aibu to want this teacher to apologise to my son.

[wfrances]

ds age 12 takes a packed lunch to school,during 2nd lesson he notices drink has leaked in his bag {all of it}his lunch is ruined,and now has no drink.
he tells his teacher who says "i dont care, its not my problem, sit down."
im fuming, he didnt eat all day,no drink and what a wicked way to respond to a child.
phoned head of year straight away ,who totally agreed with my reaction.
but i think she should apologise to him-what do you think?

It saddens me to read these stories of SN children being let down and some of the responses on this thread. Its such a shame that some teachers just dont realise the affect they can have on SN children and their parents.

My own ds attended a school were teachers refused to accept that he had a disability even after he received a diagnosis. They punished him for his difficulties and he received no help or support whatsoever. They ignored any expert advice as in their opinion he didnt have these difficulties and didnt need that help. He began to self harm and ended up in hospital and it has taken over one year of therapy to try and undo the damage caused.

Furthermore, his teachers would also report to outside agencies that i was just an over anxious mother and the cause of ds's difficulties.

I really hope some people have learnt something from this thread.

So pleased to hear that you finally got the right response wfrances.

I'm pleased the op is receiving more support now from people far more knowledgeable than me.

Well done for fighting for your son, the appropriate people obviously agreed with you as did the teacher.

Where are all the posters accusing you of being ridiculous now? A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing

firstly i want to apologise to you mums with sn dc for dragging you in to a boiling cauldron,yes in hindsight i should have posted in sn but it was late and i was looking for advive for the next school day , i did not add that my ds had autistic/dyspraxia traits because i honestly did not think that mattered ,i would have taken the same action with my other children. .
what scares me more than anything is the response of the majority of teachers on here,yes my son now seems ok but what about the other children???ive a good mind to see my local mp with a transcript of these posts ,many seem to belong to the nazi regime-no tolerance of disability -" shouldnt be in normal schools,what about the resources they take up,your overreacting ,your doing him no favours,staff will laugh at you,world doesnt revolve around your precious son,i could go on,but im sure you read them
and that is frightening .

Agreed

oh and ive emailed the austistic and disability support groups and have asked them to come and read this post,
im sure they will be very concerned by this attitude .

No need to apologise from my part anyhow wfrances, you develop a very thick skin when you have children with SN's, as im sure you are aware!

On a positive note, it was really nice to see a few posters, without SN children having a good understanding of disabilities.

its the usual thing - people only sympathise and understand what you are going through when they go through it themselves.

the majority i am sure wouldnt say half the things they have said on here to your face, but i suppose what is depressing is that they think it.

sofia - im glad that you take heart from my DS tale - it does get better for them after they leave school i think.

anyway - must dash but glad that the outcome was a good one for the OP, and i dont think that it was a bad thing to post on the main site and not in SN - yes some responses were awful, and no doubt you would have got more understanding in the SN section, but i think you have highlighted what the issue is for our kids in the mainstream setting, on this thread - intolerance is what they are greeted with most often in RL, as demonstrated to a T on these 20 pages.

btw that should say autistic-oops

Some of the stories here about the mistreatment of children with SENs are absolutely scandalous. Actually assaulting and humiliating children is appalling. These teachers deserve everything they get.

But sorry, telling a kid to sit down and be quiet is not on this level at all!

wfrances you have done yourself no favours at all; a lot of the issues you are raising in terms of "staff will laugh at you", "world doesn't revolve around your son" etc are before you drip fed the difficulties that your DS has

the resources issue was a geniune question that I asked for which there were no mature answers forthcoming (there has never been any mention of not being in a 'normal school') as the funds for supporting a statment come from the LA not the school and they are having their budgets frozen

in order for you to help your DS you need to take a step back and think about what battles you fight etc as you are going to sound like and be treated like an overbearing mum.....

Cricket, you dont have to have an academic issue to need a statement. Children who have physically disabilities could need a statement, just as much as a child who cannot read or write for example.

In my experience even if a child with SN is extremely intelligent, they often cannot apply the same logic to real life situations. Letters and numbers etc, stay the same, you dont have to interact or communicate with letters, facts and figures etc.

