To mention something to school?

We can't always get what we want OP. Your child doesn't decide if her audition was good. Don't be that insufferable parent. U risk alienating the school, but worse, creating a potential brat.

The problem with resilience is if teachers think you are resilient then they can put you anywhere and you will put up and shut up. You become the easy option

Whilst resilience has its place there is a fine line between Resilience and Doormat

We don't always get what we want in life.

That's life.

Life is a series of lessons to learn from, become resilient, resourceful, develop perseverance.

Look at the current school generation.....parents are failing them.

Totally agree. Sounds like sour grapes and not feeling like somehow someone else is to blame because she didn’t get what she wanted.

OP the fact your think this is even worth bringing to the school suggests you don’t understand that building resilience is far more importnat than complaining you didnt get what you wanted.

Nothing you have said is at all worth complaining about - thats life. Academy award winning actors miss out on roles all the time and because you believe she is capable your daughter should have been given a bigger role? What about all the other kids with bigger roles who practised and auditioned and got those roles? Should they be taken from them?

Honestly this is very entitled and you aren’t helping your daughter to work harder next time and practise more to aim for a bigger role. She got her bestie in her room but her activity group didn't have her circle and you complain. Ridiculous.

I was always so grateful to teachers taking my children away on residential experiences. They extend the teachers' working day by hours, they return to school and spend the weekend recovering! The logistics of planning, organising, carrying out risk analysis etc etc are nothing to compare to putting the children into groups! I agree with the other posters who talked about teaching your child resilience. Children need to learn that they can't always get what they want, but they do always need to find a way to get on with others. The school play is another issue that actually demonstrates that many children feel entitled to always come out on top. Does she really think the teacher would not want the best & most suitable pupils for the main part(s), remember the teacher's reputation is on the line here.

I suspect school will have said something like we’ll try and ensure they are with one friend. She was with one friend in her room.
We do same with guides - they name 3 friends and we say we’ll try and ensure with one. It’s so hard logistically especially if room sizes change. Some mums are very pushy. Some kids no one puts. Factoring in Additional needs and some are not a good combo together it’s a logistical nightmare.
I know a yr 6 teacher just back from 4 days away, only one parent said thank you from full class.

If teachers are getting complaints every year about school play roles, maybe it's time to do something different. As a parent I really resent the amount of class time that is given over to school plays where my children are doing very little. What other area of the curriculum would that be acceptable? Would it be acceptable for a teacher to prep 3 or 4 children for a public maths competition in class time whilst everyone else sits around doing a basic sum if they are lucky?

What is the purpose of a school play? Given it is part of the school curriculum surely it should be educational for all. If parts were more equitable, teachers would most likely get less complaints and more children would be given the opportunity to improve their drama skills. I hate to break it to some of you but primary school plays are usually pretty torturous to watch, whether there are 3 or 4 kids hamming it up on stage for 90% of the time or when roles are distributed more evenly.

I know children are selected for team sports, but that doesn't usually involve all the other children and parents having to sit round and watch them. They generally all take part in PE lessons and the children are selected to take part after school.

I work in a school but im not a Teacher and I do not work in Year 6.

I always feel for Year 6 staff this time of year, they are on their knees. With SATs, the Residential trip, organising end of year celebrations and assemblies, putting on a production, dealing with requests for transition info from primary schools on top of everything else they usually have to do they are working crazy hours. I get to school at 7.30am and I can guarantee the entire Year 6 team are already in (and clearly have been for a while) when I arrive and they're still in school however late I leave in the evenings. They will be writing reports over half term.

A couple of schools locally have stopped doing a Year 6 residential trip and moved to a day trip instead, purely because parental expectations and the ensuing complaints have made the whole thing a massive logistical headache. Staff don't get paid to attend these trips, or for the many extra hours it takes to organise them. There are many factors that have to be considered aside from friendships when sorting groups, staff genuinely spend hours afterschool trying to make it 'fair'. It's getting harder to persuade staff to volunteer their time to organise and go on trips and I can totally see why.

