Overreaction about glue gun incident at school

[backinthestoneage]

https://www-thesun-ie.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.thesun.ie/news/8810155/furious-mum-school-son-burn-glue-gun/amp/?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16912722078861&csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesun.ie%2Fnews%2F8810155%2Ffurious-mum-school-son-burn-glue-gun%2F

Resulting in a teacher misconduct hearing
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teacher-misconduct-panel-outcome-ms-sarah-mead

No wonder more and more staff are unwilling to do activities and trips. If the slightest thing goes wrong there will be a petition at the school gates and a public hounding

She deserved a written warning and retraining /supervision at the very least.

So you disagree with the outcome where she lost her job?

its bullshit that you think i am a troll because my opinion is different to others on the thread, so far you havent added anything valuable to the discussion, apart from blaming a child for getting injured in the classroom,

most school I have seen have ways to communicate with each other , such as walkies, so unless you have visited every school in the UK, I dont think you have the perspective to accuse anyone of being irrational

If this teacher had a walkie talkie, a TA or means to contact support then I am sure she would have. Saying some schools have them is pointless. This teacher didn't.

I think she's been treated badly by the school.
But she would have known the child in question well enough to realise that actually he should not have been anywhere near a glue gun unsupervised( or at all). This sort of behaviour is not a one off, she would have been aware that he was not the type to follow instructions, and she should have dealt with the situation differently.
The glue guns should not have been available for children to get out without permission, and it sounds as if she was going between at least 2 and maybe 3 different areas, and she would not have been able to see what was going on. This child( who I bet was a known quantity along with his mother) should not have been anywhere near a glue gun, it was a problem waiting to explode. So i question her judgement, especially as she was not a newly qualified teacher, but an experienced member of SLT.
I still don't think she has been treated fairly though.

The report says the mother started a civil claim. So clearly £££ in her eyes.

My children have broken bones at primary school, accidents happen, I don't blame the school (or indeed anyone!)

Ah I see. No worries, I'll leave you to it.

No point in engaging here....

The teacher did make mistakes, as she has admitted, but the child could have hurt himself even with direct supervision. These things happen.

If the child had followed instructions he would have been nowhere near the gluegun! As is often the case there were several contributing factors. It is not entirely the fault of the child nor entirely the fault of the teacher. I'd say the head should bear some responsibility too since they were the one responsible for the unreasonable workload on the teacher.

if there were not any available ways to call for assistance (walkie talkies),
and there are no TAs in the classroom(there should be an appropriate staff to child ratio)
, the only other way would be for the teacher to call for a member of staff down the corridor, or adjacent classroom, or physically leave the classroom to get help, which I have seen many teachers do

a teacher should never be put in a situation where they cant call for assistance,

what if a chid started having a seizure or fainted? the teacher would have to run for help and leave both the injured child and the rest of the class unattended
unacceptable
a school should never run on the presumption that everything will go as planned, it should have many fail safes in the interest of the staff and children

it should have many fail safes in the interest of the staff and children

I agree. Please ask the DfE to staff schools adequately.

@truthhurts23

Of course teachers should always be able to access support but the teacher in this case couldn't and many teachers can't. Budget requirements are one thing but also, if the class next to me is in PE, or the computing suite then they aren't there to support either.

Also, you said that using “impression” rather than “primary diagnosis” meant that the clinical assessment wasn’t done by a doctor which is completely bizarre, because the exact opposite is true.

Are you American? “Primary diagnosis” may be more of a US type nomenclature where diagnosis-based admissions are needed for health funding.

A LOT of you are SERIOUSLY overestimating the level of resources, particularly staffing, available in the majority of UK schools.

There are no phones or walkie-talkies in a classroom.
There are usually no or way fewer than recommended TAs in a classroom.
The nearest available additional adult to help with any behavioural difficulties, first aid incidents or anything else might well be a 5-10 minute walk away. You can't leave a class of 30 children alone while you go to fetch help. You can't send a child or children out of the classroom without supervision. You have an URGENT safeguarding issue to attend to (i.e. it is 3.20pm and some poor at risk kid's Dad (who is banned from seeing the child unless supervised in a contact centre) is at the school gates, drunk and threatening his child/trying to bundle him into his car to drive him home, drunk.

