Controlling HLTA

Morning,

I am looking for advice on how to navigate this situation. I’ve recently joined a school and I am still learning how things work at that school. The headteacher is very specific about the policies to a point where it’s almost pedantic. I’ve adjusted well, despite not always being informed until the last minute. I am very lucky to have an experienced HLTA in my class (over 20 years) but I don’t like the way they offer support. If I make a decision and they feel differently, they won’t respect my decision - they’ll just change what I’m doing. For example, if I give instructions and set children on a particular task, if they don’t like the task (or sometimes they get confused about the instructions and don’t listen carefully to my explanation), they’ll tell the children to stop doing it and do something else. When I’m teaching, they’ll tell interrupt me to repeat the last thing I said in slightly different words. I adjusted part of the behaviour policy to suit the age of my children, they stopped me in the middle of an instruction, apologised to the children as if I got it wrong and gave them different instructions. I spoke to the headteachers, they said I was fine with the behaviour policy change and I could continue. When I quietly relayed this to the HLTA, they said they would talk to the headteacher instead and continued to give out the other instruction. When they were on PPA, they were sat outside the classroom with the door open. I closed it because some children were doing assessments outside and I felt monitored. The HLTA opened it again. As its Christmas, I said the children could do their Christmas decorations and we watch a movie but the HLTA barrelled into the classroom, saying no, we needed to do something else instead. They spoke over me and told the children we wouldn’t be doing what I said then went back to PPA. I haven’t said much to them about it before because I was new to everything and appreciated the guidance at times. However, they are constantly override my decisions and undermining my authority in the classroom in front of the children. It really slows lesson pacing down and we are extremely behind. When I first came, the children wouldn’t even respond to my behaviour management because they recognised them as the only authority. Now I’ve had more opportunities to be the only adult in the classroom, the children respond quickly to me and I have built good relationships (esp with more challenging children). I have been more assertive with my decisions and have stated that this is what I’m going to do. They don’t seem happy about it.

Moving forward, I want to write up a plan of the HLTA responsibilities and my responsibilities as classroom leader. The plan will include the ares of support needed, mostly on supporting children that are behind or challenging children that are completing work quickly. I also plan to list the ways that I run the classroom so that it is clearer and there will be more consistency between us. I am going to Cc the headteachers into the email. Is this appropriate or is there another more appropriate course of action?

TLDR: Overbearing controlling HLTA interrupts lessons and undermines me in front of the children. I want to write up a plan to tell them what their role is vs mine and how I manage the classroom. Is this okay?