to give dd my blessing to walk out of her English lesson on Monday?

[whysogrumpy]

Before I explain I should say that she, along with my other dc, is pretty much a model pupil - never been in trouble before, but both she and I are at the end of our tethers with this situation.

She is in Year 8 and in a mixed ability class , not a policy I agree with and not one taken up by any of the other subjects in her school, but, hey...
DD is a strong level 6 yet throughout the year has been surrounded by pupils who have never read a book and can barely spell their own names - her words, not mine.

Anyway, over the last few weeks the class have been put into groups by the teacher and told to write a play. They will perform it and be assessed on their performances. DD has had a pretty miserable time since this task was set, she doesn;t get on with any of the kids she has been placed with and tells me that she has been made to do all he work. She has basically written the entire script while they have sat there and yet they will now walk away with top levels thanks to dd .

That is not the worst of it though. DD is pretty bookish and not really one for acting. She hates getting up in front of the class doing stuff like this, plus she feels that, as she has written the thing, she should be able to take a minor role. Anyway, the other kids in her group have refused to take the main role as well and have told dd she needs to do it. The teacher has backed them up and told dd that she needs to take the lead role to get a level 6/7 .

So these little shits who have sat there doing nothing for three weeks have now had their behaviour condoned by the teacher, who seems to be using dd to get some work out of some very difficult pupils. DD was in tears over it on Wednesday night so I phoned the teacher. I couldn't believe what I was told. Apparantly this sort of task is just as important as the essay/story/poem writing that dd excells at . Does she want to be an actress? No, yet she must go through this ridiculous task or, according to the teacher, she will be at risk of failing her GCSEs!!! She's 13 ffs, in year 8! Pissing around doing drama activities with a bunch of kids who can't write - how is that helping her to improve her level?

The teacher ended by saying dd must perform, in the lead role, on Monday. When I told dd she said she'd walk out if forced to go through with this. AIBU to tell her to go for it?

I'd still be expecting her to do it though. But I'd be making a point to the teacher that she should not put your dd in this situation again.

If you feel so strongly then yes, advise her to walk out. But from what you have said, do you think she will actually get up and go?

If yes, then you should be prepared for her to face a consequence and accept it, such as internal exclusion/ isolation/ detention.

If it was my class and someone was off sick in a key role, I would get them to do it the next time they were in - so unless you keep her off for the rest of the year...

Two seperate issues.

One is the script. Its shit if she has had to do all the work, but nothing she, or you, can do to make them do their share. Up to her then if she just wants to contribute what would be a reasonable proportion of the task. Or do it all, which case i would have further discussion with the teacher highlighting your concerns.

Second issue is the performance. There has to be a reason the teacher spe ifically wants her to lead and of course you should not encourage her to walk out, she would look ridiculous, weak and spoilt. You will be doing her no favours whatsoever in encouraging her to shrink away from situations that intimidate her.

"I am aghast at all the poeple (teachers???) saying that speaking and listening is as important as writing and reading - wtaf? no wonder no one in this country can string a sentence together anymore if that is what is going on."

You just totally contradicted yourelf and why are you 'aghast' that people are stating a fact??

FFS what job will she be doing? How do you know? Today I was speaking to a group of young mothers about tenancy law. Were they expert peers? Hell no. Were they attentive and respectful? Eventually yes. Because I know how to speak so other people listen.

You are coming across as a little judgemental and snobby inflexible.

"messing about with a group of non-interested kids who are just not on the same page as you"

You rise to the challenge and you find a way to gain and maintain their interest. That's what good speakers do and would be an excellent thing to achieve.

Sounds to me as if the teacher can't control the class and can't get them to do what she says. So the teacher is relying on your daughter to do what she is told. Which I think is a bit much. I'd be thinking about asking for a transfer to a different English class.

The teacher sounds as if she is being very unreasonable indeed and I think the OP needs to go and see a more senior member of staff and say she is not happy about the way the class is being dealt with. Why should a perfectly happy hard working kid be reduced to tears like this.

