Teacher carrying 9yo into school.

[ChitterChatter1987]

My eldest daughter (Year 5) is becoming really tricky to get into school some days, particularly Mondays.
She has a male teacher for the first time this year, who she seems to get on well with and speaks positively about.She had specifically asked to have him despite often generally being abit more fearful of males than females.He is popular with kids and parents and is fairly young and laid back, quite playful and enthusiastic in his approach.

A couple of times he has come out when we have had issues getting her in recently and has verbally managed to persuade DD to go in by giving an incentive etc which has worked well, but today despite him trying this and offering good solutions to her worries, she just would not go in, and went outside the office reception and sat down refusing to move.
He suggested out of earshot for me to go as maybe me being there was making her more reluctant, which i agree was probably true as maybe then she thinks she might be able to come home.

I walked off up the path and left him negotiating with her outside as he had advised, however then looked back and saw him fireman carrying her into the building.
Now I totally get it's a hard sitiation knowing how to get her in,and appreciate he has a class to teach, so can't stand outside negotiating with her for ages, and there is a possibility she was okay with him lifting her in and it was a fun game (although I would be surprised as she isn't really a tactile child with anyone other than me and sometimes her dad and sister) If someone had done that with my 5yo, unless she was kicking and screaming in upset, I probably wouldn't think much of it tbh, but with her being older on the cusp of puberty, him being male, and also her having ASD and not liking physical touch, it just feels like it might be quite humiliating for her and abit forceful and inappropriate, despite it being meant as a playful gesture to get her to go in.
We always try to teach her body autonomy, that nobody should touch her including hugs etc without her wanting them to, so i just worry that this is going against that, especially with him being an adult male.
She is quite a young 9.5, and fairly small for her age, so not sure he would have done it otherwise, but despite that she is still the age she is.

My plan is I will speak to her later and see if she was okay with it or not, and if not ask for a meeting with school, asking them to not do it again and discussing alternative methods to get her into school.

What are others thoughts on this practice? If anyone else has experienced something similar, or has any ideas of alternative ways to get her into school i would be grateful for your input!

Team teacher for me. Help them out.

So it would be okay for a female teacher to carry her?

What was the alternative?
Spend half the day cajoling her while the rest of the class patiently waited for her presence so that they could resume their education?

Hmm. I think, given that your daughter doesn't seem to have a problem with expressing what she wants physically (ie sitting down in the office), if she had been uncomfortable with the situation she probably would have visibly struggling. He's in a school, with presumably lots of other children and parents around so I don't think that he will have been able to been forceful or intimidating to be honest. Plus it happened straight away. I think it was most likely a fun game.
Do have a chat with her and check by all means though.

I'm surprised he felt able to do that, given the way things are currently.

On the whole I would support him in it unless she was hysterical and inconsolable for hours/days after.
She's still young and getting into a school refusal habit now will be far more detrimental to her future than some slightly less than ideal moments at the start of the odd school day.

I'm not sure we're doing people any favours by teaching them that they don't have to do things they don't want to - in reality there's lots of life we would rather not do, but not doing it comes with heaps of other problems, so sometimes there is a need to just get on with it.
And I also believe that people are much more resilient than we often give them credit for - unless you plant the idea, she may well have zero concept that it might have been seen to be humiliating, so please be careful how you word speaking to her about it.

But do have a good think about the alternatives if you decide you don't want that and she continues to school refuse - how are they meant to handle it in a way which will lead to the best outcomes for her long term, not just at this moment in her life?

Absolutely unacceptable!!

Does she have an Ehcplan?
Appropriate support and help?

Whats the plan long-term?

I am also team teacher. He's presumably got 29 other kids waiting on their teacher, and he doesn't have time to negotiate at the door with one child.

Still no if she was resisting being picked up, but surely you can see why a male making that sort of physical contact with a female pupil feels somewhat different to a female with a female.

I think if you are uncomfortable with the fireman's lift you should say that to HIM. not request "a meeting with school".

What do you think is the best approach?
TBH I agree that if she's inside the gates then you hanging around to see if she goes in isn't going to help at all.

I'm surprised he did it but I wouldn't be pre-emptively annoyed about it. I'd ask her later what happened. Presumably there were other members of staff around? A receptionist perhaps if you need to verify anything.

