to think dd's teacher was maybe over-reacting a tad?

[Northernlurker]

Apparently dd has been 'very rude' today as per the message from teacher via after school club. Very rude consists of not listening to story but talking to friends and then saying 'no' when told to stop and 'no' when told to move. Now I agree this is very rude and the teacher obviously dealt with it at length because dd was in floods of tears when collected by after school club. I have spoken to dd and she was talking because the book was one we have at home and she was telling her friends as much. At the end of a hot day, at the end of term her attention is shot to pieces as is that of most of the other kids. AIBU to think that a message home about this infraction was overkill. She didn't get a warning, she didn't get a timeout - and really what am i supposed to do about this? i speak to dd about her day every day. i am clear about what is expected but seeing as she's a stubborn 4 who has been at school less than a term i don't expect miracles. Frankly impressed we've got this far.

Or should I be grovelling tomorrow?

"Do you actually like children?
Do you enjoy the distress of children on some level?
Do you think distress should accompany learning?"

Oh, that is where I was misunderstanding my whole career! I hate children, obviously, and believe that the best way to teach is through misery and terror. I am hoping to get permission to bring the cane back soon - that'll teach the blighters.

FFS.

I'll try again, mathanxiety - THAT'S A NORMAL STORYTIME! THAT'S HOW MOST STORY TIMES RUN! Exoticfruits had it right when she said you were teaching your Granny to suck eggs - it's really, really basic stuff.

Whereas you seem to be of the belief that the child could NEVER be wrong - and if they don't meet expectations it MUST be the fault of an inadequate teacher

An opinion shared by some OFSTED inspectors who haven't taught for years, or have never taught before - oh, hang on - that's who Math was holding up as a beacon of knowledge. Very easy to pontificate if you won't be putting the ideas into practice. And, as someone said upthread, schools are not businesses.

Do you actually like children?
Do you enjoy the distress of children on some level?
Do you think distress should accompany learning?

Are you feeling alright, mathanxiety. You sound hysterical, now.

FallenMadonna -
I was wrong -- it is between one and two hours:

'"Most teachers manage youngsters well, despite the fact that in initial teacher training, since Kenneth Baker became secretary of state for education, there has been no training in child development and child psychology - which is is an extraordinary thing," Mr Moore told MPs.

"If you do a three-year course, if you're lucky, you get four to five hours and if you're on a PGCE course, which is now how most teachers come into the profession, you're lucky if you get in between an hour and two hours on classroom management and behaviour.'

Of course they attend management courses once they're qualified Ilovesooty. Classroom management courses, as I have already mentioned upthread, are the most popular of all continuing education offerings. Providers of classroom management seminars and training are highly profitable businesses. This is because a lot of teachers (apart from those here who are perfectly satisfied with themselves and their professionalism) realise they are in over their heads and need help.

between one and two hours for most newcomers...

Of course they attend management courses once they're qualified Ilovesooty. Classroom management courses, as I have already mentioned upthread, are the most popular of all continuing education offerings. Providers of classroom management seminars and training are highly profitable businesses. This is because a lot of teachers (apart from those here who are perfectly satisfied with themselves and their professionalism) realise they are in over their heads and need help

No it doesn't mean they realise they're in over their heads and need help. It's about the training choices made by the HT for INSET, about refreshing your practice and sharing ideas. It doesn't mean the trainees are inadequate to start with.

"Teachers must: Manage behaviour effectively to ensure a good and safe learning
environment
? have clear rules and routines for behaviour in classrooms, and take
responsibility for promoting good and courteous behaviour both in
classrooms and around the school, in accordance with the school?s
behaviour policy
? have high expectations of behaviour, and establish a framework for
discipline with a range of strategies, using praise, sanctions and 8
rewards consistently and fairly
? manage classes effectively, using approaches which are appropriate to
pupils? needs in order to involve and motivate them
? maintain good relationships with pupils, exercise appropriate authority,
and act decisively when necessary"

Oh look - teachers standards, which if they are unable to do adequately they will not pass their PGCE.

Even IF some PGCE courses only have a short amount of lecture time on behaviour management, they do spend 18 weeks in the classroom learning "at the coal face" so to speak. And it is a vital element of teaching.

Well, I work in secondary, not primary, so maybe it's different (but I doubt it) and I mentor trainees. I can assure you that they spend far, far more than 1-2 hours on classroom management.

teachers standards, which if they are unable to do adequately they will not pass their PGCE

And which, if they can't maintain, they won't progress up MPS. How many teachers does that apply to, Math?

