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.

A system such as I describe doesn't foresee every eventuality, as you well know. It calculates risk, and puts measures in place to manage the risks.

If an LEA/head does not consider student and staff safety enough of a risk to put measures such as a phone in the classroom in place, they could be seen to be failing in their duty of care. An incident may not be behavioural, but may consist of a child falling over and needing to go to hospital. I would argue that this is a foreseeable risk, and that a risk assessment should have been completed detailing strategies to manage it.

There's a difference between planning for every eventuality and managing risk.

Having a phone in the classroom assumes there is someone to answer the call - back to secretary at the loo and head off site

That's interesting tethers. In my experience with a school they seemed to know very little about risk assessments. I informed them that you could, and should, have individual risk assessments in place for children with behavioural difficulties if they have problems managing the child. They school management team said that they only did them for school trips

Phones can dial external numbers too, mrz. They're quite brilliant. If the school risk assessment decides that the risk of a teacher ever needing another member of staff is low (and they'd have to be pretty certain about that), they would still need to ensure that the emergency services can be contacted if necessary. If they chose not to do so, they could be seen to be failing in their duty of care.

TBH, I'm quite tempted to state in my next post that the sky is blue, just to see if you'd argue the point

We have always had risk assessments for children with behavioural problems but that doesn't help if a child hasn't had a history of such behaviour.
I'm assuming the OPs child doesn't make a habit of refusing to follow instructions and staging classroom sit ins

Yes I know phones can dial external numbers tethersend (isn't technology wonderful) and in the event of a serious medical incident I wouldn't hesitate to use my mobile if necessary but that's hardly helpful if there is an urgent behavioural incident - it takes minutes to get from one part of the school to another how long do you think it will take from another town?

I thought we weren't making assumptions, mrz ?

Mrz, I'm not sure what you'd like me to say here.

In the event of a teacher working alone and unable to access support form another adult, they and the children are vulnerable to being injured should a behavioural incident necessitating physical intervention should occur.

If the head or LEA is unconcerned about this risk, it's their call, but they should have assessed the risk carefully so as not to be found negligent in the event of an injury etc.

OK I'm giving the OPs child the benefit of the doubt that she doesn't make a habit of this behaviour - perhaps she does ?

Who'd be a teacher!! Your child was behaving badly. If your child learns to behave better then that would be a start. How do you think the teacher could have handled this better? I think schools should have more rights to expel disruptive pupils which might help put a stop to this utter nonsense.

I'm playing devils advocate - I wish we all lived in an ideal world where we never have to make difficult choices because someone has covered all eventualities.

Nobody has spoken of such an ideal world- just a world in which schools do not leave their staff open to the risk of injury from physically intervening in behavioural incidents. Most schools do this perfectly well. For reasons best known to yourself, you've chosen to focus on schools which don't.

There's not a lot I can say other than the staff and children at such schools are at risk. I cannot pretend that they aren't simply because there is apparently no way to protect them.

I'm afraid it's because I've never encountered a primary school such as you describe tethersend, which is why I asked if you taught primary. In 30 years I've never set foot in a school with phones or buzzers in every classroom, and I have taught supply in schools with panic rooms with steel doors for the staff's safety.

My current very naice school has a panic button buzzer 'walkie talkie' thing in every classroom - because it is one of those wonderfully impractical 1970s designs where everything is a wiggly corridor away from everything else.

We also have 'code message' systems (messages carried by children to desgnated other classrooms / staff - the plural is important, in case one person isn't where they are expected to be) from classrooms where one or more child has known EBD.

Whereas in my old school - small school, all classroom doors close to one another - the agreed procedure was to step to the classroom door (by school custom, always open) and call loudly that Mrs TW2K would like some help in Class X. Anyne who could safely leave what they were doing at that point would appear.

However, unlike Mrz's school, my old school had invested quite a lot in TAs (both in terms of numbers and n terms of very high level training in e.g. specific interventions, SEN specialisms etc) so we did have more than 1 operson 'attached to', though not alway physically in, each class at all times. So the most likely person to answer a call for help would be the class TA, who would probably be working with a child or small group close by.

I'm sure that you're not implying that just because you've never taught in such a school that they don't exist, mrz? Luckily, teacherwith2kids can also testify that they exist, so you don't have to take my word for it

Have you ever taught in a school with a system where children go to reception or the next classroom to ask for help or use cards?

To be fair, my involvement with schools is quite often centred around the behavioural needs of the child, so I sometimes need to establish that such systems are in place. I have also set up such systems in (a small number of) schools without them- this is not just in inner city schools, but quiet village ones too.

As an aside, I'm very interested in how the 'panic room' was used...

No tethersend I'm simply saying that many of us have to make choices without such luxuries.

To be fair, the 'stand in the doorway and speak loudly' procedure wasn't a high-end luxury choice.... However, it was a 'known procedure' which everyone knew how to respond to, so it was effective, even if a little basic!

The safety of children and staff is not a luxury.

Can you explain a bit more about the panic room?

(We were also all Team Teach trained, which I suppose could be seen as a luxury - it was just viewed in the same way as e.g. First Aid training, a thing that just had to be budgeted for and renewed each time it came up)

In the event of violent behaviour the teacher was meant to lock themself in the room (it was only big enough for 2 at the most) which would mean leaving the class to the mercy of the perpetrator , locking the door set off a silent alarm I think.
Never had to make that choice thankfully

tethersend i've been in schools where running water is considered a luxury never mind a phone in every class

That's completely illegal. How awful.

The adult runs away from (the child?) and locks herself in a small room?