I guess what I'm trying to say OP is that your DD's disappointment, whilst understandably at the forefront of your mind at the moment, is a drop in the ocean for her Teacher. They are busy organising end of year activities for Year 6 and putting together a production, on top of dealing with all the usual safeguarding concerns, behaviour incidents, trying to support pupils with various SEND needs. In their shoes, if I recieved a "polite" or "gentle" note about a trip that has already happened, or a child not being happy with a part in the school play that has already been cast, I would not have the headspace to do anything other than briefly feel shit about it, then move on to the next task on my ever-growing to do list.

Check the wording… Newsletter/PGL info letters will no doubt say “do our best to”.
it’s a logistical nightmare with a million considerations & needs to consider

Excellent reply!!
it sucks to be a mom when your kid’s unhappy (OF COURSE it does!!) but a wee step back & this reply will help.

Life is tough. She needs to learn that. This might be a good time to teach this to her instead of swooping in and creating the illusion that she’s not going to have similar issues in the future. She needs grit and resilience and what you’re proposing is going to give her the opposite.

Don’t be one of those parents.

”child, why would they have something against you? I’m sure everyone had times of not being with friends. You had a good time, now let’s move on”.

Be on the schools side. It’ll do your daughter good.

I communicate with both my form group and students in classes, plus gazillions of emails when we do trips, plus some as I have a responsability in the subject. Some I just dont even bother to reply to, because I think parents are taking a piss.
Some kids had to change sets. Poor Megan has been feeling low and her aunt has been feeling a bit unwell and she cant possibly be away from all of her friends at this trying time as they proivide support.
Not got in the room for the trip with the exact people he mentioned? Little Jack's parents want to pull him off the trip as he now feels unsafe- feel free, sorry to hear but deposit non refundable.
Mimi hasn't seen the notification about the test so prefared nothing at all, she would like to retake after school in her and my free time as she had spent an afternoon crying about her low score (oh well, lesson learned).
Tom got a detention from his Science teacher but he told his parents the teacher confused him with some totally different looking kid (as they do), which they expect ME to sort out with the said teacher. I didnt, Tom sat the detention.

Don't get me wrong, I DO care about kids and want them to enjoy lessons and feel safe. But I also am refusing to be constantly contactable, being 100% responsible for kids wellbeing, and believe resilience is a pretty amazing gift we can give them as a school, and there is a difference between someone who genuinely struggles and me running and sorting out every little things kids absolutely can live with but would prefer not to.

Bugger that, I left teaching for a few years and I could not believe how shitty things got and how much responsibility has been put on the profession (by some teachers as well with a wrongly understood idea of what the job actually should be) over the last years.

OP's daughter's teacher organised a gigantic trip and OP rather than thanking them moans that her daughter was not fully accomodated and that she got a minor role in a play (together with two dozens or more of other kids as well!)- and this somehow in her eyes mean the teacher is persecuting her. Jesus wept.

But surely you aren't pastorally responsible for 120-150 children? I teach the whole school (1 lesson a week subject) but I only regularly communicate with parents of my tutor group. So it's much more manageable. I definitely agree that no one person can handle the welfare of 150 kids! But that's a major purpose of tutor groups.

I can see both sides.
However, if I had to listen to every parental concern thay may have, Id still be in school until now (Sunday afternoon) after finishing on Friday.
My school has 1200 children, I bet many parents have stuff to say and we have to draw a line somewhere. Imagine every parent emailed us about their child's friendship issues or the fact they had 'a hard week' (as per OP) and needed a bit of a boost. You'd literally have no time to teach youd be so busy reading replying and then boosting chilren''s egos.
I get what you say and in an ideal world you would have three clones of yourself to sort out wellbeing of every child. But it's not an ideal world, I am one, I teach 120-150 kids a day 5 days a week and I have my own kids I like to spend time with too. Some thing needs reporting, and some do not. My parents had not spoken to any of my teachers over the years of primary and secondary school with one exception of vile bullying I experienced. For years before emails kicked in, parents didnt run to school with every minor "X's friend was not very nice this week but they had to do pairwork", "A felt a bit down this week because her best friend was in a different group for whatever and she missed out on being the main in a schol show on top of that". Come on.
I think your own expectations that this is what we should do is very damaging to the profession. Some suff just needs to be sorted out by kids and their parents rather than teachers whose main job is, you know, to teach.

That's not what I said. I didn't suggest we could sort rooms and groups to everyone's satisfaction all the time. I was responding specifically to a poster who said teachers don't have time ti listen to parental concerns about their child's well being and to try and boost their self esteem/confidence. Which is offensive nonsense - that's a pretty major part of our job!

