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.

Yes this is totally right. Incompetence cannot be excused if it’s a potential safeguarding risk

Slagged off the deputy head to other staff. But she was awful.

I got a placement that suited me better after that for a while (less knobby) but teaching wasn't for me, I like my free time to be free.

Oh no!

Sounds like you dodged a bullet though if she was so awful.

How fair or unfair it is depends on lots of factors. However, I would be thinking that a school where the children do this has a lot of issues. I do think that doing supply as an ECT would be very hard. You need to be very secure in what you are doing to be a supply. Tell your younger sister to dust herself off and keep going. She needs a place where she will be supported to learn the ropes. This isn't going to be on supply.

Yes I would expect a senior teacher to take the badly behaved class. I have also been that teacher, asked to teach a class because X class have had weeks and weeks of supply. No I didn't set cover for my own class, because the HOD did it, but had I been HOD, or if there was noone else I'd have done it. It's my job and I will do what's best for the students and my colleagues. And in that scenario, what was best for my students (well not "mine", because they weren't my regular class, but they're still students in my school community), was to have me teach them rather than supply. My regular class could cope for a few weeks, they'd had almost a year of decent teacher so their learning has hardly been disrupted, whereas the other class had not. To get the hump about that is not really being a team player, is it? Yes if there were other, senior, decent teachers who never got asked to do that kind of thing I'd be pissed off. If I always got given the unruly classes because I could cope when others always got easy classes because they couldn't, yes, I'd be pissed off. If any teacher works in a school like that they should probably leave. But to be asked to cover Year 6, for what is likely a very short time, so an inexperienced ECT daily supply teacher doesn't have to, really isn't unreasonable at all. If SLT are so worried about pissing off their staff that they won't even ask, they probably have a real problem with staff morale, and they should cover the class themselves.

Sounds like the school need clearer processes regarding toilet visits and mobile phones.

We had a supply escorted off the premises once because she was found with her head on the desk pissed out of her head. True story.

NQT's shouldn't be doing supply unless their behaviour management is excellent.

Of course the teacher had to be removed from the class if behaviour was dangerous. Marching them off the premises suggests that something more has occurred.

She needs to speak to the supply company - they will have had feedback re the incident.

Supplying is a dreadful idea for NQTs generally, I think. The sooner she gets a permanent position in a school, the better.

She also needs to ask herself if this is the career for her but she's still not confident. Teaching isn't for everyone.

In a previous school, we had a supply teacher escorted off the premises because she asked the class if anyone wanted to take a look at a "big black cock", during a Science demo (it was a sugar monster, if anyone is familiar). Head of Biology walked past at that very moment! Now there's mistakes that are to a degree quite predictable (as described in the OP imo), and then there's just plain worrying behaviour. We don't really know what happened in this case, but whatever happened, it's still madness to use an ECT supply teacher in this way.

I would be interested to know how much information posters think that supply teachers actually get given.

I am in secondary so it is slightly different.
but
On entering the school in the morning supply teachers are lucky if they have time to be shown around the school.
They are given the password for the pc and for whatever system they need for registers.
It is entirely possible that this teacher was not given any information about the day to day running policies of the school.
Any information about the class is given on a lesson basis and contains as much information as the teacher can be 'bothered' to supply.
These can be quite detailed but often have very little about the class and sometime even less about the lesson. (remember that the work is set by the teacher that is ill).
Not all classes have phones and if you have a particularly poorly behaved class support can be none existent.

Yes the teacher should not have lost two pupils but if I were the supply agency I would be asking questions of the school aswell.

She also needs to ask herself if this is the career for her but she's still not confident. Teaching isn't for everyone

Pretty sure this is the same OP who posted about her younger sister possibly failing her teacher training in the summer. Can't find the thread now but it was a similar posting style and asking if the school and uni were being "unfair". There were all kinds of issues on the last placement and the OP was making excuses for her sister. Lots of posters said it sounded like the sister simply wasn't suited to teaching. Wouldn't be surprised if it is the same person.

Please. She didn't 'lose' anybody. Two 11 year olds walked out and didn't go back because they knew they could get away with it. Hence kicking back in another room together. No doubt they were already an existing problem that no one has been able to rein in, and no doubt that their parents are part of the problem. They're 6 months away from being secondary students and will likely be a pain in the arse for their next school as well.

