Autistic teen told to call male TA “Mx” & not “Sir” or “Mr *name*

[BethDuttonsTwin]

This happened to dd this morning at school. She then came out of school at told me she no longer wants one to one help in her lessons - her EHCP says 25 hours a week. It’s too difficult to remember what to call him and she’s embarrassed she will get it wrong in front of the other students.

What now? I want to make a formal complaint. Am raging tbh. Can someone tell me who I need to be contacting please? The school are totally woke and rainbow soaked. Thank you.

Exactly!

Female teachers who go by Mrs and Ms (and Dr) have been mistitled for decades, if not centuries.

Not one has given a shiny shit about it for more than about a month because their primary objective is to teach their students, not to assert their personal identity.

As I said before, my son called the solitary male member of staff at primary, Miss X, and he had no awareness he was doing it! Miss was just what all teachers were called, as far as he'd memorised.

Meanwhile, he was calling everyone he regardless of sex. No-one died.

I like the sound of your son!

Superb post. I agree with every word.

This must be one of the most intelligent articulate posts I have ever read on Mumsnet. Brilliant.

No it was a statement of fact in response to some twit deciding that Mx was commonplace and the norm about our experience. It is a fact that in the 15 educational establishments my children have attended this hasn’t cropped up.

There is loads of good advice on this thread - hopefully the GenderIDapologists will be easy to scroll past, and at least if OP gets similar pushback from school (‘it’s been around since the 70s! The TA probably has it on they’s passport!) OP will already have seen the evidence that this sort of pushback is better described as pish-back.

Nonbinary has no legal status in the UK and titles such as Mr/Miss/Mrs/Ms have no standing in law, they are optional customs.
Mx is a very recent addition to those custom and there is no reason for ANY customs regarding forms of address to be prioritised over an SEN child’s ability to access the provision set out in their EHCP.

if we can find ways to accommodate children with tic disorders (some of whom may use some very rude words to address their educators) we can certainly find a way for this student to be accommodated.
If the TA insists on prioritising the words used to address him over the anxious response of a minor he is a chocolate fireguard, not an appropriate TA for an SEN student.

So what? Unless there are only 15 educational institutions in the world, your comment is meaningless.

I don't even know how you pronounce Mx, it's just bull shit nonsense.

But could she just avoid calling him anything? If he is working one to one with her could she not just go straight into the question without saying his name and if she needs to get his attention just put her hand up. Avoidance might just be the easiest thing here IMO.

1.8% of the population have autism. Apparently this isn't a large enough segment of the population for you to have come across any before.

If you think we occur in such small numbers that it's okay for you to react to factual descriptions of difficulties with disbelief and ridicule on a thread about a child with autism, I think the Mx people must be far rarer.

Your comment is meaningless.

This thread is about ensuring a special needs teen can actually access the educational support provision she has been allocated.

It doesn’t matter how many people you have personally encountered who prefer this new-fangled, optional, honorific.

The TA’s personal wants are making OPs daughter too anxious to access her publicly funded SEN provision.

It's simply completely unacceptable. His job is to support one girl, and he's made her so scared of offending him that she doesn't want his support.

No it hasn’t meaning it was a statement of personal experience in response to a statement about what the poster thought was a common experience.

I’ve also taught in many schools and observed in many many more but, again, that’s a personal experience.

By all means go on believing that everyone has encountered a situation where someone demands to be referred to as Mx. Facts can be unsettling.

School’s generally want to have good relationships with parents (in my experience) and a child with an EHCP will be known to the SENCO who should be happy to discuss any issues with parents. It doesn’t have to be a formal meeting, a quick phone call, 10 minute chat at the end of the day- if the relationship isn’t good enough with the TA to raise an issue it’s reasonable to speak to the SENCO and explain why the child is distressed. Schools SHOULD be happy to accommodate reasonable changes to support her needs- it may be that she doesn’t use the 1-1s name/title but finds another way (I worked 2 years with a boy who never ever called me Miss or Ms Apocalypse preferring to tap me on the arm. For some reason that was his way.)

Its not unreasonable for the TA to make a compromise if it eases distress for his pupil. because that is what He is paid to do.

Why are people (well, two posters with an obvious agenda) still trying to push the idea that there are legions of male teachers demanding to be addressed as Mx?
It's as funny as it's disquieting.

Well, quite 😂

@ApocalipstickNow I worked 2 years with a boy who never ever called me Miss or Ms Apocalypse preferring to tap me on the arm. For some reason that was his way.❤️ twenty years ago it was good practice to place your hand on the forearm of autistic/language delayed children to indicate you were talking to them and draw their attention. He was trying to help you focus.

I think that would be sound advice for standard adult interactions. In this situation we have a child who has been distressed by the actions of the adult tasked with helping her.

So I would want to discuss this with the school to ensure she is getting the right support and the support staff has a good understanding of how to do that.

Absolutely! And 100% to this
Allies' need to get a grip that needs either get balanced with responsible reciprocation, or the world will lose all patience altogether.

The fact that some people are 'allying' in support of a grown man's feels over the distress to a young autistic child and its her behaviours that are to be the ones to change? Beyond belief!!

Agree.

Plus,

It’s for 25 hours a week, 1 to 1! That’s 5 hours each day, so essentially the entire school day, minus lunch hour and break times.

If it were say, a subject teacher who the student saw for a couple of class periods a week in 1 to 30 class ratio it would be much easier to manage with avoidance.

But this TA is the equivalent of a personal assistant in the adult world, right beside the student in question, directly interacting for almost every minute of the learning week, week in, week out.

This is a complete school refusal case waiting to happen. Which is, I would imagine (bit of personal projection here!) most SEN mum’s worst nightmare.
We fight so bloody hard to keep our kids in school! It can take years to get a diagnosis and an EHCP in place.
Just the thought of going through all that and just to have the the entire thing break down due to a single adults ego is practically giving me the cold sweats, and I don’t even know OP!

WomanStanleyWoman2 · Today 10:31

So your argument is essentially “Well I’ve never heard of it…” and therefore it doesn’t exist?

Nobody has said that at all, they have simply pointed out that it's a very new term - despite Nimbo claiming to have heard at schools in the 70s and seen it in their job as World Passport Inspector General.

You and nimbo are ignoring the issue completely, which is that a child with information processing capabilities different to the population at large has become distressed, because of this TA's insistence that he's no longer a man. Also, that she's so upset about it and potentially getting in trouble, by not understanding and making an innocent mistake, that she wants to pull out of school, in order to avoid that.

The TA has chosen to be trained to assist children like her, not to have them as props, to validate his identity and to stroke his ego. He has made a huge professional failure here and he very much needs to get a grip and attend to his job of teaching the child.

It’s for 25 hours a week, 1 to 1! That’s 5 hours each day, so essentially the entire school day, minus lunch hour and break times. often that hour without 1:1 is covered by clubs/nurture groups etc so the child is safely supported throughout the day. This child will be shadowed by this individual for the rest of her time. Her mother/carer will hand her to him and explain to her that he is there to help her and advocate for her and keep her safe….except that’s not his priority.

It's Dr actually.

Dr G, is that you?

And so do I. Fits my experience perfectly.