u/infjtaurus

I’m a paediatric Speech and Language Therapist. I’ve been qualified for about 2 years and completed my NQP period over a year ago.
I’ve been working in a school one day a week since November. It’s the first school I’ve managed independently without another SLT alongside me. I was the only SLT for two classes, but the school later asked me to take on more classes too (which I now know I should have discussed with my manager first).
I’ve recently been told I’m being taken out of the school because of concerns they’ve raised to my supervisor. I’m trying to reflect honestly on whether these are reasonable concerns or whether there were communication issues on both sides.

Some of the concerns are:
1. I wasn’t feeding back to teachers after sessions.
The school said I wasn’t communicating enough with teachers. I completely accept I could have been more proactive with feedback. However, I often found the class teacher was incredibly busy whenever I tried to speak to her. I was only there one day a week, so there wasn’t much opportunity for informal conversations. Nobody ever explicitly told me they wanted regular feedback or said, “Could you update me after each session?” The concern only came through my supervisor months later.

2. Parent phone call
I had tried ringing a parent previously but couldn’t get through. I told the class teacher this, and my recollection is that the teacher suggested arranging a suitable time to call because the parent runs multiple businesses and is difficult to catch. I did this and the parent responded she is hard of hearing but she’d be free for a call so I arranged a date and time with her.
Mum had apparently been asking about direct SLT input so I wanted to call Mum to update her, I told Mum daughter has been responding well to sessions and is developing her communication skills. Mum told me that daughter seems to talk more at home than at school. I said that I haven’t heard her talk yet.
The parent later became upset because she thought I was saying her daughter was regressing.
I definitely did not say, “Your daughter isn’t talking.” I said “I’ve not heard her talk when I’ve seen her yet”. I offered to send resources home to Mum and also asked her if she had any questions to ask me and that if she did, she had my email address.
The teacher later said I shouldn’t have phoned the parent because the parent is hard of hearing, but my understanding had been that arranging a call was exactly what I’d been advised to do.
I wasn’t told the parent was upset until much later. Had someone said, “Mum thinks you meant regression, could you clarify with her?” I would have happily done so. The child has a private SLT paid for by Mum who comes into school and that SLT said that the child is a GLP and uses phrases and Mum mentioned this to me in our conversation.

3. Communication boards and pica
I put communication boards up using Blu Tack.
In one classroom, a TA told me some children had pica, so I immediately took the boards down and handed them to the class team. In the nursery classroom I also put communication boards up (I had recently taken on some children from the nursery). I vaguely remember pica being mentioned once weeks earlier (but at the time I didn’t realise this), but I don’t remember anyone reminding me in the moment when I was actually putting the boards up. If someone had simply said, “Remember, X has pica we can’t use Blu Tack,” I would have removed them immediately. Instead, it was reported to my supervisor.

4. Social story
A teacher asked me to make a social story for a child who was wetting themselves. I made it. Two weeks later, when I checked how it was going, the teacher told me she’d changed parts of it because mum wanted the message to be that bedwetting wasn’t okay, whereas my version was more accepting. Again, nobody discussed it with me before changing it or no one highlighted this error to me so I could have corrected it.

5. Talking to TAs during dysregulation
Apparently I was talking to a TA (showing them Grid on AAC) while a child was dysregulated. The TA in question I had worked before and coached on AAC from a different class but she was in that class for the day. My perspective is that the adults were approaching me and asking questions. I answered them. I wasn’t asking them to leave dysregulated children to speak to me. I acknowledge a better time could have been chosen to have a chat with the TA.

6. Behaviour policy
I’d advised staff about using more process praise rather than person praise because that’s consistent with my clinical understanding and evidence-base. The SENCo emailed me asking me for a chat to ensure the advice given aligns with their behaviour policy. I genuinely wasn’t aware of the school’s behaviour policy because I only had access to pupil files, not wider school documents.

What I’m struggling with is that I feel like almost all of these concerns were raised after months had passed, rather than at the time.
I’m absolutely open to feedback. I don’t think I’m beyond criticism, and there are definitely things I’ll do differently in future (particularly around proactively communicating with teachers).
However, I also feel that if someone had simply said:
“We’d like more feedback after sessions.”
“This parent has misunderstood what you meant.”
“Don’t use Blu Tack in this classroom because of pica.”
“Your recommendations don’t fit with our behaviour policy.”
I would have changed my practice immediately.
Instead, everything seemed to be escalated to my supervisor without me being given the opportunity to correct it first. My supervisor has actually said my clinical knowledge is good and that she thinks I just wasn’t ready to manage a school independently yet, which I can accept.

So my question is:
From the perspective of teachers, SLTs, or other healthcare professionals, does this sound like normal performance feedback for someone learning to manage a school independently, or does it sound like communication broke down on both sides?
I’m genuinely looking for balanced opinions because I want to learn from this.

(Info: 25F, UK, vet accessible)

A cat was abandoned by a neighbour when they moved, she was from a house with loads of unneutered cats. She is approx 3 years old, spayed but not microchipped (I don’t think but I doubt it). When she was abandoned she stayed outside but would visit my garden multiple times a day for food. We slowly tried to build her confidence to come inside, and one day as the weather got colder she just invited herself in and has stayed ever since. It has been over 6 months since she started staying indoors and now she only goes out occasionally but doesn’t go beyond the garden.

The current issue is I can’t get near her. She will fall asleep in the same room as me all the time but once I approach her she either runs off instantly or runs off when I go to touch her. This makes administering flea / worm treatment a challenge. I haven’t been able to get her to a vet to microchip her and have a health check for her. I can give her about two strokes before she runs off. I haven’t been able to pick her up because she’s wriggly.

Any tips to build her tolerance to human touch so I can at least do flea/worm treatment and be able to get her to a vet? Thanks

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