to want to "have a word" with DT teacher

[fait]

My year 7 DS is colour blind. He is useless at colouring things and even worse being creative with his hands. He has done DT for 4 years at his previous school and is keen, but totally useless - no matter how hard he tries.

For homework he created a poster which I had to print out. I was in a hurry and it printed out slightly to one side. He got a 4C (in a range from 3c to 7a) because it was not centred.

He then tried to create a design for a spoon. He tried really hard, but it looked like a 3 year old had done it. He got 4C for that as well. And told he had not used enough colour.

Today he was given detention because he had not done the above properly. I am happy with the concept of detention when it is deserved. However (there is always a however), the lesson finished at 1.30pm and then it was lunch time for an hour. His detention was approx half an hour which should have given him half an hour to get his lunch. But, because his first lesson after lunch was hockey, he had to walk down to the hockey pitches at 2pm. With over 1000 children at the school trying to get their lunch at 1.30pm, he ended up having absolutely NOTHING for lunch today, otherwise he would have been late for the hockey lesson.

I am furious with the DT teacher. Firstly because he is picking on a child that is clearly totally useless at DT - it is NOT that he is not trying - he is just cack handed when it comes to anything creative. Secondly, he is the teacher, and he should be responsible for finding out if a detention is likely to stop an 11 year old child from having food at lunch time. Thirdly, there was no warning for the detention - he just decided that the table of children who had not drawn a coloured line around their poster were to be kept in for half an hour.

I don't know what to do. My instinct is to send a snotty email to the school. But then, presumably, I will be told my son was to blame. I actually do not care. I expect my DS to be allowed to get lunch EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK. It is not up to a teacher to decide whether my DS should or should not be allowed to eat. However, I don't want to make things worse for my son. So I suppose I will just have to leave it.

I am keeping the pieces of work that have been marked and will be taking them to the school parents' evening to discuss as I do not believe that being discouraged in the first two weeks of senior school is conducive to my DS improving. I cannot stress enough how untalented he is with pen and pencil. He is pretty creative in his head, and does have good ideas, but cannot put them down as a design.

Oh well - whaddya think?

OP some of this sounds a bit familiar,he is not at a school in a town beginning with I is he?

Sometimes I do wonder about the advice to go and talk to teachers "sort it out themselves" all of this can be very scary in week 3 of senior school.What happened to nurturing and encouraging ,waving a carrot instead of a big stick.

These are 11 year olds ,doing a completely new subject for many of them,a thirty minute detention seems a complete overkill and quite ridiculous ,all this teacher will achieve is that these children will develop a dislike of his subject

Sorry OP but its not yet October and 2 pieces of his work have been incomplete already.
That may be contributing to the reason he got detention.
It comes across that you are using his colour blindness as an excuse. I was rubbish at dt. I still had to do it.

yes - the line had been drawn. It was not a good line though. There was a break in the middle of approx 1mm on the top section where the ruler had slipped! So he got a circle around that as well as a comment on the colour.

Honestly, I cannot stress enough, the more careful he tries to be, the more untidy his work looks!

Sookie - they were not incomplete - they were just not of the standard the teacher wanted.

Unfortunately, I am no better and cannot really give him any assistance.

Big fat etc (sorry - long name!) - there is no way he is using a printer that I need for work. If he needs one of his own, then he will just have to save up. We bought him a laptop for his birthday and that used up all the spare pennies.

As I said before, I try to get Crayola pencils which are named with the colours, but they seem to evaporate and he ends up with a load of non crayola ones in his pencil case. No idea how this happens. Any ideas?

To reiterate - I have no tolerance for children that do as little as they can for their homework. My DS is pretty good - and will come home from school and sit down to do his homework without a problem. He puts effort into all his subjects including DT and art. It is just that EVERYTHING he does looks like a year 3 effort (and a poor year 3 at that).

On a plus point, he moved up two groups in hockey yesterday having never played before this term, and is now in the A group

Have you talked to the SENCo? Is his colour blindness recorded on the school system. Maybe they could add a sticker to his school planner?
In this case I would phone the head of year (not rant) and explain the problem; detention and hockey leading to missed lunch.

His Primary school sounds a bit rubbish to be honest, so maybe you could also tell his year head about the issues he had there.

But I would also give it time, it does take time for teachers to get to know their pupils (eg. a drama teacher can be teaching 300 pupils a week), and time for pupils to get used to secondary school.

Maybe he could always ask the teacher or classmate to confirm what colour he is using before he uses it. Would that work? That makes it a situation where he isn't already in trouble, just asking for help plus it draws attention to the problem in a way that can't be ignored.

