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.

Maybe your sister should try a TA type role for a year, supporting and individual child or small group work alongside experienced teachers. She could build up her knowledge and class room
management skills then go for teaching roles.

teaching is a bloody hard job and a skill. Some aren’t made for it, others are.

I once worked with a very intelligent newly qualified teacher, he had a PHD in some science topic and thought he’d try secondary science teacher. Despite being incredibly clever he was a terrible teacher and moved on to other things more suited to his strengths.

Yes

Depending on the school they would either have been asked to leave or never asked back. It’s a fairly big mistake but not malicious so I don’t think it’s unrecoverable ever, but depending on what happens with the supply agency she might find it hard to get new assignments.

For the future, I always jotted the name of children who left the classroom and the time on the whiteboard for my benefit and more than once had to send a sensible child or TA in search for them! As a more experienced teacher you know which children to pair up and which might get up to mischief.

What year group was it?

I think you probably have the wrong end of the stick.
The toilet permit needed no more than a policy reminder.

SLT interrupted the middle of a class and sent her home right away because

" the children was not safe with the teacher as the classes behaviour was out of control."

Frankly, behaviour is hideous in a lot of schools, and it's gotten considerably worse over the past 3 years. If students leave a classroom like that, there is actually very little a teacher can do, especially an inexperienced supply teacher: the students don't care, you can't leave if you're the teacher as you likely don't have another grown up in the classroom, and while you can send a student to another room for 'help', that teacher will likely be in the same position as the first, unable to leave. It will take time.

And parents back up their children as they have shown time and time again they don't care about education either; it comes last in their priorities.

If there are lots of doors requiring keycards then your sister might have needed someone to accompany her when she left.

Losing 2 primary kids for half an hour is a serious mistake. Lots of sympathy for supply teachers here - I get the impression that they are given a very hard time from the students.

This makes me so mad from your sisters viewpoint. I am an experienced teacher and did supply teaching during a period of moving house. That school should not have such loose discipline in their school that students would behave in such a disrespectful manner. They should be apologising to your dsis that they have such unruly students. When l subbed l expected the students to know how to behave and to continue as if their usual teacher was there. Someone coming in off the street cannot be expected to teach these kids manners in one hour.
I had one school where the kids really tried to act up and l just told the Principal l wasn't prepared to ever take that class again. Its not my responsibility to knock them into shape.
I would equally expect my class to know how to behave with a sub for a day .
I am talking here about Primary level.
I wouldn't miss out on two guys going missing but then again l was experienced when l did it.
I sincerely hope your dsis is not turned off by her experience.

Was the TA in the room?. Surely she could have reminded the teacher that some guys were missing. Sounds like a school that needs to seriously look at themselves.

Sorry, seen it’s year 6. I would expect them to get in quite a bit of trouble in any school I’ve taught in as they do know better. But doesn’t negate the responsibility of the teacher to notice they were missing after a reasonable period.

Even experienced supply teachers may refuse to do year 6 because it can be difficult to control behaviour. Certainly not suitable for an NQT. Tell her to put it down to experience, reflect on what she could have done better and move on. She needs to find a job in a supportive school for her NQT year.

They'd be in trouble in our school, but they wouldn't care. And a significant number or our parents would defend them and blame the school for their poor choices. It truly is madness. And why so many teachers are quitting.

Yup.

I feel very sorry for your sister - she should never have been put in this position.
But then, the school itself were probably desperate, as 'doing supply' is no longer something experienced teachers want to do.
I work with a bunch of teachers, not in a school, and none of them would want to walk into a Yr6 class in an unknown school with no other adult in class and be expected to get on with it. It is asking for trouble.
I hope your sister finds a long term job with some proper support and mentoring.

Meh. I've had children spend half an hour in a toilet having a poo.

I'd be more concerned about why two children had their phones accessible in the toilet.

The schools general policy sounds awful. Phones should be away and inaccessible.

You just can't lose two children for half an hour without a) noticing and b) raising the alarm. Any supply teacher would be let go for that.

The kids are arseholes though, and I wouldn't be a teacher for anything.

I think personally, if she’s at the beginning of her career and finding teaching difficult, then if I were her I’d maybe rethink my career, as some people aren’t cut out for teaching. I also know of a few friends in recent years who have either left teaching or are having trouble in their teaching roles, it really isn’t easy at the moment.