I'm a secondary English teacher. The government / national curriculum decrees that speaking and listening marks should contribute to GCSE grades, NC levels etc. Whether that's right or not is irrelevant in this case - it's the reality of the education system your DD is in. So the teacher is right to set this task and encourage your DD to take a role which will enable her to get the high grade she deserves.

I sympathise with you and your daughter - it is very unpleasant to work with people you don't get on with, and performing in front of the class can be very difficult too. But other posters are right to say it is good practice for GCSEs (when it really will count) and possibly for life.

Mind you, I can't see why they've spent so long on it! I would do this sort of task in 3-4 lessons max, I think.

I suggest you encourage your DD to do the task. After all, other kids may not like writing essays or taking exams but we'd expect them to get on with it, so maybe she too needs to get used to doing things she doesn't like or finds difficult? But I would contact the teacher again and suggest that next time DD should be given a chance to work with her friends or other high ability pupils, and reiterate how unhappy and frustrated she's felt.

". One I know for a fact regularly has days off when he's not ill...I believe every word dd says.

I don't want to encourage her to misbehave so thinking more of keeping her off now."

Pot. Meet Kettle.

Is it really acting? Or are they just going to have to read a few lines for 15 mins (at most)? It's unfair but it's not going to harm your DD to do it. She should keep her head up and take the praise that she gets. Of the others have do e as little as you suggest, she'll come out better.

I think realistically this sort of thing will be the making of her- learning how to lad and help a group not as able as her, motivate people, go beyond her comfort zone. I had many similar experiences and now speak publicly for a living. Its tough and called growing up. she'll get a real sense of achievement!

Also - not nice to call children shits for not being as advanced. Not kind.

@whysogrumpy "of course dd would be fine explaining something to her expert peers".

She's the only one then. Everyone else finds it terrifying the first few times. Expert peers can be nasty little s*s as well - I've seen some really unpleasant things done in conferences.

There's no point keeping her off. The group will have to do it at some point, and you can't keep her off onEnglishlessondays forever.

You are not doing her any favours here. I would bet money that she is more against doing it after seeing your reaction than she was before she told you. You should be encouraging herto go out of her comfort zone, we all have to do things we don't want to do or don't feel we should have to do sometimes. She should be learning from you that she can only concentrate on doing her best regardless of what others are doing. You have the perfect opportunity here to encourage her to do her best in difficult circumstances. She could come out of this having learned a valuable lesson, but you are pissing all over any chance of that.

ishoes - My Dad wanted to call me Clytaemnestra. Lobbied really hard for it. My mother had more sense vetoed it :)

I don't mind the full thing, but would be concerned about the nickname potential at school.

OP - I think unless your DD is much more subtle and discreet than the vast majority of 13 year olds, they're probably aware that she looks down on them as "pupils who have never read a book and can barely spell their own names - her words, not mine." Maybe that's why they don't like her?

YABU

I can only assume that parents like you and children like your daughter who think they can choose which school tasks to participate in are why our graduate intake at work get more entitled and useless each year.

Encouraging a child to walk out of class is rarely likely to be the best course of action.

As far as I'm aware, S&L is worth 20% of all current GCSE specs, and performance is one of the three aspects of that in all specs.

I agree that mixed ability teaching can cause problems but your attitude towards pupils who are less able than your dd is, quite frankly, appalling. The teacher should be well aware of who has done what in terms of the work and should be able to make judgements/issue levels accordingly. It is unlikely that pupils who have (if this is the case) been seen to not contribute and who then perform small roles will get L6/7, as you seem to believe. If any of them ARE great performers, they may well get a L6/7 for that aspect of their S&L work but they won't get it for writing.

I think you need to speak to the teacher again, but without the histrionics tbh.

Agree with PetWoman - it shouldn't be dragging out over weeks like this (wonder if teacher has been snowed under with GCSE carnage & taking eye off the ball a bit with year 8...).

But I'm afraid if your dd was in my class, & was 'off sick' next lesson, after I'd spoken to you & picked up that you were trying to help her get out of it - I'd just postpone her group's performance until she was in next.

