Complaint to school

[gwenig2]

Yesterday my 10 year old was grab on the wrist in a attempt to force her from the floor to go to the headmistress office. This was a male teacher in her school. I did post on Facebook I was upset by this but did not name the school. The new headmistress TOLD me I had to remove this or she souls report to police for slander. I have removed post, but feel more angry now as they did not apologise or give any justification for the incident, which to me is assault. I have a meeting on Monday arranged after much foot stomping today. Need advice on how to handle as feel little overwhelmed and emotional.

IME, one of the most successful models is to have such units within the school itself, allowing the children to (re) enter mainstream at their own pace and, crucially, with the right level of support.

For every school teacher I would like to note: "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me".

But in the teaching profession, names can hurt you. I had a good friend who was a high school teacher and reprimanded a girl one day. That night she put on facebook that he had molested her. It was completely unfounded, he was proven to be elsewhere at the time she claimed the incident occurred, but the gossip rumour kicked in to gear and he ended up leaving the school and has not taught again. He was an amazing teacher, but the profession has lost his skills due to this sort of thing.

Until an incident is proven, the OP should not have said anything.

Yes Tethers, I think this is the way we should be going. But it requires a lot of funding

Aye, there's the rub.

You can't get a sitter when you are already at the event when it happens MerlinFromCamelot.
Personally in the situation the OP describes I would have sent for the head rather than try to remove the child myself but that is with hindsight and distance.

Yes the child should have been removed but two members of staff should have lifted her underneath the arms

And where does the second teacher magically appear from? And who supervises the rest of the children while this happens?

IME, one of the most successful models is to have such units within the school itself, allowing the children to (re) enter mainstream at their own pace and, crucially, with the right level of support.

If only this policy was operated in our area especially the understanding that support has to be continued when child is returned to the mainstream class. Other key thing is to put in interventions at an early stage rather than wait until situation becomes untenable. It would be much cheaper and much more effective imo.

Morgause, that's really non-negotiable; in order to remove a child from the floor, you need two people (not necessarily another teacher); otherwise you risk serious injury to the child or the teacher.

It's a lot more of an inconvenience to find a long-term supply teacher because the teacher has slipped a disc whilst trying to move a child than it is to call on a member of support staff from the next classroom.

Indeed Onineight- for too many children, the first time they get any support is after they've been permanently excluded.

The same question applies tethersend - where do you get another person?

In an ideal world yes oneineight- but, as I said, where does this other adult appear from? Many primary schools don't have spare adults around. This may be the case here.

I'd be very concerned if a school had no system in place for a teacher to call for another person to support them, mrz; this leaves the teacher in a very vulnerable position in case of emergency.

Systems in place in some schools include internal phones, buzzers, sending a responsible child to the office, on duty staff (usually SLT) available during lesson time...

In many schools, every member of staff- including office and support staff- are trained in positive handling. This makes it far easier to find someone to help in case of emergency.

The system I'm familiar with is one of the other children takes a little laminated card to the head/slt/office/wherever they've been told. Card says something along the lines of 'Mrs Smith in 3a requires help immediately' of course this is only the procedure for a child refusing to move. If there was an immediate danger to another pupils safety the member of staff would have to physically intervene there and then in whatever way they deemed necessary.

The OP, who hasn't been back recently, has not said that her child has SN. She said she'd been acting up recently.

Can't believe the poster who said she'd be "straight down the police station." Really?

Yy, finally delurking- it all comes down to what is proportionate, reasonable and necessary.

As I said I would have sent for the head to removed the child tethersend

Having said that I'm SLT with a full time teaching responsibility as are all the SLT in my school we don't have staffing levels that mean there is someone "available" other than the head and we certainly don't have buzzers or internal phones in every classtoom. We do have staff who have received Team Teach training.

In that case, I'm sure you have a different system in place whereby you send a child to another classroom to request help for example, mrz.

No system at all would leave teachers incredibly vulnerable.

If you'd send for the head, you've answered your own question.

This logistical problem is one of the reasons TeamTeach advises training every member of school staff, BTW.

It would be more helpful to spend the weekend talking to your daughter about her troubles and explaining to her why her behaviour is unacceptable; go to the meeting on Monday and ask for support from the school for her so that you may work together to help her; she does sound as though she is entitled to Behaviour Support; they work with the family and the school. This will be more productive than everybody threatening everybody else, and will actually help your child.

We can only speculate what happened in the actual situation which is no help to anyone

I'm also SMT and teach full time, and so do the rest of the SMT. Often our Head teaches as well.

I would also have sent for the Head, but it isn't as easy as all that most of the time.

Have you ever worked as a primary classroom teacher tethersend?

If a teacher is unable to call for another member of staff (any staff) in an emergency, I'd say that was a school H&S issue which does not justify a teacher attempting to use physical force to remove a child from the floor on their own.

Such a system is very likely to result in a teacher or a child being injured.

I have mrz, although am secondary trained.

I now work with a number of primary and secondary mainstream and specialised settings; there are some very effective systems in place to deal with incidents such as you describe.

Did the teacher attempt to use physical force?
We don't know who was present or whether he tried to pull her to her feet by the wrist or under the arms or if one or more people were involved in trying to get her to move from the floor until we do perhaps we shouldn't make judgements.