A child in your class burns his hand on the glue gun. He's dicking around, and wont' show you the injury, but you catch a glimpse and it's clearly not a large area. The school bell goes. Whilst trying to see 28 children out of the door, some of whom are allowed to walk home alone and some of whom need to be collected by only the correct authorised adult you tell him to put it under the cold water tap in the room for 20 minutes. He refuses, and leaves to walk home as he is allowed to do. You're trying to stop the at risk child from even being seen by his dad whilst not trying to panic him or let on to the other children that there is an issue. You are the ONLY adult in the classroom. The other adults nearby are busy, or not school employees.

WWYD? Because if it's prioritise stopping the child with what is as far as you can tell a minor injury from leaving the room (how?) over keeping at risk child with Drunk Dad safe, you triaged the situation badly wrong.

You and eventually other members of staff manage to keep At Risk Child separate from Drunk Dad, and Drunk Dad drives off, despite the school's best efforts.

You have to call the police about Drunk Driver Dad.

You have to sit with At Risk Child, calm him down because he's now beside himself upset, and call out of hours Social Services. Who may or may not answer the phone. You call At Risk Child's mum, who either doesn't answer the phone or answers but she can't get there within the next half hour. She tells you she's got back with Drunk Dad and she's authorised him to collect the child. You have to tell her that you cannot allow that to happen, due to court orders and the immediate threat he has just presented to the child. You call out of hours SS again. They might answer this time, and they go away to think about if they can send somebody to collect At Risk Child for an emergency foster situation tonight. They eventually call you back (after you missed call them a bunch of times asking for an update) at 8pm to tell you to release the child to the mother. At Risk Child's mum finishes her shift and collects him at 8.30pm.

When you fall into bed at 10.30pm you swear, because you forgot to ring misbehaving with a glue gun child's mum to tell her he burnt his hand at school. You sigh - she'll know by now, and it's too late to ring now, for what looked like a minor injury. You'll have a word with her when she drops him off tomorrow, and do the accident report then. The head will hopefully understand, although you get a poor night's sleep, worrying both about the At Risk Child and knowing that the Misbehaving with a Glue Gun child's mum can be difficult.

@MoralOrLegal
it should have many fail safes in the interest of the staff and children

I agree. Please ask the DfE to staff schools adequately.

I couldn't have put it any better.

This article is from 2019. Things haven't exactly got any better. 'It's dangerous': full chaos of funding cuts in England's schools revealed | School funding | The Guardian

It was alleged that Ms xxxx was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and/or conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute, in that whilst working as a Teacher at xxxxxxxx Primary School:

1. On or around 13 May 2022, she allowed pupils to use glue guns:
a) without adequate supervision;
b) without a risk assessment having been conducted; and/or
c) without two members of staff being present.

2. As a result of using a glue gun in her class on 13 May 2022, Pupil A sustained an injury to his hand.

3. In relation to the injury sustained by Pupil A, she did not:
a) arrange for Pupil A to be taken to the medical room and/or receive treatment for his injury;
b) notify Pupil A’s parent of the accident/injury;

c) notify the Headteacher of the accident/Pupil A’s injury; and/or
d) complete an accident report in a timely manner and/or until requested to do so by the Headteacher.

Ms xxxxxx admitted the factual allegations and that they amounted to unacceptable professional behaviour and conduct that might bring the profession into disrepute.

So the teacher made many mistakes including not even supervising the children properly, common sense would say , if you are the only member of staff responsible for a whole class, maybe dont split them up into groups of 3 and put them in different room!!
Also initially she told the other students not to use the glue guns but then changed her mind because the students dictated to her that glue guns are better, she agreed with the students
and gave them an ineffective tutorial how to use the equipment, which resulted in one child being injured

the teacher is at fault in this situation for not following the correct procedures

Which, again, is why a risk assessment that the teacher chose to disregard was so important. The glue gun should not have been in the classroom in the first place if the teacher could not provide adequate supervision on their own.