"she was not asked to apologise but she found my ds this morning and she did,she said all the things i hoped she would say-and told him she hoped he wouldnt be afraid to approach her in the future."

As this must have come from your son. Its pretty impressive from someone with language difficulties.

Oh ffs

Not quite on topic but I know of a dyslexic person who, after lots of help at school (extra time in exams etc) made a spelling mistake in something on the first day of their rather good job. Employer pointed it out and the person responded with 'but I'm dyslexic' (as they had done throughout school and uni). Employer responded with a simple 'I never want to hear you say that again'. A harsh lesson quickly learnt - but one that shouldn't have happened. We have huge sympathy for people with SEN but if they are in mainstream school they can't get used to using it as an excuse / reason for bad behaviour. Life is tough, the world is tough. We do children no favour by allowing their differences to be exagerated rather than helping to acheive their best.

The OP didnt say her son had told her. In fact she implied that the HOY did.

Do you have any understanding of language difficulties?

How would we help them to achieve their best qwepoi?

Cricket. I think you and I must be reading different threads.

Unless you are new to mumsnet, you know that drip feeding goes on all the time, it happens in rl conversations too.

I really don't think it matters whether the child has sen or not, that is no way to talk to child. Yes there are some brats out there but at no point did I get from any of ops posts that her child was being disruptive, maybe thus is because I came to the thread after l the info was out there.

I don't think that I'm the kind if mum who charges into school at the slightest thing. Quite the opposite, if anything happens at DDs school, I'll make sure I get the facts first and speak to the teacher concerned to find out what's happened.

I know plenty of children that a comment like that would have completely destroyed their confidence at speaking up in a class, and you think that's ok?

As I've said, there are many disruptive children and I can understand how it must make teaching very difficult, but barking out does not help anyone.

The school and teacher concerned obviously disagree with your viewpoint too.

I'm pleased the teacher apologised and without being asked to. Again I said earlier, we make children apologise when they're in the wrong, why should't an adult, it's not a sign of weakness

I do not want my children's teachers having to apologise if they tell a child to sit down and be quiet.

that's what must make teaching difficult.

How could anyone think that the teacher wasn't pressurised to apologise when the head of year told her, on the basis of OP's e-mail, that her behaviour was unacceptable? It's a forced apology in my book otherwise the teacher would have called the OP's son back at the end of the class and apologised to him then.

I get annoyed with the drip feeding, I don't believe that it's not done purposely in many, many threads and it seems to be par for the course when the OP of those threads wants opinions to change.

I really think it's time for teachers to be given the tools to do their jobs - and the pushy parents to back off and let them do them.

Malcom the teacher didn't just tell the child to sit down and be quiet though. I'm constantly telling my children to sit down and be quiet! But this had a problem and the teacher should gave handled it in a different way. That is the opinion of the school too. And whether the teacher was pressurised or not they did the right thing.

There us a difference between a pushy parent and a parent of a child who for whatever reason needs extra help or assistance.

With some children what the teacher said could be accepted, with others not, it is the teachers role to understand this and if they get it wrong, recognise this and put it right.

Im sure the teacher has a tongue in her head and if her behaviour wasnt unacceptable or events didnt happen as the OP's ds described she would have said so and the Head teacher would have explained this to the OP.

I agree teachers should be given the tools to do their jobs, being aware of what a child's special needs are is a very, very basic tool. Being aware of what the school's policies are is another basic tool. Both of which this teacher seemed unware of.

Agree needanewname, different circumstances. What might be a simple command to one child can be really confusing to another. I often get letters home congratulating me on ds behaviour...i'd have been mightily pissed off too if he'd been treated like that when they know he just needs a bit of help.

I don't think a teacher should talk to a child like that in the situation described, SN or not. And if she was having a bad day, then yes she should have apologised. I'm pleased to hear that she has done so.
I am quite surprised that so many people think the opposite! Children aren't another species, surely they deserve basic respect, just like adults.

"I don't think a teacher should talk to a child like that in the situation described, SN or not. And if she was having a bad day, then yes she should have apologised. I'm pleased to hear that she has done so."

Ensure - you say it all really.