We haven't had them lift her, but have had similar situations. It is usually the head or depute that deals with it in the morning so teacher can get on with the class. School staff aren't meant to touch (least for us that is the case) so he shouldn't have but I'm taking a guess he didn't know what to do, I would be asking where management was (you said she has been having tricky mornings especially Mondays so they know).

I don't leave till I know she is either in the school building or the school gates are closed. It isn't a good situation - these situations aren't straightforward the kids arent just being bad, usually their needs are not being met and they are going into flight or fight. If you are based in England asked for her EHCP to be reviewed if she doesn't have one start the process.

I would have no problem with him having done it.

I am surprised he did though & think in this day and age it was a risky move. It could be potentially career ending for him if he is accused of inappropriate behavior. So someone should make him aware of that, I'm very surprised he's not incredibly aware of it.

it's a shame, but sadly it's the world we live in now.

Probably not the best idea, but can see why he did it, they may have been able to laugh about it. Given he has a good relationship with her I'd not want to ruin that and make him wary. Ideally, I'd chat to him rather than escalate this.

This
I’m team teacher too
He can’t hang around all day for her.

However, you need to establish what’s making her anxious about going to school and why you’re having all this drama. This is no good for you, her, the staff or the other children. This needs resolving ASAP. We had a scenario like this and our school tried all sorts but ultimately it became such a problem that the school said they “couldn’t meet the child’s needs” which is something you’d ideally want to avoid - unless ofcourse you feel alternative provision would be better?

Just to clarify, I have no concern that he was doing it in a way which was agressive or anything, so i'm not angry or planning to complain or anything like that.When I say a meeting with school i mean maybe him and SENCO, to look at how things are managed.
I know he would have just have meant fun by it and could see for myself that is how it was being done.I guess my concern is that although he was finding it fun, DD may have found it quite uncomfortable or humiliating, but obviously will ask her later in a way that doesn't put ideas in her head.

So if he hadn’t have done that, what do you think the solution should be? I guess if negotiating doesn’t work, and he can’t carry, all that is left is it’s your responsibility to get her in to the classroom. So if she refuses I guess you just take her home. There isn’t an alternative.

I can be really tricky. I'd ask for a quiet chat a d see what the teacher's perspective is, and then chat to your child too.

My ASD DS often got physically prised off me by the school caretaker at that age. It got him into school, but now he's a young adult, he can talk about it better and I regret forcing him into school when he was so desperate not to be there. It really impacted his anxiety and made it much worse in the long run.

I am surpirsed he did it too, for those reasons. Which actually makes me think he really cares a lot about helping your daughter in. I also think it suggests your daughter wasn't in distress (surely you would have seen her struggling if she was?). Unless he was touching her inappropriately I don't see how it was any worse than a female teacher doing it just because he's a man.

Obviously it's not ok to be manhandled against her will, but get her side of the story first.

My daughter had this phase at a similar age, and a (female) TA once physically helped me peel her off my and pull her into school. She was 100% helping.

Team teacher.

You can ask him what happened and why he carried her in like that, but perhaps he felt he had little choice but to get her safely inside.

You think he’s carrying your kid into class because he thinks it’s fun? Bizarre interpretation.

I think you need to be incredibly mindful of how you ask her what happened.
asking her did it upset you when Mr X did this, did you think it was weird cos he's a man and your a girl, did he touch you in places that are private etc might feel like they're getting to the important stuff, but is massively leading esp if she feels embarrassed and yes Mommy yes Mommy is easier and gets her out quicker.

I'd phone school to check if she's settled and ask how they got her in. then tonight I'd ask how the day went and how he managed to get her in. then tonight I'd ask her how school was and what happened this morning.

Oh and yes she does have an EHCP, only given in the summer, but this level of school avoidance wasn't happening when it was put in place.She was occasionally abit reluctant to go into class but would go into school grounds fine and i could get her into class fairly quickly (but now we have had a couple of occasions recently where she won't even get out the car) It is hard as i have a younger child to get into school and also a baby.

Not what I meant, I meant he is trying to use a fun and playful way to get her in and cheer her up.Not fun for him to have to do it, but likely using the bright and breezy approach which he knows has worked before.

We always try to teach her body autonomy, that nobody should touch her including hugs etc without her wanting them to, so i just worry that this is going against that, especially with him being an adult male.
Why not just teach her that she can’t just stand on the school doorstep refusing to go inside??

I think if you complain about this, the future action of the school should be to call you over and tell you to either get her into school or take her home.