Y2 DS suddenly reluctant to go to school - 'shouty' teacher

[sydenhamhiller]

Hi - would appreciate any advice, really not sure what to do here.

Back story: DS is quite quiet and studious, and a real stickler for rules - so loves loves LOVES school, blossomed when he started Reception. He was a bit nervous of his teacher in Rec, but lovely cuddly TA, so he was fine.

Y1, 'gentler' approach teacher, he loved her. Blossomed at school even more. Still a bit shy of teacher, wld rather talk to TA.

Y2... I (!) really like this teacher, she is very effective, very professional, lots of feedback in homework journal etc etc etc. But she has inherited quite a 'challenging' class, I think she is trying to get them ready for SATs, junior school, and less learning-thru-play than they had in Y1 even, and so has had to be 'bad cop' a fair bit since the beginning of the year.
DS has come back most days saying he has a headache from her shouting, or they missed play because the 'usual suspects' were naughty. A couple of mornings he's said he doesn't like school anymore, teacher is always shouting and rude.
I have been fairly non-commital and said 'never mind, she's not cross with you, just with the class, try not to worry' sort of thing.

But this morning he was close to tears putting his shoes on, saying he doesn't want to go.

What do I do, just keep on reassuring him it's ok? I don't really think I can go in and say "My son says you're giving him a headache" :)

Any advice gratefully received.

[camaleon]

This is a difficult one, I guess. I would try to approach the teacher without making any suggestion about what you think is going wrong.

Explain that your child has been very happy in school before but she seems to be struggling now.

IMO, it is normal for any human being exposed to quite a few children with different personalities and backgrounds to lose it from time to time and shout. However, this should never be the norm. If your only way to 'discipline' children is to scare them, I guess you may get the objective of a disciplined class, at least in appearance. However, it is impossible that the 'scary methods' also help the majority of children to learn.

If the teacher is unable to work without scaring your child, I would try to do my best to change this situation. In the worst case scenario she may need to get a bit of a fright too (obviously suggesting some complains if you this does not improve)

[stleger]

We had a shouty teacher too. She was 'jolly hockey sticks' but I think the kids didn't realise you can be jolly shouting as well as cross shouting. It took a while to settle in her class...

[Yamba]

There are ways of keeping discipline in class without shouting IMO. I think of shouting as either a loss of control or else the teacher could do with learning more effective disipline approaches.
I would definately go and talk to the teacher, although I can see why its hard to do so as its kind of criticising her. I wouldnt beat around the bush though, just say what the problem is, whilst maybe finding things to soften the blow, like the great feedback in the H/W journal etc!
Good luck!