Teacher keeps asking Dd to do jobs

Movement break as others have said. I know which children really benefit from a purposeful walk around

This was my child. Teacher actually said, he's the child i trust to go there and come back 😂

I don't have a problem with the child who has finished their work being asked to do jobs. I do have a problem with one intelligent child always finishing their work before the others. Me thinks the teacher can't be bothered to set your DD work that challenges her and she learns from.

I work in a school. There are many reasons a child might a child might be given jobs to do frequently including

They lack self-confidence or resilience and being trusted with responsibility can help them to feel good about themselves

They need a 'movement break' due to being restless/fidgety, possibly linked to ADHD traits but not necessarily

They are chatting too much and annoying or distracting their classmates

They are often 'in trouble' so the Teacher is giving them opportunities to earn praise in the hope this leads to an improvement in their behaviour and relationships with staff over time

There are low level safeguarding concerns and being sent to do a job with a TA gives them a chance to chat with the child one to one about how things are at home, or for the child to disclose any concerns

If two children in the class aren't getting on they might be given jobs to do together as a way to help repair the relationship

The Teacher asks for volunteers to do jobs and some children just volunteer more than others

Quite a lot of the EHCPs I’ve read suggest giving children jobs to do, to give them a movement or proprioceptive break.

Nothing to do with ‘lazy teachers’ 🙄

In our school it would generally being the ones who are restless or disrupting others in the class

My DS is autistic and very bright. I'm pretty sure his SEN plan has "give him jobs" as a strategy to help him. It's a movement break, it gets him away from the classroom noise for a few minutes, he practices attending to instructions, he likes the responsibility. Other children get jobs too!

There are a lot of reasons a teacher might do this! If you're concerned, just ask the teacher.

From the first post, the OP says:

(i’m wondering if she’s finishing early and being too chatty and distracting others 😬 or something else)

My DD isn't disruptive, but she loses focus sometimes and a purposeful distraction does her good and means she can then focus again.

(I'm also a teacher and use the same strategy)

Some kids do well being kept busy with a variety of tasks (not just school work) for various reasons. Some relish the responsibility. Some whizz through their work faster than others. Some are fidgets who need bursts of physical activity to help refocus.

My son has ADHD (it wasn't diagnosed while he was at primary but he was a constant buzz of energy and struggled with sitting still). One day they had "open classroom" where parents could go in for the day and see what they did. The other kids filed in and sat in rows ready for assembly and we could see our son dashing round the back of the room switching computers on and getting mouse mats out. I alerted the teacher and she said "oh that's one of Johnny's jobs, he gets the room ready for the first lesson which is IT today, makes himself useful while we're waiting for assembly to start". She obviously had the measure of him!

Doubt it.

Movement breaks, usually. So annoying unfocused or fidgety kid might benefit from that kind of thing. I often ask for volunteers tbh. I choose kids who can catch up or who have finished their work.

Why so rude? I dont spend my whole life on mumsnet to reply to every comment.

When did the OP say her child was off task, talking too much, fidgeting etc? Just because your kid is disruptive doesn't mean OPs is.

It could be many reasons or one? We have a few structure here, Class Dojo etc so many kids get certain tasks etc & that's fine, it's all transparent for parents to see too but sometimes some pupils need a movement break or a distraction from being a distraction whether that's because they're "spaniels" & get through their tasks at hyperspeed & get bored or they don't & so get bored too, the only way to know is to ask the teacher, we walk our classes out to the gate every finish time so it's easy to have a word with your teacher or phone the office, also to add, Filing? Other than Art masterpieces ready to go home in June there's no filing a teacher, lazy or otherwise, would allow a child to do, jaysus I thought I lost my file cabinet key in my room & I nearly lost a half stone in weight so in conclusion ask the teacher AND your child

Ah the 80s were great 🤣 When I was in Year 4, after I’d finished my work, my friend and I were sent to the staff room each day to do the washing up. There was always a little bowl of sugar lumps left out on the coffee table and we’d happily chat, wash up the teachers’ mugs and eat sugar lumps for as long as we could spin it out for. Great memories.

"chatty with friends in class"
I'd hazard a guess that by asking your daughter to do these 'jobs' the chattiness decreases and her friends can get on with their work. And all without having to tick your daughter off for never shutting up, or asking her to be quiet.

Bravo that teacher.

It’s either that she is distracting the class and needs to be given a job to stop her being silly, or it’s the curse of being a ‘big sensible girl’ and the teacher knows she can trust her to do whatever job needs doing.

My mum is 81 and remembers inwardly groaning when she heard the teacher say ‘I need a big sensible girl to clean the ink wells’ because she knew she was generally always chosen because she was a big sensible girl and would do it properly even though she hated doing it!

Where are all these lazy teachers who can't be arsed please?
Only if you can be bothered to reply, of course.

She must be bright, knows how to speak to others and has a good attitude. If she was needing extra learning time she wouldn’t be asked. It’s good

I liken my child to a border collie. If she doesn't have a task, she will find one and it probably won't be the one you wanted, so redirection and focus with a job would actually be incredibly helpful for my child.

Most probably because she's trustworthy and capable.

this was my daughter, it started in the second week of september of year 2. at our first parents evening we were told how wonderful she was, and that she was a little TA, doing tasks, little errands, “she could be trusted to do xyz” but by the october half term my daughter was responsible for making sure certain children behaved properly, in the class. in the playground. not just helping a class mate with a maths problem, she was responsible for keeping this kid or that kid focused and sitting properly. i tired to talk about it with the teacher. who flat out denied it was happening. yet her class mates corroborated. her behaviour at home deteriorated to the extent that at christmas she wasn’t sleeping at night, was wetting bed, was waking at 2am, and said that she was afraid of the teacher. by february we had moved schools, and our sunny happy child is back.

This could be because the school have noticed your child settles better if she's had a chance to move around. It's quite common for 'little jobs' to be recommended for children who need help regulating themselves and you mentioned she can be quite chatty so perhaps it helps her settle and concentrate?

Haha the teacher is not doing it because she's lazy, a kid is not ever going to be net-helpful. Have you ever had your 8yo "help" you cook, was that because you were "lazy" or because they needed to be kept busy and actually it would have been way easier to do it yourself?!

Of course there are exceptions etc