Oakmaiden, I didn't assume they weren't. I asked how TheOriginalSteamingNit could assume they were. There is a difference.
''Can't be all that ignorant and unrealistic if all the other children were managing to live up to the wildly unreasonable expectation that they sit still and be quiet for a little while at the end of the day!'

If the whole class had been rioting, I doubt OP would have got a message specifically about the rudeness of her own daughter.

I dunno though - I expect the teacher is so very pathetic and duplicitious that they were actually all rioting all over the shop and she covered her inadequacy by fabricating a story that it was only OP's daughter who was rude?

You tell me, eh?

Of course she isn't. But she has BEEN in a classroom and watched them read stories. Which obviously is a better qualification than any mere teacher....

Yes, I've been looking forward to the answer to that question, LeQ.

"Never have I been more grateful for the fact that my DCs weren't exposed to this sort of attitude in their early years in school."

Anyone else glad they didn't have Math's children in their class, with math presumably popping in as a volunteer tojudge help out?

math - seriously - there's a year 1 teacher I know who does all those things. She's a really great teacher (I cite her, because I've had most contact with her class, and they're still little). She has a whole host of brilliant strategies. And still I've seen children persist in their unhelpful behaviour, and I've seen children in her class cry.

math - distress accompanies living, even for children. It's really strange that you don't acknowledge that

sorry, that last was in reply to your comment about "distress accompanying learning" - a very emotive way of describing a tired child's response to a telling off that you did not witness

Oddly, I am feeling slightly ashamed of myself now. Are we wandering a bit too close to being bullying? Just because someone else is wrong doesn't agree with us?

Math - I do think you are wrong in many ways. I think that the way you have leapt to huge assumptions about the teacher, and other posters on this thread, is wrong. I think you are wrong to assume that the "model of good teaching" you are espousing will ALWAYS work for EVERY child and will result in no child ever needing to be reprimanded. I also think you are unrealistic in the hope that teachers will be able to allow every child in the class to have as full a say as they would wish every time they do anything.

However, I wonder if you are simply idealistic - which isn't a wrong thing to be. It is not wrong to challenge current practice either. And you certainly seem to want the best for children, and to understand how to get the best from children on an individual level.

However, I know I am getting too involved in this thread because I keep thinking of extra comments to put on, and I think it is time to bow out. I don't agree with you over many of the comments you have put on this thread, but I think I admire the spirit with which you have made your comments.

I've given up ever thinking Math is going to enter reality instead of this utopian world that she lives in......

Me too Oakmaiden. Well put.

I would like to add that, to me, the biggest hindrance to a better learning environment is class size. It's ridiculous

LeQ, I don't know why you think you deserve my special attention on this thread, or why answers that I have provided for everyone else must be repeated for you. Maybe it has something to do with your Steiner education.

Ilovesooty -- would HTs be selecting inset courses on classroom management far more frequently than any other area of professional development if this wasn't the area where teachers were falling down the most/feeling most at sea and the effects were not being felt in their performance in actually teaching their subjects? This is the growth area in the education arena.

OriginalJamie -- 'distress accompanies living, even for children. It's really strange that you don't acknowledge that'
You can choose whether to believe or not to believe me when I say distress need not be a feature of a class of 25 to 30 four year olds. If you think there is nothing amiss when children in your class of four year olds cry and that crying is part of life, you are hardly likely to think there is a better way to do things. In short, you don't really care that the children cry. It is something you shrug at.

Oakmaiden -- 'you seem to be of the belief that the child could NEVER be wrong - and if they don't meet expectations it MUST be the fault of an inadequate teacher.'

If you start with the belief that there are no wrong children, only teachers who are barking up the wrong tree wrt expectations of behaviour (whether because of shortcomings of training or because of cultural assumptions that the teacher has never examined in light of whatever scant knowledge she may have of child development and psychology) then what you end up with is a classroom of respectful children because you will have decided that when a child ends up crying you the adult must have gone wrong somewhere and that you have a responsibility to improve the learning environment.

The basic belief and expectation among many here, stated many times, is that a child of four should be able to sit still and quietly and listen to a story at the end of a long school day, and that a reprimand for one comment to a neighbour should result in instant compliance and no emotional reaction.

Given the massive amount of education and training that people are claiming here, I would have expected that the opinion would be that this is an unreasonable expectation.