Primary child sat only with non-English speaking children

My daughter had this problem too in primary .She was v v upset - as usual the nice quiet shy kid gets moved to help the teacher out. Everyone has to take their turn fine I understand that. But she had 2 sets of non English speaking kids, with their 2 buddy's talking to them in that same language, and then just her in silence. She became very lonely very quickly. Meanwhile across the classroom she watched all her other friends happy at their tables uneffected.
After 2 weeks I asked the teacher if she was aware that my daughter was very sad and now not wanting to go to school anymore all of a sudden?
Answer was no....she hadn't noticed.
She did get changed fairly quickly after that.
Be your child's voice..... credit to the teacher for moving, but if they don't know they can't help.
Agree, it might annoy the teachers table planning but your child isn't there to problem solve that - school is tough enough in London schools as it is.
Be that parent....wish my mother had.

@mathanxiety has already mentioned the "TA by default" scenario; I have seen an example of this with a child with health support needs.
One of my colleagues was unaware of what was happening at first, as her DD , a pupil at another school, was a cheery soul, not worried by the situation, but it came out in conversation at home that one of her classmates needed regular help with trips to the toilet, and she happily agreed to help. She had to point out to her DD's teacher that her offspring was there for the benefit of her education, not to act as a 1:1 TA. The class teacher, realising that she was dealing with another class teacher, with a working knowledge of the provision which the other child was entitled to, eventually admitted that she had let a one-off incident slide into a regular set-up, which just happened to save the expense of paying a trained adult.

Their jobs don’t directly impact your child. You sound very approachable though, not at all domineering.

There's no harm in calmly raising your concerns. Your daughter's feelings are valid and deserve to be heard. At least then her teacher will be aware that it's a potential problem and can monitor the situation.

Putting the children who can understand one together another isn't necessarily a bad idea, but that goes for the English-speaking students as well. And while it does no harm to have students help one another during lulls in the day (not least because teaching something helps you understand it better yourself), no student should be taking on too much responsibility for another's education.

This. Also, how frequently do they move? I have a shift around of talk partners every three weeks to ensure no one has to endure certain characters for too long. Might be worth asking how long the arrangement will be in place.

You have a concern. Raise it politely with the teacher.

I honestly do not understand people telling you to wait, or speculating on the teacher's reasoning. Just ask.

I'm a teacher and I never mind a parent asking a perfectly reasonable question or expressing a concern. It's okay to talk to the teacher about this.

I wouldn't say anything yet it may never be an issue. The schools only went back wed/ Thurs so it's only been a couple of days. If as you said they are very new to the state and not yet fluent in English they will likely be taken out for resource hours and also likely exempt from Irish so not present all the time in the classroom. If on the otherhand their English is good she'll be well able to chat with them. Keep an eye on it but give it a few weeks, at this stage teachers often move kids around anyway as they get to know the class group.

Perhaps the ESL children would feel more comfortable having someone near them who can speak their own language. It’s very scary starting school when you don’t understand the language and classmates aren’t friendly and welcoming.

Irish poster here too and a teacher. I agree. Give it a few weeks and just see. There's usually a reshuffle.

I think the same.

I'm a primary school teacher.
( 30 plus years)I'd advise you to get in touch with her teacher and explain your concerns exactly as you have done here.
I'd prefer to chat about pupils' worries with mums/dads as soon as they are aware of them.
I'm sure the school will be happy to put your ( and more importantly your DD's ) mind to rest.

I understand your daughter may be worried but it's too early to tell whether this will be an issue. If, after a while, you and your daughter feel it is getting in the way of her learning, I would raise it then. The teacher may swap seats around anyway. DD has been in since Tuesday and already been moved tables once, so I think it takes a while for teachers to assess the dynamics and abilities between children and place them accordingly.

This doesn't sound good for any of them tbh. The ESL students won't have other native speakers to talk to, and this will overburden your daughter or make her feel excluded. If nothing else, she may worry about them to her own detriment.

I'd raise it with her teacher, and suggest that there should be a good mix at all tables..

In my kids school (also Ireland) they mix up the tables at each half term, for a number of reasons (moving the more disruptive children around, breaking up cliques etc) - but that does mean she'd have to last until October.

I don't think a quiet word would be unreasonable - to just mix it up a little bit so there's a more even distribution of the ESL kids

I was an immigrant child once and I agree with you.
My parents actually actively avoided sending me to a school where there were lots of other kids from the same background as us, because they wanted me to learn the local language properly.
I don’t see how it makes sense to put children from the same background all next to each other, so they can just chat in their native language.

I had this issue and I did talk to the school, though i waited a couple of weeks to see if things would improve. My dd has a language disorder and is socially awkward yet she was sat at a table of foreign students with very little English, who only spoke to and hung out with each other, so she was completely isolated. I hate anti teacher/school threads but they don't always get it right.

I had this. I was literally sat between the worst influences. I became incredibly protective over my work and wouldn't share anything with them or help them. On the upside, I developed a great ability to completely ignore them and zone out in a noisy classroom and focus on my work!

We had no ESL kids at my small, rural village school, but like some PPs I was consistently sat next to the 'naughty' kids from age 6 all the way up to leaving at age 11. My teacher told me I could tell them off if needed (I never did - I was a very quiet, meek child!) and told them to ask me first if they didn't understand anything and I'd have to explain to them.

In Y5 the teacher also left me 'in charge' of the whole class whenever she had to pop out, and told the whole class they had to listen to me and follow my instructions - as you can imagine this did wonders for my existing image as a teacher's pet! I have no idea what she was thinking - I may have been academic and well behaved but I was very far from having the confidence to discipline my classmates or tell them what to do! Thankfully the Y6 teacher didn't do this!

OP if your DD is worried then please do speak to the teacher. I was too much of a people pleaser to say anything to anyone including my parents despite being desperately unhappy with the situation. I really wish I had as although it didn't affect my academic results it did affect my whole primary school experience.

Sometimes we forget teachers are superhuman and infallible.

I’m not a teacher, but if I am delivering something for a client and they don’t understand why I’ve done something, or think they have a more effective way of doing something - I welcome the feedback and either take the time to explain why my way is best, or - shock horror - I take their feedback on board and change my approach. It’s a great learning and reflecting opportunity.

Maybe you should adopt that approach when your “clients” (ie parents) want to understand why you’re doing the great things you for their kids, or may be they’ve identified a blind spot you didn’t know you had.

It would work better for the ESL crowd to be split round the class.

She really is of the mind set “you’re just a friend I have not met yet” and she chats to everyone.

All her school reports mention how kind she is - makes me very proud of her 😀

But this has not hindered her academic progress but for OP if her daughter is finding it difficult I think it is fair to mention it to the teacher.

We have just moved country yesterday and it was my daughter first day in a bilingual school - she speaks one of the languages but not the other. So the boot was on the other foot today and she has been shown the same kindness she had displayed 😀

Yes I would advise you to speak politely to her teacher and voice your concerns. Back when I was in year 5 I was moved from my group of friends to sit with another girl every lesson because she was new and I spoke her native language. It definetley impacted me.

Yes to this.

If the child is worried and staff approachable - first thing I'd do is talk to them and mention my child's concerns - it may be a temp set up or have a good reason but asking gets you the information and hopefully reassurance.

And Irish students often eat their lunch at their places in the classroom. Many (most?) Irish primary schools do not have a lunch room or cafeteria.