Incident at school - come and give me your thoughts.

[Newnamez]

DD is 12 and in yr7 (first yr of secondary).
On the last day of term before Easter she came home and told us that during the first lesson that day 2 'older girls' (she thinks yr9) came to the class (which had a stand in teacher that day) and asked for her by name and said she was needed at the school office by the Head teacher. She went with them. The girls walked ahead of her whispering.
By chance a TA that DD likes and chats to came out of a room and saw the three of them and asked the girls where they were taking DD. The older girls said 'the office' and the TA said i'll take over and they ran away. The TA shared with DD that one of the girls is her (TAs) cousin and said she was a ''little shit'' !! TA took DD to the office and no one had sent for her. TA took DD back to class. That's the bare bones of it. That is literally all i know.

Now, i hear about this at 6 that evening from DD and get more horrified the more i think about it. I emailed a head of year level teacher that evening. I heard nothing all easter holiday which is fine, but i heard nothing from anyone last night either. (yesterday 1st day back)

Ive told DD not to leave class unless an adult has come for her from now on.

Im going to ring the school this morning to ask to speak to someone in person about this.

Am i wrong or is this quite worrying?! How did the girls know my DD s name and where she'd be? Where were they taking her? Why were they wandering round the school? How are they going to stop this happening again?

What would you do/say?

TIA

Nobody is saying drop the TA in it.We are just saying tell the whole story.OP can still thank the TA and explain how grateful she is for her intervention.

I'm genuinely shocked that they're dismissing your concerns. At the very least they should be offering to get the HOY to call you back to discuss the incident or to arrange a metting to do so.

Reception sounds wishy washy.

Don't quote the TA at all. That's deeply unfair.

Report this as a safeguarding issue to the Designated Safeguarding Lead as well as HOY, and the Head. Do it in writing, ask for a meeting urgently after school today. Don't be fobbed off with emails/phone calls.

Nobody knows what the girls were planning to do, or may still be planning to do out of sight. It may be that their plans have just been delayed, not cancelled. Don't delay, don't feel like you're making a fuss, don't let anyone minimise this.

I am more shocked that this 'stand in' teacher let her leave with them just on their say so to be honest. Way more unprofessional than the little shit comment. I would be fuming about this! Those girls need some consequences.

The fact they are allowed to just wander instead of being in lesson shows they are little shits so it doesn't need repeating the school isn't thinking they are model students

All of this sounds bizarre.

Two year 9s were out of class, up to mischief it seems. Which class had they come from and who let them go out? Is it different classes and they planned to 'need the toilet' at a certain time as it's unlikely a teacher would let two out at the same time? First thing the school needs to look into.
The next issue is how they know your DD. You say she thinks they were year 9 but doesn't know them. As others have said, is there something about your DD that stands out? Has she had any issues with others, even in her class, where they might have an older sibling? I would be trying to ask your DD about school life in general and how she is fitting in.
The other odd event here is the TA just happened to arrive to save your DD. Is it a SEN school? TAs in secondary are very rare and linked to a specific student - should they have actually been supervising one of these girls? (And if so, is the school aware of her being the cousin and therefore need to change who the TA works with).

Overall it sounds very bizarre with a lot of aspects that don't make sense. I hope you can get to the bottom of it with the tutor or head of year.

Was she actually in the class, or stood outside waiting to go in when these older girls approached her? If she was in the class, I find it hard to believe that two school girls could walk into a class and request another child goes to "the office". Surely a teacher , whether that's a stand by or usual teacher, would not allow this to happen? I am not saying your daughter is lying, but it sounds odd.

I agree that this needs to be investigated. Stay calm and polite but express concern and relay ALL the facts - double check with your daughter that you have understood everything correctly. Points to include:

Older girls, possibly year 9, out of lessons during lesson time.

These girls being allowed to "collect" your daughter from a class - is this standard practice at the school (if so, why?) or should the stand-in teacher have been aware this was not correct procedure?

Ask whether this has been reported already by the TA - if so, what has been discovered from an investigation? If not, why was it not reported? It is a safeguarding concern.

Relay the language used as that is not a professional way for a TA to interact with an 11-12 year old. She was clearly trying to help but needs to alter her approach in future.

Ask to be kept informed about results of an investigation (i.e. how this was allowed to happen, rather than any sanctions applied to the older girls) and which measures will be taken to prevent this happening in future.

Reception said ''We don't manage the teachers diary's'' when i clarified that i needed to ask by email for a meeting.

I have the name of the safeguarding lead. She is also an assistant had. (there's loads of assistant heads!)

I'll ask for her to attend also.

You can try again with Reception if you want, stating clearly that you've an urgent safeguarding issue to have a meeting about. But I'd have it all in writing as well so they can't deny that they've been informed.

It’s not about getting the TA into trouble. If the TA has reported the incident at the time, then even with her saying ‘little shit’ will have no bearing. She’s clearly got all the children’s safety as top priority.

However, if she’s seen what has happened, stopped her cousin in action, confirmed to OPs DD her cousin is a ‘little shit’ and then not reported it to ensure the school comes down hard on the yr9 girls so that nothing like this happens again, then the TA should be in trouble for not doing what she’s paid to do - keeping all children safe while supporting teaching and learning.

What a fob off the reception sounds terrible!

If you don't get a response from the Head of Year today, escalate this to the head.

Yes, you’re doing the right thing by requesting an in person meeting with the head of year. High school teachers tend to use colourful language at times so I wouldn’t worry about getting the teacher into trouble, keep it factual. Hopefully there has been a miscommunication somewhere along the line, and she actually was requested to go to the office, but it doesn’t sound like it.

We dont know that she didn't inform SLT do we?

They don't manage their diaries, but they can absolutely inform the HOY of a serious incident and get them to call you back as quickly as possible.

Is there any chance you can go to the school and request a chat? As clearly your emails and phone calls aren't being treated with the urgency that this requires.

Threaten with informing ofsted or the H&S team at the council if they keep on fobbing you off

No we don’t. It’s a problem if she didn’t.

This would be my position. It may be that DD12 has exaggerated what she said anyway (might have used another term rather than ‘little shit’). The issue here is that 2 girls managed to remove a child from class without a letter/form from the office when clearly there was no request to do so.

For safeguarding reasons, this needs to be addressed: so a) they need to either only permit the removal of a child when an adult member of staff asks in person and/or an older child presents with a formal note.

And b), it is clear that this child’s presence was not requested, so separately the school need to investigate what these girls were up to and discipline them.

I wouldn’t drop the TA in it when her involvement appears to have protected DD and you don’t know for certain that the word ‘shit’ was used.

TA supports a child in DDs form class. But was not in the class that DD was taken from. DD sees this TA in lots of lessons and they seem to have a good relationship with each other. DD talks about lovely Miss X.

I won't mention the shits bit.

James bulger springs to mind with this, what the fuck were they going to do with her?! I’d be speaking to the head of safeguarding and asking a full investigation into this, god knows what their intentions were!
I would absolutely not mention the ‘little shit’ comment, the TA had your DDs back, keep it that way!

If you send any follow up emails OP .put URGENT - RESPONSE REQUIRED BY x PM TODAY in the subject title.

I can't go there physically today as i'm babysitting a two year old all day and no car seat. We're miles from the school as rural.