Teacher keeps asking Dd to do jobs

Oh please. What a constructive and helpful comment…

It means she's reliable and can be trusted to competently fulfill the task. It also means she's the unpaid worker in the classroom.

I often give the children little jobs, I have a role for every child in the class. It’s part of our character curriculum by giving children responsibility. Some children have more responsibilities than others to stretch and challenge or give them a movement break. All of my children are also able to access extension activities if needed too. They won’t be sent out during learning time.

Assigning children to do jobs was very common when I went to school (1950s). Giving out and collecting books, filling inkwells, tidying desks was something we loved being asked to do. In secondary school the custom was to choose two girls as staffroom monitors. We would wash up after tea break, empty the waste bins and generally tidy the staffroom. Most of us got a chance once a term and really took it very seriously. As other posters have stated it gave kids a feeling of pride and responsibility to be chosen. I dont think any of us ever looked on it as free labour.

I told my son’s teacher to give him jobs if he has finished his work. He is quite strong and likes to set up and stack chairs in the hall as well as haul PE gear from the PE sheds. He feels valued when he gets asked and it shows him that we all need to contribute to make life easier for everyone. I would have an issue if it was busy work or a punishment. But the main point is communicating well with the teacher on these types of issues so there is no confusion

The children in my school love a job (once they’ve finished their work). Whether that’s coming to the office with a msg, giving a msg to another teacher. Sometimes the Yr6 children will come to the office during lunchtime and answer the phone, they know how to do this. As long as your Dd has finished her work there’s nothing wrong with doing jobs. It’s not the teacher being lazy, if there’s no TA the teacher can’t leave the classroom.

This is so far from the truth. Secondary teacher here and I teach multiple students who have support plans which state that giving them a job and keeping them busy helps them regulate their behaviour.

Absolutely this. Sending children on jobs gives them a break from the classroom and the other children a break from their disruptive behaviour.
I'd often have an agreement with another teacher that we would send a child to do a job when said child was at capacity for sitting down quietly, and likely to get themselves in trouble.

@Nextdoorarebangingagain because they show potential and the skills will help later on

As a teacher, we do this for all sorts of reasons! I often choose children to go and do a little job for me like take the lunch register to the office if I know they need a confidence boost. One of the children in my class was such a nervous little thing at the beginning of the year and now he’s happy talking to other members of staff, so that’s lovely. Some children need an adult to give them a special ‘responsibility’ and it’s great for their confidence. Some children need a little reset sometimes, so I might give them ‘an important note’ for another teacher. Some need a sensory break, so getting up and walking to collect something for me helps us both. Some children just love helping and will ask if I want help with anything! If I ask the class for a volunteer, 80% of the class has their hand up (I teach Year 5). So yeah, lots of reasons… none of which are ‘we’re too lazy to plan for xyz’, as was so delightfully put by a PP.

This used to happen to me with one teacher when I was in year 5, he even had me marking other children’s work, which I think looking back now was inappropriate.

I have mixed feelings about it tbh, at the time I really loved it and it gave me a lot of confidence, but I think it would have been better if he would have provided me with additional work (like the teachers did in other years) at a higher level instead of tasks to help him with his job.

See my post also! Not unusual at all it seems.
I was also 10.

My daughter,who has suspected adhd and autism) is often asked to help the teacher. She is also asked to explain tasks to the other kid. They are doing this to build confidence, social interaction, social skills and sometimes burn energy. She's very academic. Is a few years ahead of the other kids academically so it doesn't impact learning. She's a few years behind socially.

ETA: You can ask the teacher he rational. They won't be offended and you might find our something interesting.

This would happen at my child’s old school. They wouldn’t set any extension tasks 😬. In his new school they stretch the children when they are able and he s now working a year above in his maths and English.

Your DD sounds like she needs stuff to keep her from distracting others.

So was I. A lot of children love doing jobs for the teacher. Funnily enough I became a teacher myself.

By 10 my autistic dd was mentoring other girls who were struggling (most diagnosed) and she went on to be the pupil consultant for the new autism centre at her school, she’s very eloquent and happy around adults but struggled with peers, but a helping role suited her. She would finish her work in a fraction of the time of others, but emotionally couldn’t be moved up to later years, there’s more to education than just book learning (if I’d home educated i suspect she would have got through GCSEs by 12 but what’s the point if they aren’t functioning properly. Bottom line is she’s an independent adult now so I think giving jobs in school is a good idea

He actually sent you out of the school grounds and to the shops? At 10?

The headmaster of my school in (also in the 80s) sent me and my friend out to buy a Valentine's card for his wife! I dread to think what sort of card two 10 year olds chose.

To the Op. In my case, I was often doing jobs because I was seen as a responsible child. I enjoyed it but in the end my mum put a stop to it because she thought I was missing too much class time.

She probably just misses other children doing jobs as maybe they are offered discretely/not always an obvious 'who can do this for me?'.
If we run out of tissues in class, I will normally just get the child who asked for one to pop to the office to get some (most of ours can be trusted to do this job). The children like it and as a school we do encourage children to interact with other adults like the office staff e.g. remembering to say please/thank you.
If she is helping put children's work in folders maybe she has just been told to help her table. We have mixed groups sat at tables (which I believe is the norm for most primary schools) so some children do still lack the motor skills and understanding of how to actually get the work into the folder (maybe needing help to hold the folder open, placing the sheet in without screwing it up). Likewise with several sen children in the class they sometimes need help with organisation, we have a child who uses a visual timetable and if staff forget to do it there are usually multiple children who want to help the child find the correct images to put on their table.

I personally wouldn't mention anything to the teacher unless they raise it with you or your daughter is unhappy/feels she is doing more jobs than others which she doesn't like.

Some reasons I give jobs to certain kids are:

• they are a child who needs movement breaks - they struggle to sit still, they struggle to focus without little brain breaks.
• they are a child who thrives on the praise they get from doing jobs
• as a reward for good behaviour and being trustworthy (many children enjoy doing jobs 😊)
• they are a child who maybe ends up with negative interactions a lot of the time, to help them feel purposeful and valued in our class community.

So it could be anything! Definitely not a bad thing though.

I was also regularly sent to the shop at lunchtime, with a friend, in 1978 - 1979.We were the sensible ones. It was quite a trek, through a housing estate.
One day a bloke walked past us, dropped a pair of bright pink knickers, then jumped over a 6 foot garden fence. We kept on walking and giggling. He then appeared from behind us asking if we'd seen anything.
We reported this to the teacher who laughed incredulously.
At the end of the year we were delighted to receive little silky purses with 50p inside.

This- jobs and shared responsibility are part of learning. I'm always surprised how few children do even small chores at home. And then in countless other threads people will be complaining that schools don't prepare children for the real world. A teachers' place truly is 'in the wrong'.

Haven't read the thread. I know enough to know know I'm going to be irritated by parental ignorance if I do 😉

The two main reasons I give jobs to specific children.

I know that particular child is reliable and if I give them a task or an errand, they will get it done and I know they won't go awol and we won't have to launch a full scale man hunt to find them.

The child benefits from 'brain breaks' or 'movement breaks' and becomes disruptive after too long sitting focused on a single task.

Doing a job gives those children a break with a meaningful purpose and they get 2 mins out of the room to reset whilst it also feels like a positive/reward because it isn't supposed to be a punishment.

Doing a job makes them feel valued and respected, which is how we want childen to feel because its true.

Children love doing jobs.

Complaints from children who don't often get jobs to do - plenty

Complaints from children who frequently do jobs - never.

Who wants a job? Is the only question I ever ask that guarantees every hand up and every child showing me good sitting! 😅