Current situation, I came back off maternity leave and went part time (5 mornings) in nursery. As I'm part-time I have a group of 12 SEN children within the nursery unit, on my own. Half of these children are not yet toilet trained or are training, some have speech needs and others are EAL. Two I suspect have ASD and am awaiting assessment.
Anyway as you can imagine it's been a crazy year but I've got through it and spoke to my head on several occasions to say how unhappy i was with the situation. I got lots of sympathetic nods and "but you're making such a difference". I then applied for a new job and was shortlisted. My head then told me that I was not in the right role and should I not get the job, they would support me to further my career within my school by moving in a different direction. My suggestion was that this group of children remain in the nursery classes but with specialist support rather than a floundering teacher trying to manage such a diverse range of needs in a large group (and changing nappies at regular intervals!).
So today we received an email with staffing lists on... I'm down as "nursery support teacher". I've already had other staff in the school assume I'm a TA when I'm at the top of the payscale and am a very experienced early years and ks1 teacher. To me, that reads as though I'm not a "proper" teacher. To not even be told face to face when I know every other teacher was pulled in and had a discussion,
I feel gutted, like my career has been halted and that the head thinks "oh it's the easiest way to deal with her being part time just use her as support".
I know my school are going to be advertising for a year 4 teacher and I'm so tempted to tell the head to put me in charge of a class and get another support assistant in for nursery.
But I haven't taught in year 4 and worry I'll fail and that's what the head wants...
I'm just so insulted that he couldn't even be bothered to speak to me face to face.