So why do you guess the school asked her to leave immediately then? if the issue was the children of their parents why wouldn’t the school treat this teacher like any other?

Because SLT is incompetent and they left a teacher in a position she should not have been. Easier to get rid of her quickly and 'hide' the real problem than deal with it.

How would being a teacher down hide the problem?

Sorry- whilst I agree that SLTs can leave teachers in precarious situations and scape goat then at time, I don’t believe that’s what’s happened here. Op said her sister was asked to leave before lunch on the 1 day she taught at the school. They preferred to immediately have 1 less teacher than to keep her for the rest of the day at least. Surely if the class was the problem they’d be expecting another supply to have the same issue and just try to keep the supply as long as they could? Sounds to me like she was just truly awful and the kids were running rings around her.

Sounds to me like they combined classes or the Head or Deputy Head had to actually step up and take the class themselves. Seen it.

Surely it would've been easier to hide if they kept her all day?

So supply teacher lost two kids for half an hour, who were only found because they were caught by another member of staff. I'd say unfortunately that's a pretty big breech and concern for safety. Not noticing two kids haven't returned is not acceptable, even if the kids obviously were taking the piss

I'm sorry but this is unrealistic in a primary. Often the only adults in my school are also teaching, like me, or TAs. We don't have members of staff not teaching, nor do we have phones. Emails wouldn't be picked up by anyone in a timely enough manner. In a real emergency, either a TA would cover a class or we'd have to combine two classes (already mixed age groups) to free up a teacher. A child would probably have to take the message to the other teacher, or else my whole class would just have to come with me.

The pupils wouldn't have been able to leave the site as some other pps have suggested either.

Because they can then hide behind the cover teacher being "shit".

The problem is that from the information given we don't know if its a poor/inexperienced teacher issue or a much wider problem within the school.

They didn’t lose 2 children-the children sneaked off and used their phones. It’s so easy to forget that you’ve sent children out -especially in a large class.
I hope the children were suitably disciplined too.
Your sister has my sympathy & understanding-another busy & worn out primary teacher.

The teacher didn't lose children, they went to the toilet. That's where she thought they'd be as that's where they asked to go.

They then took it upon themselves not to return to the classroom but sit elsewhere on phones.

This is horrifically bad behaviour.

In a busy classroom, I trust children to return swiftly. If these children were a flight risk the supply should have been told, a TA should have been provided or a senior teacher should have taken the class themselves.

All those asking about the TA, you do realise that many schools now only have a TA in a class if they’re 1:1? Especially in KS2.
Yes, it’s standard behaviour to ask a supply to leave if they’re not managing. How she responds to the situation, feedback and criticism will be crucial to the agency’s subsequent decision and her further employment by them.
Did she forget them? or did she have very limited options as to how to proceed with children who didn’t give a toss about rules, expectations or their responsibilities. Wait til break time is not an option, and selecting a child to go and check on them can also be a lottery.
It’s the other side of the coin.
As a supply, my agency has a list of schools I won’t work in. My usual explanation is ‘We’re not a good fit for each other’ but the real answer is I’m a teacher, not riot police. So if I spend the day on controlling low level disruption, high level disruption with no back up or resources other than me, if I reflect on the day and my experiences and think ‘Fuck that’ then the school will have an ever-increasing hard-scrabble time to find cover. Because we can choose.

Of course it is usual to ask staff to go home where a serious safeguarding concern has been raised, while this is investigated.

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.

This!!!!

Understandably this will be upsetting for her but this is a teaching moment, which if she learns from will help her in the long term. If she lets this incident get to her then it suggests she doesn’t have the resilience for teaching, which isn’t necessary a bad thing because not everyone can handle the reality of teaching. Teacher would be the absolute last thing I’d want to do because I wouldn’t have the patience or temperament.

Advise your sis to talk this through with someone with more experience then she currently has. I hope her Agency is the place to offer support.

If she’s agency then a school can ask you to leave at any point. Something most likely happened for this response. Not unreasonable if that’s the case.

Quoting myself, that’s actually definitely a safeguarding. She should not have left though but there should have been contact ,ace with the LADO and an investigation. She would not have been allowed back in class. Keeping children safe in education includes all aspects of online safety. Two children on premises on smart phones. Massive nope.