It is an honour to be able to publish this extraordinarily powerful piece from another teacher who had the misfortune of being neglected, then victimised, by the head at my previous school.
Again, the governing board and local authority have chosen to turn a blind eye. Where is the duty of care? What will it take for this situation to be addressed as it should?
By now, a clear pattern has been established at this school. This teacher was failed again and again despite very real health concerns. It is testament to her that she has had the courage to write this incredible piece.
That she has chosen to leave the world of teaching is a shocking indictment of this system
where certain leaders seem to be untouchable and unaccountable, despite the human destruction they are responsible for.
_____________________
I have deliberated over writing this account of my experiences at [the school] for a long time now. What’s held me back has been fear[1]. Fear of retribution, fear of not being believed, fear of having my words twisted and used against me, fear of recalling and reliving some of these memories and a very low point in my life. But as this fear continues to permeate my life in the form of nightmares and anxiety attacks, I’ve realised it might be good to exorcise some demons.
I
joined the school at the start of the 2022-2023 academic year and didn’t even
make it through the whole year before having to quit due to the toxic
atmosphere and failure to protect staff well-being, as well as follow basic
safeguarding procedures. I was assaulted multiple times by one pupil in
particular, who also assaulted other children in the class, including stabbing
one with a pencil. It’s difficult to write this without sounding like I am
making the child the problem but I want to be clear that we are talking about
someone very young and vulnerable who did not have access to the help they
needed (that’s a whole other issue with Education, children’s mental health
services and lack of services).
Knowing
all of that logically doesn’t make being assaulted any easier though,
especially when SLT do nothing to protect you.
Behaviour
management has always been a strong area for me and something I have been
praised for in previous jobs. The academic year started with an INSET day, in
which the focus was very much on behaviour and standards across the school and
how the little things become the big things, so to remain vigilant and make
sure we were setting high expectations for pupils. I had already been warned I
had a difficult class and I was prepared to set firm boundaries with them and
make it clear what would and wouldn’t be acceptable in our classroom from the
start. Except, at the end of the first week I was told to issue fewer verbal reminders
and take it easier on them. I was eager to please, especially in a new school,
so I followed that advice and became much softer.
As behaviour worsened, I had weekly meetings
with two members of SLT whose continual advice was just to keep offering
rewards to the most disruptive children and win them round with special
attention and praise. Inside, this felt very wrong to me, but I didn’t have the
confidence or multiple years of experience in teaching to feel like I could go
against the advice given by a senior member of staff for whom this was an area
of expertise.
What
has always worked for me is a healthy balance of praise and sanction, so that
pupils know exactly what behavioural expectations are in the classroom and
there’s no ambiguity. In my new situation, I felt awful for the children who
were doing the right thing all of the time who were looked over for rewards
because they were being used to incentivise other children, with very little
success. I struggled to simply issue a verbal reminder to children who had just
tried to punch or kick each other.
I
could not understand SLT’s lack of willingness to address the issues. When
asked how best to handle the situation, I was given conflicting advice and told
not to follow the school’s behaviour policy when it came to these children, but
was offered little information on what I should do instead. Just positive
praise alone.
In
previous schools I’ve worked, any sort of violence directed at anyone meant
being sent straight to a member of SLT[2].
Everyone knew there was a zero tolerance policy. This is not the case at [the school] and there are several staff
members who can share stories of their pupils assaulting each other or even
them and facing little to no consequence.
When I
sent children to SLT, I was told that I was leaning too heavily on their
support and that the issue was with me. I was undermined several times when
sanctioning poor behaviour. For example, a child kicked another in the face and
after I issued a verbal reminder and explained why the behaviour was
unacceptable, I sent the child to SLT. They were told not to worry and that
they were not in trouble. Instead they were taken to read a book and to have a talk
about it. Any attempt I made to establish boundaries was trampled all over.
I
reached a breaking point around late October/early November. I had just been
assaulted and was talking about it with another member of staff, who said she
had also been hit by a child that day. I told her to log it in the system we
use to record safeguarding concerns, at which point a member of SLT overheard
and said not to do that because it wasn’t really about the child’s well-being.
I tried to clarify where these incidents should be logged and she said she
wasn’t sure but to put it in an email. I did, my email was never acknowledged
nor did the child ever apologise or face any consequences. In every other
school I have worked at, this would be logged immediately: to protect the adult
and the child. Effective safeguarding means knowing as much as possible about
the behaviour and mental state of a child. I don’t see how you can offer them
the right support if you’re not looking at the whole picture. I then had my weekly
meeting with this member of SLT and another, during which the discussion got
quite heated. I was worried about the escalation in violent behaviour in my
class and pointed out that I had a duty to protect all of the children and
right now whatever we were doing wasn’t working and I didn’t feel it was safe. I
was told to make reward charts for the disruptive children.
