To think this teacher isn't coping very well.

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ds2 is in year 2 and his teacher is young and possibly newly qualified. She's very nice, but I suspect she has been struggling with the behaviour of some of the boys in the class.

ds2 said that the teacher was crying the other day and that she told the class that she would go home upset and crying because of the poor behaviour.

I do sympathise, but we moved ds2 from another school because the teacher wasn't coping and the behaviour was interfering with learning, and now this.

ds2 is very quiet and well behaved and some of the other boys are okay, but some aren't and do act up.

Just because it's really tricky. It does look like the head knows, you feel sorry for the teacher but you've also got your little one to think of. At the moment it just looks like it's all up in the air.

Eh I don't know, being a mum. The worry never ends does it :)

No blapbird we don't, I was just taking it at face value.

Haha, I bet his mum was like wtf for a second :)

Well, I'll just sit on it and get ds2 to keep an eye out. They'll break up for the holidays in July, so the teacher will get a rest and ds2 will get a new teacher. I hope the Head is helping her if that's what's needed.

Think I'm a little late but... I certainly wouldn't recommend going to the head before speaking to her first yourself. Poor woman. Mind you I'm not quite sure what good (if any) you could do in this situation. I agree with blapbird that she may have been saying that the children are making her sad (not as emotional blackmail, perhaps appealing to their better natures?! I dunno) to get them to behave. Not sure about the tears though. One of my secondary teachers was always in rears and running out of the room as she couldn't cope with the behaviour. Poor cow

Another late chipper-inner. No direct advice either, but an account of how something vaguely similar was dealt with at my lovely primary school when I was a child, as an example of how this kind of stuff can be dealt with by a good SMT. Some of the children in my class had been horrendous to, I think, one of the dinner ladies (a very different role from a teacher, of course, but nonetheless an adult in charge, and we were rather scandalized by the incident). The headmaster, whom pupils generally deeply respected (a telling-off from him was very chastening, and praise exhilarating) had a serious talk with us about how grown-ups get upset and cry sometimes too and it wasn't silly, and how the grown-ups in our school cared a lot about us and about looking after us properly, and how unkind it was to upset someone so much that they cried; if the bad behaviour were repeated then there would certainly be grave consequences. The overall effect was to assure us very firmly that the grown-ups were still in charge and that the children need neither think that we could get away with anything nor worry that the grown-ups weren't dependable. I am quite sure that the staff member received appropriate support too. They carried on as normal afterwards, with no less authority; but I think the realization began to dawn that grown-ups were people too, even the school ones.

I do like the flowers idea -- at least, if I were in a similar position a "don't let the buggers get you down" gesture would be most heartening!

This has struck a bit of a chord with me because today I cried in my yr 5 class. Nothing to do with behaviour ,I think I am going through the change and just hit an hormonal low point. I thought I had hidden it well, but this afternoon one of the boys touched my arm and asked me why I'd cried this morning. I just said that I'd felt unwell and thanked him for asking. He's a lovely boy... they're all lovely . I felt rotten for being so unprofessional... I couldn't have stopped the flow though.