Was the school right to march the supply teacher out of the school premises

[oksodthebend]

A newly qualified supply teacher, who is just at the beginning of the career and finding teaching difficult, is asked to leave the school, which they was only covering for the day in a Y6 class midway through a lesson in the morning between break and lunch and not stay until the end of the school day because SLT did not feel that the children was not safe with the teacher as the classes behaviour was out of control. Is this common practice in teaching?

The teacher after letting 2 of the children go to the toilet at the same time, forgot that they had left the classroom and they found by SLT in an empty room on their phones, having been gone for around 30 minutes.

This happened before Christmas by the way.

Who are you in this scenario?

Yes it is reasonable. Safeguarding is a top priority for schools and these children were ‘safe’ but effectively missing. The supply teacher was not up to the professional standards required.

Marched out? As in physically accompanied to make sure they left?

It’s not common practice because it’s not common for teachers to forget that students have left the room in a pair for half an hour and not come back. If a cover teacher isn’t on top of absolute basics - things which could lead to students going missing or unaccounted for in a fire drill - a school is right to relieve them of their duties immediately. The teacher isn’t doing their job. No notice period needed.

Absolutely reasonable. The teacher was not in control of the class and that created a risk to the safety of pupils.

Perfectly reasonable imo. It's not safe to forget that 2 children have left the room and not returned.
I hope that the school informed the supply agency too.

If a supply teacher is terrible they might well be asked not to finish the day and the school cover in a different way.

In terms of common practice in teaching - the ultimate responsibility & importance is that children are safe. They were not safe in this situation. Therefore right to remove the supply teacher.

Sounds really tough for the supply teacher and hopefully they will get a longer term placement to enable them to properly develop their teaching skills in a way that supply doesn’t but they don’t sound fit to be doing supply with their current experience / skillset.

Yes its reasonable. I made a complaint about the behaviour of a supply teachers treatment of my Ds. There were many other issues in that class( My ds shared with investigating teacher) they were banned from teaching in our school and complaint made to the agency.. no idea what happened after to her but should not have been teaching..so yes sometimes the right thing to do.

Totally normal. If it's not working and the children aren't safe then, there's not much part in paying the supply teacher.

It doesn't mean they are a bad teacher though. Some classes are just very difficult.

It's not on to go losing children!
What's the maximum number of children they should be allowed to mislay by the end of a class, if not?

This post is not about me but my younger sister, I know that feedback was given to the agency. What will the agency do realistically? This happened just before Christmas so sister waiting until the new year to see what will happen.

Off the point, but curious as to what action a teacher normally takes in that scenario, they obviously cant leave the class alone to go find the missing children. Do they contact the office or something?

I doubt very much anybody was ‘marched out’. What an overly dramatic description. Yes, the school sound as if they’re on the ball, quite unlike the teacher. Who the fuck loses track of two pupils for so long. The teacher should be reviewing their career prospects.

Safeguarding for beginners:
Are the children safe at this moment?

In the scenario described, they were not safe because the supply teacher had let them leave the room and failed to notice they hadn't come back.

Fire? US style shooting? Roof falling in? (all complete and almost impossible scenarios, but it's the "almost" that matters)

I very much doubt the teacher was "marched off the premises" in silly comedic/TV soap style, but absolutely they should have been removed from their responsibilities and told that as they were incapable or unwilling to do the most fundamental element of the job they were being paid for, then they were not being allowed to finish the day.

Schools have enough problems without this sort of thing.

I can only speak for mine, but we can only let one out at a time, and if they aren't back within a specific timeframe then we call the office, yes.

@oksodthebend what should happen is that your sister be given further training on her safeguarding responsibilities and removed from the agency's list until such time as she is capable of doing her job properly. What will probably happen is that she'll be sent out if nobody else is available.

This is what you get when you pay peanuts. An ECT supply will be on maybe £90 - £100 day rate. Which sounds ok, but remember supply teachers can only work a maximum of 195 days, get no sick pay or maternity pay. So on £100 a day would earn a max of £10000 over a year. Whilst this person may well have been hopeless, there are clearly behaviour issues if 2 children were savvy enough to leave the classroom with mobile phones and hide in another classroom for half an hour on their phones. Sometimes, supply teachers are thrown to the wolves then criticised for not being able to control the class from hell!

Supply is difficult enough if you’re experienced.
I hope next year your sister will find a lovely school to get some experience and her confidence back.

Thanks PAFMO

In a classroom full of 30+ 11 year olds who may have been unruly, or not doing a sit-down-at-the desk task, where the supply may have never met them and there wasn’t a TA supporting, then it’s very easy to not notice 2 missing children.

This is what happens when you throw a NQT supply teacher into an unfamiliar school with a possibly rowdy class who is bound to play up even more for a young supply teacher and don't giv adaquate support (e.g. TA who knows the class). No it's not ideal or safe for two kids to be forgotten but is probably a product of lack of support for a barely qualified, inexperienced teacher rather than the fault of your sister.

At my son’s school, all the classrooms have phones. The teacher’s can contact the office, and vice-versa. It’s quite and old school, so I would assume this is the case for most of them now.

@MILLYmo0se Not a teacher but work in a school and in this situation I would send a more mature child that I felt could be sensible to check the toilets (could have become unwell etc) and then come back to me. If needed I would then send child to go to a different teacher and explain assistance was needed.

Very hard being a new teacher and doing supply though, they were wrong but I would also expect the children to be dealt with appropriately. I would also expect toilet rules and phone rules to be clearly explained to the teacher so this sort of thing can more easily be avoided. Ultimately though the children's safety is paramount.

I had an agency support worker escorted off the premises by security, almost 20 years ago now. His behaviour was putting people at risk and patients come first.

How did she actually leave? I started off just asking him to finish the shift, I only escalated as he was being intimidating towards me.