To feel sad my DD missed Christmas dinner

[UndertheCedartree]

My 11yo DD is autistic and she has recently started at a new school. The school have been great in supporting her.

Sadly, she went into a Science class for the first time yesterday and as they have set seats she asked the teacher where she should sit. The teacher snapped at her that she didn't know and she had to stand at the front of the class waiting for the others to sit down which really unsettled and upset her.

Today was their Christmas dinner day and they could go in wearing pyjamas. She was really looking forward to this. But as we got closer to school this morning she got more and more distressed. Once in school she had a full on meltdown that went on for ages. Eventually she calmed down enough for me to leave and they took her up to the Learning support centre where she promptly fell asleep exhausted after her melt down. She missed her Christmas dinner! After a while they asked me to come and pick her up. I feel so sad for her. I'd spent a lot of time preparing her for the Christmas dinner and it was going to be a nice way to introduce her to the canteen. And she was so looking forward to it. All spoilt because a teacher took her bad mood out on her.

Basically the exchange was the straw that broke the camels back. She was doing so well managing everything and then this just really set her back.

I think many many people realise that teaching is underfunded, poorly resourced, lacking in respect from others and genuinely a tough profession. However, this is an 11 year old ND child and they are not the one in the position of power here. We’ve had lots of informative posts about the pressures of teaching so teachers on here have given their perspective but we need to look at it from this child’s perspective. Of course the OP is going to protect her child and prioritise her.

While some people (not all) are badgering the OP and also commenting “maybe the teacher is ND” well, perhaps the OP is also ND……so give her a break! She’s not asking for the teacher to be hung, drawn and quartered. She’s disappointed and upset. It doesn’t sound like @UndertheCedartree has gone in “fuming” and demanding the teacher is fired - I assume?!

YANBU to be upset your DD missed out, especially as you had planned. However, if you can support her to focus on how amazingly well she has done to transition to a new school, that sounds like a positive. It won’t take away the disappointment but sounds like she has been extremely resilient in starting her new school.

Yes, I'm aware - it's a challenging job! But if you just have basic good manners you'll be able to traverse that all much easier. As I say all the other teachers have been brilliant!

Bollocks you've not looked to apportion blame! You've castiged this science teacher to her colleagues, the LSA, and senior management. If any of my dc or dc in my family suggested they wanted to teach I'd absolutely warn them off.

I don't think you can comment if you've never taught a class of teenagers. You don't get it and you never will get it. Our jobs are completely, utterly different, and contain totally different stressors and pressures.

It is not unprofessional to snap at a child occasionally. It is human. No one is saying that it is OK that the teacher 'took her mood out' on a child (which apparently was what the teacher admitted to her Head and the Head repeated this to the parent - all of which I find very hard to believe, I must say) and that it's recommended that teachers go around snapping at children. All people like me - who actually do have experience of teaching teenagers, unlike you (respectfully - I wouldn't presume to tell you how to deal with toddlers in a professional setting, as I have no experience of doing it) - are saying is that teachers do sometimes drop the ball, teachers aren't always given the information they need to support SEN kids properly, and that teachers are human, are juggling multiple demands on their time and energy, and sometimes they react badly to a situation and regret it later. We don't need to hang, draw and quarter them when they do. What we can do is take a step back, appreciate they do a very stressful job, and cut them a bit of slack. And hopefully teach our kids to do the same.

I might add that we don't actually know what this teacher supposedly said to the OP's child, as the OP has never stated this clearly. It seems like she was simply told to wait in a snappy tone while the teacher worked out where to put her in the seating plan. I don't think that's the crime of the century. In the moment it was upsetting for the OP's daughter, and that's regrettable of course, but it was hardly done with malicious intent - more in a moment of being flustered at the beginning of a lesson when she had a million other things to deal with.

I'm very impressed that you are the model of perfection all the time at work. I certainly am not. I admit that. I've been working for 20+ years and worked with hundreds of colleagues in that time. I've never met someone who didn't once lose their cool on the job. You are certainly one in a million and I applaud you.

Yes, the solidarity has been much appreciated.

Thanks for the advice.

@EnidSpyton ”I don't think you can comment if you've never taught a class of teenagers. You don't get it and you never will get it. Our jobs are completely, utterly different, and contain totally different stressors and pressures.”

Ditto to you about well, erm, other jobs. Nobody has experienced everything. Many of us try to empathise.
Not all teachers know what it’s like to be an ND 11 year old who started a school towards the end of a term. So, empathy goes all ways.

OP can I just say GO YOU! Well done for standing up for your DD. My autistic DD is currently home Ed after everything fell apart in year 1. I don’t have the energy to go in to it but suffice to say her needs weren’t being accommodated. Like many other SEN children that are failed by the education system because they don’t fit in. My DD is bright, she is fabulous & she is bloody resilient! I’m sick of these sorts of comments so thank you for taking them on!

She didn't talk about it a lot but she did tell me. I told her that maybe the teacher was having a bad day and let's hope she's having a better day next time. No, she didn't have a meltdown then, she felt safe and secure at home.