& made sure I praised her to the skies, privately if more appropriate, once she had performed with her group - she needs to get over this one, or it will hold her back at GCSE.

When did the 'speaking and listening' part of GCSE English come in then? It wasn't there when I did my GCSEs 10 years ago (thank goodness!).

Being forced to do public speaking at school hasn't made me better at public speaking as an adult - it has just given me a deep seated hatred of it. If I had done it for the first time as an adult, because it was something I wanted/needed to do then I'm sure I'd have coped much better - especially as I'm a much more confident adult than I was a child.

OP, I don't think encouraging misbehaving or being off sick is really a good idea, unless she's so afraid of it that it genuinely does make her ill (true for some people).

Another life skill is being able to work as part of a team. It seems to me the OP's daughter is frustrated that she is doing all the teams work. So then to be told she has to do most of the leg work for the talking task is mightily unfair.

Whilst I don't condone some of the language OP has used, I don't think her daughter is unreasonable to be feeling the way she does. In an adult situation, it would be diplomatically sorted so that everyone is pulling their weight. In this case, it should be the teacher encouraging this and it sounds as if she is treating the OP's daughter unfairly.

She didn't say she wasn't going to participate at all for the talking part, just that she wanted a minor role. Understandable if she has written the entire thing. I don't think she should walk out of class and, OP, you shouldn't encourage her to do so.

Send her to class, tell her to play the major part and put it down to one of life lessons - maybe next time you could encourage her to plan a strategy for equal share of a work task in her next project.

I remember being made to do things like this in school, like other posters have said its something that is out of her comfort zone and I don't think you are going to help her in any way shape or form by encouraging her to walk out or stay off sick.

She might not want to be an actress but its all about building confidence with public speaking and its not a great message really that if she finds something uncomfortable then she can just not do it.

You might think that mixed ability groups are unfair, but life is pretty unfair and things like this will happen to her in the workplace.

I'm a bit on the fence, this project would be my idea of hell!

However, teaching her that if something is difficult/ you don't want to do it then it's ok to wa out isn't a great lesson for later in life. Employers regularly have a group assessment as part of the recruitment process, making bridges from spaghetti and other stupid stuff with a group of people you've never met, would she just walk out of that?

It's certainly been there for the 13 years I've been teaching, marzipananimal - you may have done an unusual specification (or attended one of the schools that just fabricate the S&L grades - it happens).

YABU - We all have to work with people who we see as being at different levels to us in life, or we may not get along with.... But this is life!!! If I had a day off for every work encounter which I found uncomfortable or didn't really want to face doing, I'd be sacked by now.

Surely your dd has drama lessons in school anyway?

Are you saying you'd rather you're daughter have a 'sick day' meaning she will miss 3 or 4 other lessons that day than to grin and bear it and show who's stronger, because keeping her off in my eyes is teaching her the easy way out of things in life.

Have you considered suggesting to her that she should go, do the performance, show off 'her' play and her ability and in the meantime you will contact the teacher/ head of department about the issue so that somebody is aware... because as hard as it may seem to hear, teachers aren't perfect! They can't always notice that one person is pulling the weight without you informing them. If you raise the issue with them then it can be hopefully prevented in the future ans you're daughter will maybe have a chance to work next time with people around her own ability.

You are going to keep her off school so she doesnt have to perform in a short play set as part of a lesson...are you kidding?! I suspect that you are more worried that your usually extremely able DD will show up a weakness and that will dent the pride of both of you (prob you more than her)

She's been set a task by her teacher, it is reasonable and within the curriculum, she should get on with it, simple as that. It will do her good. Her teacher probably wants her to do it because (s)he knows it will push your daughter.

I think it sounds unfair about the writing but she should move on and get on with the presentation now - it sounds like she needs to get used to talking in public. In your OP you say she doesn't want to do it because she hates getting up in front of the class and then you assert that she would be just fine at public speaking. It won't just happen like that.