Asked to resign

[Mossiebonbon]

My husband works in a secondary school in pastoral care, whereby each year group is assigned a support member of staff. There are 5 Members of staff with the same role as him, he currently works with Y11.
Next year he has been assigned to work with Y8 , the year our daughter is in. My husband does not feel comfortable working with our daughters year group , potentially having to reprimand her friends for behavior or liaise with parents that he knows personally.

The head teacher has suggested he will have to resign if he doesn’t work with this year group. There is no explanation , to our knowledge, for why the other pastoral members of staff can’t swap to be with Y8. Headteacher just says she wants consistency.

AIBU to think headteacher cannot threaten my husband like this? I appreciate your comments

Well, I do think it is particularly uncomfortable if working in a pastoral role to be responsible for your own child’s year group - far more difficult than just working as a classroom teacher, where you will not actually be the official person to go to for pastoral support, anyway. You are not going to be able to get involved in investigating any accusations of bullying or bad behaviour involving your own child without immediate accusations of bias by the other children and their parents, for a start, so you will undoubtedly be less effective as a pastoral support worker for that year group. You may also make children feel uncomfortable about coming to see you and disclose information to you in the first place, because they know of your relationship with another student and don’t trust you not to let something slip, or behave differently towards them if they happen to be a friend or enemy of your child - they might see you as building up ammunition against them, or being prejudiced against them if they confide in you, even in something unrelated directly to your child. And, of course, due to these two things, you may cause problems for your own child and their friendship groups. In conclusion, it wouldn’t be much of a problem in any other role, but it really doesn’t take much effort to see it is a problem if your specific role is pastoral support.

The staff member should be able to handle that too.

How can HT expect your DH to do pastoral care for his own daughter ? Clear safeguarding conflict of interests: one of the jobs of pastoral care staff is to help kids cope with problems at home.

I work in a school and there are certain jobs they won’t allow me to do in case it causes a conflict of interest because it is also my sons school. I find it frustrating that I can’t do certain things because of it but at the same time I don’t want to have to reprimand my own child or his friends. In this instance the HT is being ridiculous. Unless all of the pastoral staff have a child in the school, it’s really quite easy to ensure your husband isn’t working directly with his own child.

What would happen if your daughter needed pastoral support?

The HT has NO POWER to tell him to reign.

Resign! Sorry

Correct. She doesn’t want to go through the rigmarole and stress of going down the route of firing him if he doesn’t resign.

it happens often. Resign or we will get the ball rolling on dismissal.

I think the dh simply hasn’t told his wife that this is likely the situation

He is not the pastoral lead.
The Head of Year is the pastoral lead

He is the “pastoral assistant to the HOY”.

Added to which this is the pastoral assistant to the HOY

so first port of call would be the HOY

Bollocks it would be. Ime, students wanting support prefer to go to the pastoral assistants to talk to them first, and even if going to the HOY, may find the pastoral assistant is the one who does first interviews and reports, because the HoY is also a teacher, so busy teaching most of the time, not sitting around comforting tearful students and listening to their tales of woe.

Yes but in this situation, they may prefer to go to the HOY

Ie they are not forced to go to him. They could go to the pastoral lead.

Not only would it mean he knew a lot about her peers, it would mean his daughter probably wouldn't feel able to use the service if she needed it, as clients are looking for someone different to what they get from their parents there.

I would suggest speaking to the union etc, also asking the others in his role whether they'd mind swapping.

But if he has to do it in the end, I suppose he has to do it (at least until he gets another job.)

The daughter should be able to go to one of the other staff if she needs to though.

Is there some back story with your h and the HT? Seems very odd to leap suddenly to 'resign' instead of saying your h can look after a different year group.

He is not BU.

He should speak to his union rep.

I understand the HT doesn't want to budge - its a d*ck move tbh but he shouldn't resign ever!
It would be good for his communication skills if his is able to get through 9 months without any breaches of confidentiality.
Wouldn't resign though.

I don’t think union could do much when what he requires messes other staff about, is part of the job. It’s not uncommon for pastoral staff to leave/be off sick and have to cover other years anyway.

send a formal email outlining concerns and expressing the concern regarding safeguarding yourself and the impact it will have on your daughter. id also get in contact with your union as y are being unreasonable

The school are failing your DD tbh. All the children have the option of having a pastoral member of staff they can talk to that isn’t their teacher or their parents.

what if her DD needed support with issues but couldn’t go because it’s her dad.

Have they said she can’t go to someone else? I’ve known girls go to female learning managers rather than their own, no one has minded.

Perhaps get him to speak to his union and follow their advice. In his shoes, I would set out the concerns about a potential conflict of interest in writing, together with a few suggestions on reasonable workarounds and a summary that as he understands it, that is not how the headtacher wants to proceed and the HT would prefer him to do XYZ.

I'd keep a copy and wait to see if the other parents raise any concerns and/or the union and go from there.

At least his arse is covered.

Again, OP says he isn’t a teacher. He is a Pastoral Support worker. It would be similar to a TA role, with a pastoral focus.

I’m astonished by the number of people who think that working with his DC’s year group is inappropriate. This won’t be teaching a class the child is in. It won’t be running and leading the pastoral side. I suspect people who have such concerns and sympathy for OP and DH are not teachers and/or don’t work in schools.

DH has not been TOLD to resign. They have been told that this is what is involved in their job and how they have been allocated. They have been told they won’t be re-allocated and it’s up to them if they want to continue with the job or not.

Again, if you’re going to work in a school you have to be able to draw a professional distance between yourself and children and parents you might know outside school and professionals have no trouble doing this. It sounds like professional immaturity to be so concerned about it, to not be able to cope with the concept. It does make you wonder why DH took a job there or took his DC to the same school he worked in, as contact between them and with other children or parents he knows was always a possibility. It’s not all about disciplining and when it is, professionals should be able to do this and deal with children they have known before….it isn’t a conflict of interest.

Given DH is a pastoral support worker and not a teacher or Head of Year or Pastoral leader, in all likelihood, big discipline issues won’t be decided by them anyway.

If the DH is concerned about this aspect of the job, I wonder if there are other aspects he struggles with. We don’t know that. We don’t know all the backstory or the relationship between the DH and Head, and actually a rent even hearing the story direct from DH. There are so many things we don’t know and so many assumptions people have made. Most basically, people assumed this wa as teacher for pages.

I'm sure he can handle being professional at the school and also deal with parents and children outside of school.

I grew up in a small village where all the grades were in one school and most of the teachers and substitute teachers had children in the school and had to teach their own children.
They kept things professional at school and were able to be friends with our parents outside of school.

The Union won’t be interested in this. It isn’t an issue of poor practice or the DH being treated badly.

DH won’t be expected to deal with his DD regarding any pastoral issues she is involved with.

Again, he is a Pastoral Support worker and not a teacher or Pastoral lead. Those teachers will ensure appropriate provision is there for DD.

In lots of schools, a parent works in a role where they might not directly teach their own child, but see them or be invovled with their year group. Think about a Deputy Head running assemblies for the year group their DC is involved in, or needing to see students and parents (possibly people they know outside school) about issues which have arisen and been passed to the Deputy Head. It happens and is dealt with professionally as staff can draw professional boundaries.

What about a teacher who is a Pastoal Lead, such as Head of Sixth Form? They cannot be moved from their role because their DC is coming into the 6th Form. They will continue and if their own child is invoovled in things that could be tricky or a conflict of interest, another member of staff becomes the point of contact for that. It happens all the time. Unions don’t need to get invovled and no-one is at fault.