I posted the following in Chat and, ironically, it was mostly ignored so I thought I might post here instead just to see if anyone has had similar experiences.
I've been reading all the different threads about grammar schools and comprehensives and secondary moderns and discipline and disruption. These have brought up some feelings about my own schooling and how that has affected my learning.
Maybe it is self indulgent to post at all; I don't know. I am going to anyway because I do see a lot of teachers who seem to be compassionate and doing their best and I want them to use that compassion to listen to my story.
In primary school, I was considered one of the bright children. The teachers often had me help other members of the class in all different subjects. I didn't mind this because when I was helping, they weren't bullying me which they did otherwise. My helping often let the teachers deal with more disruptive students. And while helping other students did hone my maths skills, there were other lessons I was learning. I was learning never ever to ask for help because that would take the teacher's attention away from those who needed it more. I learned not to try anything that would challenge me because then I might have to ask for help which would be wrong because others needed it more.
I was left to get on with things. I learned to make myself small, I learned never to tell a teacher if I was struggling because they had enough to deal with. I learned what the teachers wanted me to say so that their lives would be easier; I didn't learn what I wanted to say.
I didn't speak up in class because I knew I would be spoken over. I didn't say anything about the bullying that went on for three years because that too would have been asking for help.
The main lesson I think I took from primary school was that being bright and quiet meant you didn't qualify for attention from the teacher as you would be fine and therefore you didn't matter.
I know that it is hard to meet everyone's needs as a teacher, but do try to be aware what you might be teaching that quiet girl about her worth when you ask her to help others or leave her alone to get on because you know she'll be fine.
And if you have managed to read to the end of this post, well done 
.
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From the quiet child
ISaySteadyOn · 14/09/2016 16:04
You have my sympathy 
OP.
Teachers really are stretched a bit too thin.
I do worry about the messages we inadvertently give girls in primary school. All that compliance and being good and excelling doesn't seem to translate into grownup, real life success. Still less than 10% of Executive Directors at FTSE 100 Companies are Women.
That was me. It is my daughter. Every parent-teacher meeting, they complain to me that she's, "too quiet", like I should be able to fix it 
. She has been pretty much ignored for 6 years.
Peregrina, ah, but now I have this answer at the ready, thanks to you..
Actually, those of you who were quiet, what would have helped you? Not to stop being a quiet person obviously because that's fine, but in school or from your parents?
I don't want this to happen to any of my dc hence posting.
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