The agency definitely shouldn’t have sent her to the school with her lack of experience (so school should be more annoyed with the agency than the supply teacher) but did she mention to the agency that she was finding teaching difficult or just kept quiet?

Agreed with @Bluebellbelle , she needs to find a job in a supportive school for her NQY.

Agreed with PP, year 6 kids can be a nightmare at the best of times but especially to a ST. I recall being our class being particularly awful to one at that age.

Losing two children and not noticing though as @TheYearOfSmallThings is inexcusable and yes you’d be let go for that!

My own DM was a class inner city teacher in 70s-90s and she was a good teacher but it’s a hard job, not easy at all.

TBH your sister may struggle to get placements with this agency again. It was a serious issue and appropriate action taken.

She lost track of two primary age children A safeguarding red flag on top of poor discipline and being asked to leave was probably best all round.

With regards to what the teacher should have done, then it depends on the school- but in my school each classroom has a phone which has a direct line to the school office, the head teacher and the other classrooms so I would have phoned the office to report the children missing and asked someone if they could locate them.

When you've specifically given two children permission to go to the toilet, it's not difficult to check that they have come back.

I worked in education recruitment for 10 years and yes this is perfectly reasonable for the school to react in this way. If this happened to one of my supply teachers I would have a conversation with them first. If I knew that particular class was a very challenging Y6 class where other supply teachers had struggled then I would give them another chance but be very selective about where I send them. If the supply teacher had a bad attitude, wasn't receptive to feedback or if I had other concerns then I probably wouldn't offer them anymore work.
I would say that schools vary so much and I had some teacher working for me who some schools absolutely loved and others hated!

She doesn’t need to rethink teaching, Christ alive if all new teachers left the profession after one bad experience, and a position that they should never have been put in at that, we’d have no new teachers ever. People make mistakes, it happens, being unable to control one unruly class of eleven year olds, on one day where they have zero support, does not mean they will never be a good teacher. I agree that if she can’t get a proper teaching contract, working as a TA or a cover supervisor are good ideas. But continuing with supply like this will be really detrimental to her confidence, and her likelihood of securing a job, if she keeps having bad experiences. She should just quit now, and focus on getting a more appropriate position.

Supply teaching is a tough gig. Often you're not given any real briefing about school policy and procedures and if anything goes wrong due to you not understanding how the school works you're out on your ear with no rights and a potentially damaged reputation.

As an NQT, you are supposed to be supported to develop your teaching and behaviour management skills, with a mentor to provide that support alongside reduced teaching time. The fact that this support is in place is an acknowledgement of how challenging it is in the first year post training, as well as how you shouldn't be expected to know everything and make the right decisions all the time.

When you're an NQT on supply, you're left in a position where you are not adequately qualified to do the job, you don't have any support, and you don't know the policies and procedures of the school you're in. You also don't know the layout of the school or who to go to for help. It's a recipe for disaster.

What happened while your sister was taking care of the class is a safeguarding concern, but I can totally see how it happened - she's teaching a large class of children she doesn't know, there's behavioural issues, and amidst the chaos she doesn't notice the kids haven't come back.

However, the two children being found wandering around exposes the school's own failures as well as your sister's.

My questions to the school would be:
-Why did these two children feel they could not return to the classroom after going to the toilet? (Because they obviously had no fear of any consequences for this behaviour)
-Why was behaviour in the classroom so unruly in the first place (Because the children obviously had no fear of any consequences for this behaviour)
-Why was an NQT supply teacher left in sole charge of such a challenging class?

Your sister should go back to the agency with the above points. If she wasn't supported to do her job and provided with an environment in which she could safeguard the children under her care, the responsibility for what happened needs to rest with the school. A school where a Year 6 class thinks they can get away with poor behaviour is a school that has much deeper leadership problems - also evidenced by the fact they need a supply teacher for a Y6 class in the first place.

I completely agree @EnidSpyton .

If the school thought the children weren’t safe with your sister then there wasn’t much point in her staying, but she was in a very difficult position to start with. She needs more experience before she can hope to be a successful supply teacher, especially as others have said, behaviour can be atrocious in some schools.