Something I saw in the classroom today

[aprildownpour]

I'd be grateful for some thoughts on this. its not a huge deal but I wouldn't like it to happen to my child:-

I am a parent volunteer helping in year 2. I was in the classroom this morning whilst the chidlren were out preparing for an assembly. One little boy comes in sobbing his heart out. He's taking something out of his book bag. I go over and ask him what's wrong and he says he can't remember his lines.

So I try to calm him down and I promise to help him later if there is time. He has just about stopped crying by the time he goes back out to rejoin his class but I tell the TA anyway. She says its fine. the teacher was there too but she was busy doing something else.

Half an hour later, he asks me to help him. Its play time so I spend 2 mins with him helping him to memorise the words he needs to know. He learns it quickly so he must have practised before. When we are finished, he starts crying again. I ask what's wrong and he says he doesn't know his other lines either.

Then the TA overhears, wades in and starts aggressively telling him off. He is scared and upset so he's speaking quietly but she keeps booming at him "I can't hear you". She really laid into him and it only stopped because I intervened and pushed her off the subject a little to protect him..

I wish I hadn't done that but its a measure of how uncomfortable I was with what i was witnessing.

So, is this normal in classrooms? I asked my children at home if their teachers or TAs ever get angry with someone who is already crying and they said no.

I don't want to make any trouble. Should I just forget it and accept that there may be a lot more background that I don't know about??

I really would not be happy about my DC being talked to like that by anyone at school, Wouldn't care if TA or HT.

I would mention it to the teacher if you feel you can.

Going completely on the 'trust the proffesional' side (which I know you cant always do), the only situation I could imagine this is if the TA is pretty certain the child is attention seeking. The fact that you were the adult that delt with this perhaps suggest the others were tacticly ignoring it? You say he knew his lines fairly well - perhaps the teacher/TA is thinking 'Oh for goodness sake, I know he knows his lines he is just being silly'. Some children are taught this the way to get attention - its sometimes very easy to tell the difference between dramatics and geuine upset.

But, from your experience this may not be the case. If the child was genuinely worried and the TA was far too harsh then no, this isnt normal and doesnt reflect the experience your children will be having. Try not to worry.

Aggressive telling off is not on, full stop, even if a child is 'being silly'. Given his obvious distress I would mention it quietly with the teacher.

He'd been sent to the classroom to collect the piece of paper with his lines written on it, so there must have been a problem in the assembly first.

Then when he was crying, he was crying quietly to himself. He really looked very upset and TBH I wanted to hug him.

The TA must have been listening when I was helping him learn the lines because she jumped right in as soon as he told me that he still had a problem. I had my back to her, so I literally was standing between them.

She's quite gruff at the best of times - with me and the children. I think its just her way. But, unusually for her, she was trying to be friendly with me later on.

Also, I saw her talking to the teacher after she'd had a go at the little boy and then I saw the teacher speaking quietly with him.

I really don't want to make trouble. The teacher and the TA have been working as a team for years, so the teacher must know what the TA is like??? If I speak to her, she'll either think that I need to be less idealistic, or think I'm exaggerating. But I felt really sorry for that child. He was doing his best to learn those lines - asking me to help him during break - and he really seemed upset and cowed by the TA.

Hi

Some kids can be really scared at having to perform and say lines or read to an audience. Most teachers and TAs will be sympathetic, but some, unfortunately are not and think "the show must go on" no matter what the emotional trauma is the child is going through.

If only there was sufficient time for the gentle approach to work, even the most reluctant child could probably perform.

You can guarantee that standing over a child, booming that you can't hear them isn't going to help in any situation, imo. I would call that bullying.

You could ask the teacher if there's a problem with that child, and then describe what happened. If I were helping out in class regularly and there was a child who 'should' be boomed at intimidatingly when they are apparently genuinely upset, then I would kinda like to know.

Y2 is full little to be treated like that, attention seeking or not.

I wouldn't be very happy if someone shouted at my Y6 DD2 if she was crying.
I do, but she attention seeks like mad at home. She's a total poppet at school.

Personal I think I would say something. Sadly it won't do any good.

We can't get the HT to improve our, occasionally, tactless TA. We've tried several times.

I agree what you've observed is unsettling.

I'd start with mentioning this to the teacher and trying to make it clear you want to understand that you've only seen one side of this story. This signals you're unhappy with what you saw, but you're trying not to be judgmental.

Often KS1 children who are prone to crying get treated progressively coldly by school staff (this happened to DD2, but with our knowledge). It is part of a policy to stop attention seeking behaviour but can look very cold - you may witness a teacher sending a crying child outside the classroom for instance, but not understand that everytime they're asked to do something they don't want to they burst into tears.

If however there isn't a satisfactory explanation for what you observed and you continue to observe similarly unsettling behaviour I think you then have to consider a more formal complaint.

Not every parent is able to be around school much, so we do rely on other parents to be our eyes and ears and to speak up if something is seriously wrong.

Thanks for all the advice. The consensus seems to be that I try to make the teacher aware of it, so i am going to give it a go, although I am scared it will do no good and will back fire on me. (Being an unpaid volunteer, I have the sense that i rank at the very bottom of the pecking order!)

Often KS1 children who are prone to crying get treated progressively coldly by school staff (this happened to DD2, but with our knowledge). It is part of a policy to stop attention seeking behaviour but can look very cold - you may witness a teacher sending a crying child outside the classroom for instance, but not understand that everytime they're asked to do something they don't want to they burst into tears.

I wondered whether they did that in our school too. My dd once said she got extra golden time for not crying when she hurt herself. This was year 2. I was surprised at this.

Hi cotswolds84

I think crying when you hurt yourself is acceptable - maybe what was rewarded was being very brave about hurting herself (so rewarding excellent behavior in a difficult situation - i.e. your DD was serving as a role model for the behavior they'd like other pupils to exhibit in a similar situation).

It's very hard to work out what is going on from children's descriptions of things sometimes.

Yes too true pastsellbydate. Just seemed an odd thing to be rewarded for at the time.