AITA for wanting to be able to speak to my child’s teacher in the morning?

I agree with this. There needs to be some way for other parents to inform the teacher of urgent issues. I’m very surprised the Head is allowing this.

I taught for many years and I always used a home/school book if some parents required it and the TA brought the child/ren in to settle them. That gave the children 1:1 attention when they needed it in the morning as there was always a few parents waiting to speak with teachers.

The best thing that ever happened was Class Dojo, parents could message me on there and I chose when to respond to messages. It meant I could respond to urgent ones before school to save parents waiting around.

I would say this is poor management on the teacher’s part. Also the school needs a good system to prevent this happening.

When I was teaching I would have politely spoken to the offending parent to prevent her doing this every day.

We employed a home/school notebook system for children with special circumstances. Parents could jot down any information they needed to pass on each day.
Admittedly the occasional parent had to be coached into using a few bullet points rather than a dissertation each day.
I would speak to the head. Is the teacher young or inexperienced? She may be floundering with the situation and need some help from her superiors, who may be in ignorance of the situation.

If the teacher needs to know anything leave a message with the school office to pass on - leave the poor teacher alone right at the start of the day.

Then you , and other parents in your situation, need to arrange with the teacher that you do the handover without blocking the door, maybe inside the classroom so offering you some privacy, while the TA settles the class . There also needs to be a system set up, and made clear to other parents, whereby they too can inform the school about urgent issues that affect their child, either by leaving notes, or emails or talking to a TA.

Oh my. You just know this teacher is dreading the start of everyday. I bet she leaves it until the last second to come out and meet the children 😂

I think if you butt in, you’ll be doing her a favour op.

I'd message school to ask how this can be improved

But I am also going to sound a note of caution because there was a mum who took up a lot of the teacher "drop off" time when my daughter was in year R and much later I found out this mum's preschool age child had died just months earlier, and I felt quite different about it once I knew that.

My sons school wouldn't allow a home/school communication book they required me to do a full on handover morning and afternoon.
I can almost certainly guarantee this parent would love to be able to drop and go and collect and go.
I know I would have preferred that than all the hanging around; the stares the talking behind our backs. It's horrible!

We have similar happen at my dds school, my dd had an accident and the teacher wanted to talk to me about it but was stuck at the door by a mum who needs a daily run down of everything her child has done that day, the teacher apologised to me and was obviously frustrated so I said nothing to apologise for and I don’t mind if she wants to just message me on the app if it’s easier.

Sorry but I was that parent who's child has additional needs who needed to do a handover every morning and every afternoon. I didn't want to but it was essential for my child's education; I'd have much rather been able to drop him off and then collect him at the end of the day. But school both wanted and needed that handover both morning and afternoon.
All you needed to do was open your mouth and say excuse me could I just interrupt for a moment....

YANBU to want to speak to the teacher. YABU to not phone the office, either the info needs passed to the teacher or it doesn’t. If it does, phoning the office would also have allowed you to casually mention that no one can get near the teacher

I'd also of interrupted

I think it's time to practice your butting in skills.
Excuse me, sorry to interrupt, can I just tell you some thing really quickly.....

This is what I'd do. As long as you're polite, there's really nothing wrong with 'butting in' a bit!

Poor teacher would probably be relieved at the interruption.

I think the SEN issue is a bit of a red herring here. Appreciate that all DC are different - I have one with significant SEN but still doesn't require a detailed handover every morning. They know the specific issues he has around school and they largely don't change from day to day.

If that wasn't the case, I'd expect a home-school communication book or other tool to pass on updates that wasn't done in front of all the other parents tbh.

I would do the note thing. Have one prepared and say "Sorry Mrs Teacher, but [I don't have time to wait for Mrs Annoying Mum to stop hogging you at the door, but^] I needed to get a message to you about MiniBea for today - here" and hand her the note.

^ = optional sentence!

Or come up with a suitably passive aggressive post for the class Whatsapp group along the lines of your post on here.