There were so many red flags and opportunities where the teacher could have removed the glue gun after that initial bad decision. It was a whole sequence of poor decisions before and after the incident.

However, the panel’s view was that the allegations demonstrated a number of discrete failings on the part of Ms xxxxxx.
It could not therefore properly be considered as a momentary lapse and as a result had crossed the threshold into unacceptable professional conduct.
Whilst recognising that the standards apply equally to all members of the profession, these failures were somewhat heightened by Ms xxxxx's knowledge of the safeguarding requirements as she was a DSL and senior leader. Accordingly, the panel was satisfied that Ms xxxxxx was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct.

It's damned if you do, damned if you don't. Do you check risk assessments for every item in the Art room, half of which you probably don't even know are there? In which case, what do you sacrifice to gain the time to do that? Or do you coop the kids up on a Friday afternoon in a classroom when they were looking forward to Art, every week, because you don't have a TA?

There are some great posts suggesting how schools should run in an ideal world. I'm in secondary teaching, and my heart sinks if I'm asked to cover a Year 7 DT lesson as I have no idea what's in the cupboards if a kid chooses to arse around while I'm explaining the set work to someone else.

Please ask the DfE to staff schools adequately.

Ms xxxx was then involved in a high-risk safeguarding issue with some other vulnerable pupils, who had not been collected at the end of the day.
As she was dealing with this high-risk issue as the DSL until 16:30, Ms Mead was not able to deal with Pupil A’s issue straight after school as she would normally do. As a result, Ms Mead forgot to deal with Pupil A’s issues and follow the School’s procedures, such as contacting [REDACTED] mother, informing the Headteacher or recording it in the School accident book

the safeguarding issue was not like the scenario you described, it would have been her dealing with students that had parents picking them up late, hardly a dangerous emergency, the whole ordeal lasted less than an hour
so after the situation was resolved at 4.30pm she had more than enough time to call the students mother
she would have been in the wrong to assume that the childs mother already knew, she still had a responsibility to inform the parent , "I forgot" is not a valid excuse and it cost her job

Ms xxxxx had split the class into three groups and two of them were working on projects relating to the display.
The class was split between the Year 6 classroom, a neighbouring breakout room and the adjoining art room.
Ms xxxxxx rotated through the groups and was supervising them on her own.
She did not have the support of a teaching assistant on that day.

she put the children at risk by leaving them unattended multiple times

One of the groups working on the art projects was using PVA glue to stick parts of the character together that they had made.
Two pupils from this group approached Ms xxxxx with a glue gun they had obtained.
Ms xxxxx told them not to use the glue gun and to keep using the PVA glue. When Ms xxxxxx next returned to the pupils in this group, she found they had switched the glue gun on, and they showed Ms xxxxx how the PVA glue was not working for the task.

children had access to equipment that required adult supervision
teacher lost control of the class as multiple students disobeyed her instruction to not turn on or use the glue gun ,

she did not remove the glue guns from the students after telling them not to use them

Having been shown this by the pupils, Ms xxxxx accepted the PVA glue was not effective and showed those pupils how to use the glue gun safely and allowed them to use it.
Ms xxxxxx continued to check on other pupils in the class as they were spread out in their groups.

continued to leave children unattended, even after learning that students were disobeying her instructions and were in use of equipment that required adult supervision

It was almost the end of the day and on returning to the group with the glue gun, Pupil A had now joined this group and was watching the other pupils using the glue gun,
Ms xxxxxx asked Pupil A to return to his group, but he explained that he had finished his task with that group.

she has let her students disobey and dictate to her multiple time,
first she let students use the glue guns after previously telling them not to
nw she is letting a student wander from his group and let him stay in another group because his task was finished, she did not have an issue with the student leaving his group

On later returning to the group, Ms xxxxxx noticed that Pupil A had started to use the glue gun.
Ms xxxxxxx showed Pupil A how to use it safely.

