AIBU to question a HLTA leaving after a pupil’s comment?

[sertt]

Hi, HLTA who was covering my class on PPA this week, walked out of school after a child called her fat. Just wondered whether staff can leave throughout the day and self certify with stress.

The HLTA did not return to work for the rest of the week.

Agreed.

Then THAT is a reason to walk out of a school.

Not because the child calls you a "stupid fucking moron", but because SLT do not deal with verbal abuse properly.

At my kids primary, a teacher was assaulted by a boy, and the school did not deal with it well, so she walked out. The school learned their lesson as they lost a brilliant teacher, so are now much more effective at dealing with poor behaviour.

I teach secondary. I have been assaulted when breaking up a fight and it was dealt with appropriately. I have been sworn at and the child was sent to isolation.

But schools are struggling with increasingly poor behaviour due to kids that are not parented properly. Kids whose parents let them spend hours and hours on a screen and are given few boundaries and few (if any) consequences.

I know a Y7 boy who had spent nearly 40 hours on TikTok in one week!! That's insane! (and not including time on other apps he had used!)

so if the nurse, teacher receptionist is then upset by the abuse, the person who has been abusive should fully expect to get told to “get to fuck you pathetic, disgusting waste of skin” ? I mean someone’s upset and stressed so they can say/do what they want! Abusive twats need to get thicker skin…

So from the tone of your message you clearly think she was out of order but you haven't really given enough information or context for others to have an opinion.

When Dd was in Year 10 her English teacher sat down and sobbed in a lesson, then walked out and didn’t come back. Apparently she’d left the premises and didn’t tell anyone. One of the kids eventually went to tell someone in the office and nobody had been aware the teacher had gone. She never returned to the school. I do think about her and how she must have been at breaking point. How awful that the behaviour of kids made her leave a job/career. She was an experienced teacher.

But it IS her business if the person who just disappeared was supposed to be covering OP's class!

Also how old is this child?

Again, no. It's SLTs business. I doubt the TA just left the building without informing anyone. If that happened, I expect the OP would have mentioned it.

It kind of is part of the job tbh. It's like working in a pub, or as a Dr's receptionist. Many people will be lovely, but you're in contact with everyone and at a potentially tricky time for some of them, so some will be very rude.

Someone who abused staff in a pub would probably be chucked out and barred. Other customers might step in to tell them to pack it in.

Customer or public facing workplaces often have notices up saying that staff are entitled to do their jobs without being assaulted or verbally abused.

Yet school staff are just supposed to put up with it?

Yup. First question when one of us gets hit , is why were you in range ?

We're meant to put up with it because it's a "vocation".

That can get to fuck.

I've been teaching for years and was very over weight for most of those years. I only have ever had one child use my weight in a derogatory way against me and said child to be fair came from a very difficult background.

We don't go to work to be insulted. Such comments are rude, unkind and entirely unnecessary. And kids know that.

Put up with it, and first priority should always be check in on the abusive person to find out what’s the hurty feels that permits their behaviour

Yes, children do say rude comments to staff. It depends on the context of the comment though doesn't it. A young child saying 'you have a fat tummy' (especially if the adult does) is factual and they don't necessarily know it's not a comment they should make. A 10 year old saying 'you're a fat pig' is meant in a nasty/hurtful way, and they are old enough to know it's a rude and inappropriate comment.

It's possible the staff member has had comments from this particular child before or other children. It's possible the poor woman is struggling mentally, and this comment was the final nail in the coffin.

Walking out is extreme but perhaps it was the staff members only way to extract herself from the situation, before she had an emotional breakdown in the work place. After all if she'd been physically sick, no one would bat an eyelid over her going home.

Further investigation is needed. If the child made the comment, deliberately and meant to be nasty, then they need sanctioning.

Pretty much.

Which in some ways makes sense - it's a known shit bit of the job, that was always going to happen in one form or another. You take the job expecting it. You hope it won't happen, but you don't do the job if you can't tolerate it happening occasionally.

Surely you know the procedure for leaving/being sent home part way through the day? I used to.manage cover and it was common to be told to cover someone's classes because they'd gone home, for a myriad of reasons, none of which were my business.

If I walked out my job every time a child insulted me I would never be in work

Teachers don’t get paid enough for the level of disrespect they receive, let alone TAs. Clearly she had had enough of being abused. I have been a teacher for a long time, and never done this, but have been tempted to. There but for the grace of God go I…

Yes...I hope that kid was pulled up on his/her rudeness.

IHNI if this is legal or not. WDYD?

We used to have supply teachers regularly walking out of one school that I worked on. You couldn't blame them. I often to wanted to head off with them. Working in a school isn't for everyone and I imagine she will look for other jobs. It isn't as if the pay will keep her.

Not sure @sertt is going to return to this post seeing as it hasn't got the response they were hoping for.

People have lives outside of work. It seems likely there's other things going on in her personal life which are contributing to her stressed state, rather than her just fancying a bit of time off.