"I really need to speak to Mrs Teacher before class tomorrow, but she always seems busy - does anyone know of another way?" i.e. plead ignorant on the fact that you can't email, etc. When people respond you can then add "Ah, OK, thanks. That's annoying. Apologies to anyone that I have to interrupt then when it's important!"

We weren't allowed to go in past the first few weeks of reception. We still managed to pass messages on by writing in the home school book. (Probably online now.) It was better as the teacher was able to concentrate on settling her class

I don’t agree with giving a whole breakdown to the teacher from the last minute they saw them, but it’s in everyone’s best interest if a proper handover is done for children with SEN.

Of course it is, but it’s also in everyone’s best interests if a proper handover is done for each child as and when it’s appropriate to do so. A parent of any child should be able to relay pertinent information about their child.

DD has a new young male teacher this year. I've noticed that one of the Mums spends every morning doing this since September. She never used to when we had a lovely female teacher last year 🤔😄

OP i think your child might be in my child’s class! There is one child with additional needs who (kindly) I believe is not suitable for mainstream.

He is either being wrestled into the classroom by his Mum or restrained by the teacher of TA to stop him bolting back out whilst the others are coming in. Sometimes the teacher/TA doesn’t even acknowledge my child/other children entering the class which makes me a bit uncomfortable as my child is only year 1 and it’s nice to know he’s been “handed over” even if just a knod of acknowledgment. If my child turned on his heel there’d be nobody who knew he had arrived!

I don’t very often have a handover of any sort, sometimes it’s been something like someone else’s jumper, I had a query re the handwriting Monday which I haven’t been able ask.

It’s frustrating when one person monopolises ALL the resource.

I agree with bush- the parent should be meeting with the childs 1-2-1 where there is one. What is the post handing over to a teacher its very unlikely the class teacher would be dealing individualky with the child.

Op if the class has 2 ta is one a 1-2-1?

And this is the important thing, the teachers need to be able to greet the children to make a positive start to the school day, the teachers are there for the children, not for a chat with the adults, anything which takes their focus away of this is unhelpful.

If a child has a 1 to 1 then they can meet with the parent, at our school children with high needs are met by their LSA at reception so they can talk without other parents overhearing, and they then go into class with the other children and their LSA

Same here, but we have a home-school communication book so that we don't have to try to speak to the teacher directly. It works really well - means I can drop-and-dash which has a 50/50 chance of working whereas if I had to stay to try to speak to the teacher the chances of DC unpeeling from me would be zero - means I don't 'hog' the teacher - means I don't have to give private details about DC's meltdowns or difficulty sleeping or anything else in front of classmates or other parents. Also means I don't forget anything as it's all written down! If you don't have this system you could ask for it, it really is a win all round.

Yep there’s a couple of these in my youngest’s class. Our DC line up in the playground and the teacher comes out to take them in, every morning without fail the same two are there talking to the teacher, delaying them going in. It can be pouring with rain and she’s there going on and on not a care for the kids standing there is us parents that aren’t allowed to leave until the kids have gone into the school. Last week my friend actually stood there and rather loudly said ‘go on then, in you go’ as we’d been waiting 5 minutes at this point and the teacher got the hint and went in!

I’m sure it does work for the majority of parents. But as a mum of a child with high support needs, I have to do handover with the staff that working with my child that day. Any aspect of the previous night or morning that may have an impact on their behaviour that day (lack of sleep being the biggest one). You wouldn’t believe the most minor thing that may need passing over or has further affected my child to the point of needing to be picked up early. May seem like irrelevant nonsense to anyone overhearing but that’s life with a child who has high support needs in mainstream education. Believe me, I’d love to watch my child go through the door without a glance back, rather than the occasions of screaming and trying to run back out of school because they weren’t quite ready to go to class.

I don’t agree with giving a whole breakdown to the teacher from the last minute they saw them, but it’s in everyone’s best interest if a proper handover is done for children with SEN.