Perhaps she didn't get the part because she has opportunities out of school that other children don't?

Cool story but that means you have a lot of time on your hands. I did two trips a year (one residential) and totally didnt have time to check every signle time Jenny or Ophelia or Jack were in their friendship groups at all times, and sometimes it was impossible to sort out for ooms, activities, coaches etc, and we had a lot of 'could this be changes'- sorry, no. Sometimes kids have to be in groups with not just their friends and they have to live with it and they and the parents cant be thowing tantrums over it.

I was about to say the trip would be something I'd consider mentioning, esp if they were told they would be in a group with 1 off their list.
As an ex teacher, dh still teaching, it is a nightmare to organise groupings with lots if things to take into account. SEN / friendships / clashes / maturity / physical ability / sociability etc. but they need to be clearer with what they mean if they are not actually guaranteeing 1 friend in each group.

Slightly different situation but When our fs went to comp they were told they would be definitely in class with à friend from their school. His primary class was 28, (12 boys and 16 girls) divided across 8 classes at secondary.
Parents were saying which class their kids were in and he was the only boy from his school in his new class, there was also one girl from his class. fs had issues with school and he had had extra visits to help with the transition but now no male friend in class. It was really annoying when we worked out(several parents helped me) that 1 class had 5 of the boys together and it was similar for the girls.
I did contact the school and asked why that was, that with his issues that had been sorted in that way. I didn't care who he was with just another lad he knew so he felt comfortable and give them their due, they quickly sorted it for both our fs and the girl and apologised as it shouldn't have happened.

Things can be difficult to sort, or an oversight but I think it's important to point out, (not complain) the importance to ensure communication is clear so children are aware and that the expectations are followed correctly.

100% this.

And this is why teachers don’t do trips… you are not the teacher, you don’t have access to SEN information, pastoral notes etc. so you can’t make assumptions on how the teacher “should” have done things. You also only have your DDs word on the one friend guarantee. And with the best will in the world, unless you yourself get this info direct from the teacher I wouldn’t 100% trust the kids version.

it sounds like you are both emotionally overwhelmed. Take some time, get some perspective once the dust has settled.

I support in year 6. It is an absolute nightmare sorting out rooms and groups for residential trips. We spend hours on it, we do our very best. There will be hundreds of other things to be taken into consideration as well as who they put on their list. She got her best friend in her room, many won't have been that lucky.

As a side note, please remember that school staff are people too. I attended my mum's funeral last week, next week I'm attending my father in law's, and then in a fortnight I'll be leaving my kids with my husband and going on residential with yr 6 where all staff will be doing our very best to make sure they all have an amazing time. We'll come back shattered, we won't have been paid any extra, and then we'll be back at school practicing a performance to give every single pupil the chance to shine whatever role they've been given - and casting will have been a nightmare decision too.

Talk to your daughter about resilience, by all means mention she feels a little low and could staff keep an eye on her (though they'll probably have already noticed and be doing so) and say thanks to them for all the extra hard work they're putting in this time of year.

The thing is, this scenario plays out every single year without fail. Your DD is not the only child who didn't get the role they coveted in the school play. My DS didn't either, he hoped for a more meaty role than the one he was cast in. I was just pleased that he did get a role at all and wasn't merely asked to be a helper behind the scenes or similar. I can guarantee that other kids in the same play will have been disappointed with their role, it's just the way it is.

Similarly other kids will also have been put in groups with kids they didn't want to be with. They may not have had their closest friend in their dorm either. It's just impossible to arrange it so everyone's happy, there will always be people who don't have the room mates they want or be in the group they want. It's the kind of knocks that life generally delivers from start to finish, and how your child takes it will determine how much positivity they will get out their lifetime. Instead of focusing on what they didn't get, look at what they did. Your DD got a role in the play. She got to share a room with her closest friend. (She shouldn't let her experience taint her sister's expectations for her trip either, that's not necessary.)

It's a hard lesson to learn but life is full of small disappointments (it might not feel small to her now) that help us get over the harder bumps in the road along the line. Encourage her to make the most of things and view setbacks as a learning opportunity. It's not easy, but nobody promised life will be.