upsetting situation for you & DS. I know you've said you're having a think about what to do next. 💐

EarringsandLipstick
Me neither, which makes most of my advice up thread useless because there is a huge difference giving advice to an adult who was present in the classroom, so saw what happened (and suggested that they were in a position to comment on the teacher's usual conduct) and an adult who has heard events second hand.

Between that and the fact it was much later that the OP mentioned she's not in the UK , it's just frustrating because that's the sort of information people need to advise.

I wish people would be up front instead of being vague and withholding information that people need in order to offer useful advice.

OP If you didn't see the incident then you can either call the teacher for a discussion about what happened and take it from there, or you put your child's summary of events in writing and pass it to the Head.

Agree with @LolaSmiles (as I usually do!). Knowing you’re hearing it second hand isn’t about maintaining confidentiality. It helps people to establish that what you know may not be completely accurate even if it’s what’s the child experienced.

I have not said that I am Charlie's mum and the situation is still really stressful. I posted the OP late Fri night and confirmed I was in france at 9.15 Saturday morning, so you did not read all my posts which you should have done befor complaining about not having all the relevant information!

The advice here has been really useful and not it is not relevant to the helpful advice here that we are in France not the UK.