The
next day, one of the children stabbed another pupil in the class and tried to
stab me too…
At
this point I was signed off sick for three weeks. During that time I was sent
to hospital twice due to suspected pneumonia and a pulmonary embolism. I was
coughing up blood. I really wasn’t well.
Yet I
continued to complete my planning and provide lesson resources[3]
because no one offered an alternative and I felt so guilty about being absent
that I still wanted to help in whatever way I could. When I returned from my
absence, I was called into a meeting with [the
head] and told all the ways I was failing as a teacher and how things had
been so much better when I wasn’t there. Guess which pupil also wasn’t there
for a considerable chunk of that time? Hmm, I wonder if that had anything to do
with it. (I have also, since reading Alex’s blog, seen that the “better without
you” tactic is one [the head] has
used before on another member of staff and it is particularly effective at
sowing seeds of self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy.)
I was
told I would need to be on a support plan going forward. I readily agreed to
this and acknowledged the issues with behaviour in my class and my part in it
but was very quickly shut down when I suggested there might be contributing
factors outside of just my behaviour management skills. When discussing what
might help, I said I would like behaviour plans for the children in my class I
was struggling with so I knew exactly how to approach the situation and so that
both I and SLT were unified in our approach. When I later asked a member of SLT
for these, I was told no.
On the
final day of term before the Christmas holidays, two things happened. Firstly,
I was told I was not on track to pass my second ECT year. The deciding report
mentioned things such as my books weren’t marked for “several days” (right
before I went off sick) and that there were issues with my Maths planning[4].
This was the planning that I was doing from home while seriously unwell:
-
that
I was struggling to adapt because I wasn’t in the classroom teaching it so
couldn’t know how the children were responding to it;
-
that
I didn’t receive feedback for, because I was sick and they didn’t want to
disturb me, but was still allowed to be used as evidence of me failing. There
hadn’t been any issues about my planning previously raised with me and it had
even been praised. It had also been pointed out as another strength in my
previous school.
In
fact, prior to my absence and/or challenging the school on their (lack of)
safeguarding procedures, none of the issues mentioned in the report had been
raised with me as concerns. Even with behaviour, I have minutes from my weekly
SLT meetings that acknowledge progress with the class and the efforts I was
making. Yet, suddenly, all these issues appeared which meant I could be failed
and never allowed to work in a state school again.
The
second thing that happened was that I was assaulted, more seriously, again by a
particular pupil. It was known that the child had witnessed some upsetting
things prior to arriving at school and every effort was made to give them a
calm start to the school day. Within five minutes of the register being
completed, this child had another by the collar and was choking them. When I
gently asked them to stop I was punched twice, hard, in the stomach. A member
of SLT came and got the child and that was it. They spent the day in the other
class, free to come and go from my classroom as they pleased, faced no
consequences and didn’t have to apologise. I wasn’t offered any time out of
class to recover, wasn’t offered any support. Hell, no one even simply asked if
I was ok. It was definitely a low point sitting at my desk, trying not to let
the rest of the class see me cry, especially on a day of Christmas fun.
Of
course, I sought union advice. It was then that I realised the extent to which
the school was failing its staff by not logging incidents correctly or filling
out the right paperwork, alerting the council etc. As I suspected, assault
should never be taken lightly and there are procedures in place. I was also
advised that a risk assessment should have been undertaken for the child in
question as soon as the first incident took place. I emailed [the head] to request one and was told I
was correct that one should have been done “in the instance of a child not
responding to the school’s policy or adult instruction and therefore posing a
risk to others but that is not the issue in this case. When managed effectively
and consistently, this child follows instructions and remains safe […] it is
not appropriate to identify the child as the issue when your behaviour
management is not yet in line with the school policy[5].”
In
short, being assaulted was entirely my fault, even though this child hit other
members of staff and their own mother. I was told not to follow the behaviour
policy for this child but never given an alternative. I was told not to be so
effective in employing the school’s behaviour policy for whole class behaviour
management at the start of the year. I was told I didn’t build a relationship
with this child, even though they sought me out at lunchtimes to spend time
with me and get a hug. I was told it would be a good idea to spend my own money
buying a gift for this child to make them like me.
I
tried my hardest to remedy all of these things and the child still bit me the
following term.
I wish
this essay (sorry, and well done if you stuck it out this long) was the end of
all my issues at [the school] but I
might have to write another post on the ways I was failed as someone with a
disability and undergoing cancer treatment, not to mention the other toxic
methods they used to drive me out.
In the
end, resigning was my only choice but it really hurt letting a bully get what
they wanted.
[1]
This is such a common theme in my conversations with people who have suffered
under the head.
[2] This
is the same for every school that I have ever worked for. It is common
practice.
[3] This
is absolutely unacceptable from a union point of view and I am sure that most
SLTs would also frown on an expectation such as this.
[4] This
is both disgusting gaslighting and totally unacceptable expectations.
[5]
The same policy which the author had previously been encouraged not to use…
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