How long can a Year 6 class be left unattended....

[snowlie]

....except for another teacher popping her nose through the door every 10minutes or so? Would most of an afternoon seem ok?

not really! There's a story about teacher at DD school who left his class most the afternoon once because his wife had gone into labour, but that was exceptional, etc.

I might pop to the loo if I was desperate but only after warnings of dire consequences if anyone so much as giggled whilst I was out of the room ( and in the knowledge that I have a reasonably sensible class with sufficient snitches to tell me if anything untoward had happened!)

We don't even go to the loo, if I need to leave my classroom and I was the only adult in there I would sent for someone to watch my class while I was out.

I wouldn't leave my Yr6 class and they are a sensible lot this year. If I had to nip to the loo after a break duty, then I would ask someone else to stand in. Sometimes, I just cross my legs 'til lunch!!

I'd say that was completely unacceptable - sure there was no TA/student teacher in there?

Teacher went to organise an event elsewhere in the school. Dc said that lots of the kids were complaining of headaches and were quite stressed at not being able to concentrate on the work that their teacher had set. Definitely no TA or other adult, just the teacher from the class next door popping in to check.

Seriously dodgy ground here, I would say. I don't leave my classroom unattended ever, so if I had to visit the loo in an absolute emergency I would send a child to borrow someone else's TA briefly or, if no TA was available, I might ask the parallel teacher to keep popping between the two rooms. But that would be 3 mins maximum, I reckon.

We are currently battling with the SMT to get a definitive answer as to what, officially, we should do if a child requires first aid in class time, over and above what our little first aid kits could cope with. (Not talking a blue-light emergency, which would take precedence over leaving the classroom, I would say). But the HT saying "use your TA" doesn't quite cut it in the afternoons when many of us don't have TAs.

I think it would be considered not on now.

However, when I was at school I remember our teacher being ill for a week and just having the supply teacher (who wasn't known as the "Lamb" for no reason) popped in for an hour some point over the day to give the work and go again. We'd have been year 4 or 5. Nothing happened, and we were quite proud of ourselves for managing.
Otoh when I was in 6th form, one lad put another through a window (horseplay not malicious) during a study period.

But I would have a face on at children saying they were complaining of headaches and being stressed at not being able to concentrate. Mostly because that's exactly what dd2 would say when I come to find that she hasn't done what she should have done because she was busy messing around doing something she knows she shouldn't.

Well, technically for best part of a year.

How long it would be wise to leave them for is another matter altogether

I would be highly disappointed if they couldn't manage for 10 minutes without causing chaos, but I think much more than that is asking far too much of a group of kids.