I'm a KS1 TA at a primary school and recently my class teacher had an email from some angry parents wanting a meeting. Essentially, I witnessed a serious incident which was instigated by their son and the class teacher reported it to the parents. The parents said their son denied it and they wanted to have a meeting about it. The class teacher was very nervous and asked me and another TA who is a 1:1 in our class to join. The parents are known to be quite intimidating and nasty apparently. Often raising their voices. I'm 21 and this is my first year in a school, I've never had a meeting with parents before so didn't know what to expect. The headteacher was aware I would be in the meeting and didn't attend himself. During the meeting, the parents were incredibly aggressive, rude and shouting over us so nobody could get a word in. The dad was slamming his hands down on the table. I was honestly in shock and the class teacher left the room crying before any of us had the chance to speak, leaving me and the other TA there. As I tried to defend what I'd seen, the parents got increasingly more annoyed and told me I was accusing their son of lying by simply saying that I'd witnessed it and describing the situation. He was getting even more irate and I then put my hand up and had to ask him to stop shouting which made everything even worse and he called me condescending. I then left the room because I was on the verge of tears and I went to get the head teacher. The head teacher later told me that I shouldn't have even defended myself at that point or put my hand up as it made it worse. The parents have now lodged an official complaint to the governors about me saying I'm spreading lies about their child. The head has sent a letter to the parents saying I've been 'reprimanded' and also reminding them about their conduct within school. I've also been given a letter of expectation I believe to appease the parents... The child never got any punishment and it was like nothing ever happened.
Should I have even been there? My mum says I'm too inexperienced to involved with heated parents like that and the SLT should've been involved. Part of me blames myself for even trying to engage with them and making it worse but my mum thinks I'm being used as a scapegoat. Would love to hear your thoughts, I'm really worried this is going to affect my career.