Does this teacher sound mean?

Think yourself lucky that it’s just a little stamp toy. My dd found a stash of money, that was from family for her birthday and money from her savings, ready to go to the bank. Took it to school undetected and handed out 10s and 20s in the playground to all the other children. Had parents messaging me at home time promising to return the money that dd had kindly gifted their dc. 😂 not the point of your post I know but just thought I’d share. We all go through stuff like this at some point. You just have to let it go and encourage your dd to move on

You shouldn't be sending your DD to school with toys. No, the teacher doesn't sound mean.

I’m a teacher. My rule is that so long as it’s not causing a distraction then I don’t mind.
I’ll give a warning then I will remove it.
I ALWAYS give it back at the end of the day.

The teacher doesn't want children to bring in toys from home as they are distracting and they can get stolen or broken. That would upset your daughter far more than not having it overnight. The teacher is basically trying to teach you and your daughter that it is best for toys stay at home.

How long before you stopped laughing 🤣

As a teacher, this. I once had a mum provide me with a PowerPoint to show the class to help her child find his missing Spider-Man toy he’d brought to school. Use it as a learning moment, why does she need a stamper at school?

You, the parent, set your child up to fail. In future, send your child to school with only the bare minimum of things they need to get through the school day. Young children will of course prat around if allowed to do so, and as a responsible parent it is on you to instill the correct study ethic in your child. That begins with the removal of temptation, the provision of adequate grooming, and encouraging punctuality and obedience. Well, as far as is reasonably possible for a young child.

In future, do not provide your child with toys for school.

So often in these cases, Mummy gets the "edited highlights" with salient points omitted.
Is it possible that this is not the first time that your DD has sneaked some gewgaw into class, and that previously she has got the item back at the end of the day, with a reminder "not to do it again" which she blithely disregarded as she didn't have to go home without it?

Can teachers do anything these days without being criticised? No bloody wonder they’re leaving in droves.

If she had it out of her bag then she WAS messing with it. Also, no way did a 6 year old say the teacher used a ‘harsh tone’ or that the teacher wouldn’t ’be impressed’.

To me an echo chamber is about 4 pages of people saying the same thing to the op…

Plus all these posters getting all uptight over a year 1 and her stamper. Trust me, if her mum came and asked about what happened it would not be an issue. It would be a quick chat and forgotten about. I doubt it would even hit the staff room. Unless it was a really slow day for behaviour!

Yeah it's not so much about whether this child should have been punished but it should be about how to help her get to grips with the changing expectations of school. A mass slagging off of the teacher won't help with this.

Indeed. The OP obviously has no desire to reflect and acknowledge that she was actually unreasonable and clearly just wanted an echo chamber response. Sometimes I wonder why people bother posting at all.

Perfectly reasonable consequence for having items from home out during class time, the teacher probably deals with this daily and constantly has to repeat herself whereas this just nips it in the bud for 2 days... I wouldn't consider the teacher mean just for this.

Stuff from home is not allowed in our school unless specified eg a book on World Book Day or a toy on the last day of term, but children have to be responsible for them.

Anything other than that would be taken away, given back at the end of the day and the child told not to bring it again.

It's not the teacher being mean - imagine if a whole class of little ones were messing about with toys etc the teacher would never get anything done.

Your child was in the wrong and got told off and she isn't used to it so she's cried. It's a good thing that she's being taught that rules must be followed not a bad thing. You should be thanking and supporting the teacher for giving your child life skills that will set her up for positive learning.

Your only message to your DD here should be that she must do as the teacher says and that messing about with objects when she is supposed to be working is not allowed. She will have to manage without the stamp for one evening.

I'd take the opportunity to help your DD to cope with the minor setbacks and unfairnesses that are part of everyday life, OP, and also to understand why it happened. Everyone gets told off at school sometimes, that's part of growing up and learning. The teacher did this to make them understand that they're not supposed to bring toys in or play with them in class. The teacher has told that she can have it back and when so she doesn't need to worry about that. The teacher has 28 children to look after and has to be quick and firm about the rules, she's not like Mummy who can sit and talk this through. And most importantly, the teacher didn't do this because she doesn't like your daughter and probably won't even remember it happened once she's given back the toy.

What your daughter needs from you is help putting this all into perspective. You can say to her that you understand she didn't mean to break the rules and you know she feels very sad. But don't teach her that she's been unfairly singled out or victimised, ok? She hasn't been. This is all just a really normal part of school life.

You've chosen to reply to the one person who agrees with you

It's like every thing else it depends in the mood thd teacher was in or if would be maybe the teacher is not keen on your child, just keep listening to your child and see his things develop.

Stuff from home just causes problems… you should not have let her bring it to school. Are you not aware of this?
not just the distraction reason but I bet as soon as it’s lost or taken by another child you’ll be up there asking the teacher to look for it or discipline the child who took it.
you’re THAT mum.

She only has to wait a day. She'll be fine. This is extremely minor.

As the vast majority have said, it’s not mean to take away the toy your child shouldn’t have had in school in the first place, especially as she had caused a distraction with it. Keeping it until the next day is the teacher’s judgement call to make. You might disagree with it but let’s face it you weren’t there and don’t know the circumstances. If the stamper issue happened towards the end of the day, that may be why she decided not to give it back at the end of the day…anyway that’s not really the issue. The issue is that you have characterised as ‘mean’ a teacher who reinforced the school rules when they were broken by giving a reasonable consequence. Yes your child was upset, but that doesn’t mean that the teacher has done anything wrong. Your child is upset because she’s had to leave her toy behind not because she was hurt or someone has said unkind things to her. In the years to come a lot of things are going to happen that your DD would prefer to happen another way - you need to prepare her for this. Also rules are rules and they apply to everyone. That’s another good lesson to learn!

As a reception teacher this sort of thing was an absolute pain. Did you know she’d brought it in to school? If so you need to bear some responsibility for the upset. I would make it clear to parents at the start of the school year that personal items like that were not allowed in school, as they cause a distraction and it’s very upsetting when they get lost (or in the case of someone’s muslin that was sneaked in and dropped, picked up by someone else, cut up and stuck on their collage 🤦‍♀️!) Still some parents would want special licence for their child to bring in something they bought at Disney or whatever. I always said no. To be honest I would have come and spoken to you about why your daughter was crying, would have explained what happened and asked you to make sure she didn’t bring anything in again. You need to learn to work with the school on things like this.

They're not meant to bring in a bunch of stuff from home to pass round the class. It's disruptive. They're too little to have restraint and only get things out at playtime, so the teacher is having to take things off them. They need to do their work.

I'm quite surprised a child of 5 would use words like 'my teacher isn't impressed with my work.' It sounds pretty advanced. So she's obviously clever!

She may mean she made a couple of mistakes and teacher pointed them out. But that's part of learning. Just be supportive and tell her not to bring toys from home to school.