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Primary education

DS really struggling emotionally in new class (Y3), peer issues

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Eatcakeandbreathe · 06/12/2017 09:36

DS is at a small local primary school, so they have mixed year groups. He's just gone up to the junior school. It's all the same school, and the class is right next to his old class, so I didn't think in advance that the transition will affect him this much, but for the past 2 years he's been in a class shared with the younger children, and now he has to negotiate peer relationships with the older children as he is now sharing with Y4, and also a different teacher.

His behaviour has deteriorated at home and school. He is a sensitive and spirited boy, and has started lashing out being aggressive - something he did in year R, then calmed down a lot, lashed out again initially after the transition to a new teacher in Y2 but calmed quickly once he'd established himself with the new teacher (but sharing with the same children). He does find transitions hard, and also finds it hard to manage his feelings when under stress. As a baby and young child his behaviour would deteriorate rapidly if his routine changed too much eg staying up late.

Right now he is stressed, he said the older children often pick on him, but the teacher believes them not him as she's already been their teacher for a year.

He tells me that they are moved every week, the teacher picks the names out of a hat, but there are a few children with 'problems' who get to sit next to who they choose.

I am going to talk to the teacher today after school and want to know how best to approach this, just because a child doesn't have a label it doesn't mean they don't have individual needs.

I know my son is no angel, and does have a tendency to lash out, the teacher has said she will put his name down for anger management - I do do anger management work with him at home, and he knows what to do but additional stress makes it harder for him.

I don't want the teacher to think I'm making excuses for him, I just want her to make some changes to meet his needs and remove the additional stress of not knowing week by week who he will be sitting with.

Any advice on how to best approach this with the teacher? Thanks

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Member212711 · 11/12/2017 15:29

No advice to about how to talk to the teacher I'm afraid. But talking to the teacher is definitely the right thing to do! I hope it goes well. I'm not sure that I would like the stress of sitting next to new people every week either - so completely sympathise and would stress to the teacher that it's unreasonable really. Not something that one expect adults to manage well, so why children? It may be that the teacher is trying to put similar ability children together for different subjects and is still working this out.

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