I think the comment about the hustle and bustle of a mainstream secondary is spot on. Schools are very busy places. There are often behaviour issues to deal with and competing demands. I have observed first hand how distressed students with asd can be if there is not enough time or flex for them. Many students are inappropriately placed in environments that are not going to suit them. Missing a Xmas dinner and being asked in a snappy way to wait to be seated are not ideal but life in our secondary schools is not ideal. There are too few support staff, large classes, behaviour problems etc etc.

Yes, really! I wouldn't have written it otherwise!!

The school may seem great but I’d have reservations about a Head Teacher who described a teacher as unprofessional in front of LSA or parents.

No wonder so many teachers want out.

Who are you to say that the teacher doesn't have basic good manners?

She made an error of judgement and she has admitted to it.

Have you never snapped or been rude to someone in your life, ever?

Would you like your character and professionalism to be judged on that one moment of thoughtlessness?

I've already detailed on this thread an example of the kind of horrific things teachers have to deal with on a daily basis.

You have no idea what the teacher was dealing with to put her in a 'bad mood'. She might have just suffered a bereavement or loss. She might be struggling with financial issues or illness or other family pressures. She might be absolutely exhausted from staying up until 1am to get her reports written and marking done before the end of term. Sometimes you can't find the strength to put your professional face on and the personal breaks through. It happens, it's regrettable, but a little bit of understanding that the teacher is a person would go a long way here in getting you to move past your current attitude of 'teacher = terrible, unprofessional, rude person' which you have maintained throughout this thread, based on one brief interaction with your daughter when she was clearly not at her best.

I'm not saying it's ok that she upset your daughter. But expecting her to have been more compassionate and kind, without extending the same compassion and kindness to her in return, is a little hypocritical.

Agree @cansu

Excellent posts by @WombatChocolate

The teacher also knows DD needs extra support at the beginning and end of a class.

I'm puzzled what her LSA was doing. Surely the LSA is employed to support her at the times your dd finds most challenging. Presumably her LSA has been with her for the 3 weeks she has been at the school, and will have read all the paperwork and potentially met you, and got to know your dd. She would surely be aware that beginnings and ends of lessons were a challenging time and should be supporting at that time, as opposed to the teacher who may well have read the information 3 weeks ago, but didn't have it at the forefront of her mind, as opposed to the teacher who has not met her before and obviously have had a whole heap of other things to deal with in between reading the information and meeting her today..

You're taking this quote out of context.

This comment is in response to a nursery school teacher who said that she has never had a cross word with any of the toddlers she looks after so she can't understand why a secondary school teacher would ever snap at a teenager they teach.

As I say, quite rightly, the two sets of young people come with very different challenges. Expecting a secondary school teacher to always be smiley and cheery while a teenager is telling them to fuck off or throwing a chair at them is a little unreasonable and shows a lack of understanding of the realities of the job.

And I've got plenty of empathy for my ND students. Haven't said anywhere that I don't. I'm not sure why you felt the need to address that comment to me.

Please read what I've written, I've not changed my mind atall. The teacher admitted snapping to the class. The LSA was able to confirm that she snapped and that she said she was in a bad mood. The head teacher did not think this was professional behaviour.

Quite.

I would have expected the LSA to liaise with the class teacher in advance and to know where the OP's child was sitting.

What's the point in having a 1-1 LSA if they're not in touch with the class teacher in advance of lessons?

When I had an LSA in my classroom as a 1-1 many moons ago, she always emailed me before every lesson to ask for the planning so that she could talk the student through what to expect beforehand. She also asked for a copy of the seating plan.

The LSA knows the child better than any other member of staff and is there to support them and support the class teacher to support them. The OP's daughter started three weeks ago and due to Science not being every week, this is the first lesson with the new teacher, who may well have not remembered she was getting the OPs daughter for the first time that day - who knows when she was told and if she was reminded. The LSA should have prepared the way by getting in touch with the teacher in advance.

Again, it doesn't excuse what happened, but it does point to wider failures within the school. The OP is insisting that ONLY this teacher has let their daughter down, but this isn't the case. The teacher is part of a machine that all needs to be working smoothly in order to support an SEN student.

As I say all the other teachers have been brilliant
So far, OP. Inevitably, other staff will make mistakes or have a bad day. That's life. You simply cannot expect impeccable performance (from anyone) all the time.

And equally this teacher, whose position you haven't even started to empathise with, might be brilliant on every other occasion.

This is her 4th week at the school.

The head teacher did not think this was professional behaviour.

Everyone can agree it was less than ideal.

However, you've decided to make it the actual cause of your DD's meltdown & subsequent missing of the party.

That's both a leap & very unfair.

I feel
For both your dd and the teacher. But consider that the teacher has 29 other children, each one of them with something to remember about let alone a detailed plan about a specific child and issue, a whole class to teach, disruptive children to settle, etc. teachers are way too underpaid to deal with all of this.

My DD loved the idea of going in pyjamas! She likes clothes the comfier the better. They also had the option to wear a Christmas jumper if preferred or nothing. As I've already explained Christmas dinner is quieter than usual as each year group eats separately so rather than all year groups being there it was only Y7.

No, she was genuinely looking forward to it. There was anxiety about it of course but we'd been working on it. The anxiety about going into school was because of the teacher. She opens up to me what is upsetting her.

They can. Good thing I have compassion.

?? So therefore let's not give her access to an education??