Worried about DD's school

[Mousing]

My dd will be starting in reception in September. Since we found out which school she will be going to I have started volunteering there.
This afternoon I was listening to readers in the back of the year 2 classroom. There is a very difficult boy in the class. Today he punched another child totally unprovoked during a lesson. He missed going outside at lunch time and had to sit outside the head teacher's office instead. During afternoon play he spat at another child so he was brought back inside and was sat in the classroom for the rest of playtime. After playtime he was rude to the teacher and then sat under a table and started kicking the chairs out. He then started shouting that he needed to go to the toilet. The teacher ignored him shouting and said she would not speak to him until he got out from under the table, put the chairs back and put his hand up to ask properly. He stayed under the table and kicked the wall and eventually wet himself. His mum asked me what had happened and is angry that the teacher didn't let him go to the toilet and she thinks he was being naughty because he needed the toilet. I told her I couldn't talk and had to rush home but that I thought she should ask the teacher.
Did the teacher do the right thing?
I'm worried about dd going to this school but I also think there will be naughty peers in any school. WWYD?

Mousing please don't feel like you're being criticised for helping in the classroom. Its great you are getting involved in your child's future school. However, this also comes with the danger of being involved with / seeing stuff that you can't disclose outside the 4 walls of the classroom.

I think the criticism that is coming from MNers is that you have spent an afternoon in the classroom and are already questioning the teachers methods for dealing with this child, based on a few hours observation.

What I'm slightly confused about is that you appear to know this boy - in fact you live next door to him and are obviously on speaking terms with his mother? You therefore presumably already know that he is a difficult child?

Are you worried about how the teachers are dealing with this specific difficult child (and therefore whether they are good teachers), or are you worried about 'difficult' children in general at school? The last few sentences of your post suggest both....?

There a kids like that in every school. No matter how nice the area is, or fee paying or free. Having a shit home life, and it reflecting in the classroom, is classless.

dd's last primary school 'cured' her school refusal/anxiety
full of dc with ishoos - hence low league table
dd did well emotionally & academically
hope your dc will, too

I haven't seen anyone criticise you for volunteering.

You keep asking what you should have said/done...
"I'm sorry, I've been told that I can't discuss anything that happens in school while I'm volunteering, otherwise I won't be allowed to do it any more. Why not have a word with the teacher?"

No I wouldn't not send my DD to a school because of the challenging behaviour of one child in a different school. The teacher sounds like she handled it fine.

"Having a shit home life, and it reflecting in the classroom, is classless."

Having SN, and it reflecting in the classroom when the situation isn't handled effectively, is classless.

To be fair LeChien, we don't know the back-story to this - whether the child has SN / whether the teacher handled it effectively / what the full incident entailed.

But it was ok to assume he'd come from a shit home life?
Even though his behaviour is typical of some dc with SN, and even though the way the teacher handled it did nothing to de-escalate his behaviour?
Ok then, fair point.

Well it has been assumed that he's not SN based on the fact that the OP quotes in her original post that "there will be naughty peers in any school?" - the OP lives next door to this boy (i've understood that correctly havent I? The mother who queried her is her neighbour).

So we're assuming that the OP is calling him naughty (quote "difficult") as opposed to SN??

I think we're also forgetting that there were 29-odd other kids in this class to consider too, not just 1 child sitting under the table. Perhaps the teacher was unable to de-escalate effectively due to fact that she had no afternoon TA and 1 parent helper?

But it was ok to assume he'd come from a shit home life?

I wasn't talking about the boy in the OP. I know nothing about him and his particular case.

I was trying to say that just one of the things that creates misbehavior (that is giving the OP doubts about her school) is the 'types' of people there, which is what I thought the OP was insinuating - I could be wrong, of course. I was trying to say that these 'types' are false. Just like SN permeates every level of society, children who are unsupported can be found everywhere too and there is no safety from misbehaviour no matter how 'naice' your school is.

Sorry, I misunderstood.
If I witnessed this I would be a little concerned at the school, not because of the disruptive behaviour, which you will never escape, but at the way it was handled.
The teacher gave far too many demands (calm down, put chairs back, put hand up and ask properly) which IMO shows poor understanding of children from the teacher. Whether the child has SN or is just naughty (which I highly doubt from the op) a child at this level of upset is not going to feel able to comply with this number of instructions, which I would expect a decent teacher to understand.
Is this what is worrying you op, or the fact that there are "naughty" children in the school?

yes MN is very anti-volunteering :(.
don't think you did anything wrong, OP.

Ragged no it isn't. It's very anti-volunteers who share more than they're meant to with parents. It's anti that because generally, volunteers are also parents at the school and it makes them appear gossipy and too keen to put in their opinions. They're not teachers...they're volunteers and their job isn't to discuss children's behaviour with their parents.

The op didn't share anything though , she told the mother to talk to the teacher.

I would wonder (rightly or wrongly) what has led the mother to talk to a parent volunteer instead of going to the teacher first.
IME this only happened once the teacher/parent relationship had broken down.
Obviously my opinion may be swayed by my own experiences, but these are the things that concern me about the op.

Well OP wasn't told about anything to not share, so OP certainly hasn't done anything wrong.

God forbid parents should be informed about their own child's experience at school.

Sugarhoops, the family live in the same block as me. I know the mother to say hello to because the postman has left parcels here when they were out, and she's held the gate open for me when I've had the buggy. I've never had a conversation with her and I'd never met her children until I started volunteering at the school.
I felt like I was being criticised for volunteering because of the comment about spying. I'm not spying.

How could you be spying (on another year group???), you're just doing a good deed.

wrt your worries: it would be reasonable for you to chat with the teacher about what happened. I can think of a million plausible reasons why the way teacher handled it was probably right. I say that as a parent of a complete PITA child who has been violent etc. Mine would have claimed toilet needs to try to get out of a deserved bollocking.

Odds are there will be some awkward characters sometimes in your DD's class(es). It's just life unless you go for a sheltered private school.