she gave the injured student permission to use the glue gun and even showed him how to use it ,
she then left him unattended with it
which led to him being injured

so it seems that she had no control over the class and let them do whatever they wanted to do,
she allowed all of this to happen by her poor decisions

the boy who burnt his hand was not running around , he was not playing around with glue gun either,
it was first time using it and he accidently burned himself
he was given the OK to leave his group and he was also given permission to use the glue gun

"most school I have seen have ways to communicate with each other , such as walkies, so unless you have visited every school in the UK, I dont think you have the perspective to accuse anyone of being irrational"

Teacher of 25 years and 6 schools and I've never had a walk-in talkie. Only SLT ever have those. Standard practice in an emergency (including situations where children are misbehaving/ potentially harming others) is to send another child to reception to call for help. Or, send an email (but they're not always immediately picked up).

I'd love to work in one of these schools where all teachers have a means to communicate at all times. I've never seen one of them!

in your opinion, which method is more convenient ?
sending a student outside of the classroom or communicating on a walkie

"in your opinion, which method is more convenient ?
sending a student outside of the classroom or communicating on a walkie"

Obviously a walkie talkie is much more preferable. Sending students is terribly inefficient. Some don't want to go (see it as snitching on friends), if your classroom is a long way from reception, it can take forever and that's if the student doesn't dawdle on their way there. Even if the message does get through (the receptionist is at their desk and receives the message. I have had students walk all the way to reception to just walk back and say "there was nobody there" without thinking to get another member of staff. But even if they do get the message, there's no guarantee that someone from SLT will come. A few times, I've been in the situation at a tough school when I called for emergency back up, and there was no one free to come, so no one did. Quite simply too many students with behavioural issues and not enough SLT to deal with it. The other problem with sending students is that it can get abused. At the same school a few years back, I remember a student coming and asking for one of my students to go and see a teacher. I let them go, but it was only a rouse to get the kid out of class, so they could beat him up. Turns out he had said something racist earlier in the day.

So yeah, I'd love a walkie talkie, but unfortunately that's not the reality in any of the secondary schools I have ever taught in (or my children have attended). When the classroom door is shut, pretty much you are on your own and have to deal with whatever comes your way.

I think it's absolutely awful that so many of you / society expects so little from a 10 year old. If you've got a 10 year old (without SEN), you'll know that they can listen and follow instructions, understand school rules, communicate their needs. Why couldn't the 10 year old tell his mum what happened (he did manage to in fact). He is a child and will make mistakes but he has obviously got lessons to learn (but won't because of his awful mother).

The whole situation is a complete joke and I've cried actual tears for this teacher. Anyone against her has NO CLUE what it's like to be in her position as yr6 teacher, deputy, dsl (at home time, on a fri, in Sat's week, with no support, with naughty child/ren). The job is IMPOSSIBLE. And then to be dragged through the mud because a child got a tiny, minor burn. I can't sleep because the whole situation terrifies me. It completely puts me off doing anything other than the boring and basic. Is that what parents want? For there to be so little risk involved that there are no opportunities to learn from situations. For school to be boring because everyone is scared of the alternative?

The report is a horrible read. I hate the bit where it says the teacher acknowledged the impact of her actions on pupil A. The child had a tiny burn that needed no treatment. It didn't even hurt enough for him to want to run it under a tap. Awful. Did it acknowledge the hours of unpaid overtime she undoubtedly gave that class to support their learning.

The joke of it is that I bet that report cost more than a TA for a year. SHAME ON EVERYONE INVOLVED APART FROM SARAH.

why is the mother horrible?
Where did you get the information that the boy was badly behaved?
What mistake did he make?

The only thing he did without permission was move to another group because he had already finished his task in his own group ,
the teacher accepted his reason for leaving his group and allowed him to stay in the new group

he hurt himself accidently using the glue gun because it was his first time using it and there was no teacher monitoring him, it was in no way his fault

the teacher did not give any evidence of the student behaving badly,
im sure she would have used it in her defence if the boy was difficult or in anyway badly behaved

she did not provide a safe environment,
she left the kids unattended and it resulted in an accidental injury, unfortunately she lost her job
but if she carried on ignoring safety guidelines, it was only a matter of time before a student got injured or some other incident happened