My bullshit detector would have been going into overdrive.
a whole table given detention for not drawing a coloured line correctly? more likely a whole table messing about .
Don't buty the crap about thinking grey was a colour for a minute.For a start graphite pencils are marked differently to colours and why on earth haven't you llabelled up all his coloured pencils.
it takes half an hour to walk to the hockey pitches? so they are 2 miles away then?
i am also not getting why his colour blindness means he can't draw or anything?DB is colourblind and has an A level in what was then called 'Technical Drawing'
For gods sake don't rant at the school about his 4Cs.The marks are for level achieved not effort.You will sound like the pFB psychomother from hell!

Sookie - they were not incomplete - they were just not of the standard the teacher wanted.
Imo it was incomplete.
The first was not done correctly, ensuring the the poster was in the right place is important. Especially as part of dt.
The second did not have a coloured line. Could you son not have asked someone on his table or the teacher, reagarding colours. I am confused as to why your son assumes it was a colour.
Imone of my staff us colour blond and asks for assurance or confirmation. Its never been an issue.

My dc is colour blind - he can only see 2 colours in a rainbow. It has never caused issues at school?

Why can't he use a printer for school work? He's not likely to break it and you could get him to ask before printing things if you're worried he will print reams of stuff.

The teacher does sound a bit domineering and unhelpful - surely he should be working with your DS who is struggling in his subject and trying to help him improve rather than nitpicking. Isn't that the teacher's job?

OK so he had drawn a line, just not in the right colour. He needs pens/pencils that are labelled.

I teach DT and Art.

We get loads of kids through who are colour blind. I always know who they are quickly because of their work. It is quickly obvious.However some of them produce fantastic work, and the colour blindness can add an interesting slant to stuff!

One of my colleagues who teaches with me is slightly colour blind too!

Being colour blind does not affect creative ability. Ifyour son had been in my class, I would have liked him to point out to me that he had done the line, just in the wrong colour. Buthe was probably too scared.

However, he could still produce work of a good quality AND, I have had hundreds of students through who think they are rubbish at stuff in Yr 7, and then go onto to GCSE DT or Art and A level and get fantastic grades. He is still learning in Y7, don't just assume he doesn't have any flair. It often comes outlater

I agree with harvest about the bullshit detector. Think how embarrassed you'd be if you phoned up only to be told he was actually the ringleader in some sort of table pencil fight that got the whole group in trouble and was lucky to get off so lightly :)

I also don't understand why he can't use your printer.

I freelance and have a printer for that but it is also the family printer and anyone who uses a computer on our network is allowed to print to it.

What do you think he might do to it?

He could have printed out the poster at school couldn't he?

Out of interest- have you seen this colour coding system? If he can't recognise the colours they might help.

"there is no way he is using a printer that I need for work. If he needs one of his own, then he will just have to save up"

that sounds mean and petty.. it is only a bloody printer, and all he needs to do is send a file to it from his laptop.

Make him buy his own printer for schoolwork out his 11 year old income - harsh!

OP, you're getting a bit of a hard time here. I understand about the printer, ours plays up all the time and I don't really want my dc using it because I don't want to have to pay for a new one if it gets damaged.

If the school expect things to be printed perfectly, they should provide the facilities to do so. There are still plenty of people who can't afford the latest equipment at home. Can he print at school?

As for the detention etc, unfortunate but I would try and let go a bit. Maybe go and see the teacher and explain about his colour blindness and ask him to take it into account.

Finally....I KNOW I shouldn't be saying this and I apologise to any D and T teachers....but (whisper) it's ONLY D and T. For the vast majority of people, it will be of no use in later life. If it was Maths or English that he was struggling with, it would be more of an issue. By all means encourage him to do his best but not to get too stressed about it either.

I'm colour blind and apart from the line around it being the wrong colour...I genuinely can't understand what any of the rest of your posts have to do with colour blindness?

Dancergirl, would that be apart from every single thing we use/wear/cook/watch/drive/live in/play with/sit on/sleep under/shoe porn/ etc etc.

Where would you be without all that? yeah right it's only DT. One of Britain's biggest exports

Oh dear 'its only d&t'.
Yes the attitude to teach your children. Excellent.

Not the DT teacher's fault he didn't get any lunch, he set a half hour detention in an hour lunch break. If he didn't know about the hockey and your DS didn't mention it, there is absolutely no point on getting pissy. Your DS could point it out if he gets a detention again, then if the teacher deliberately makes him go without lunch you might have a case.

If a piece of work is a level 4 then it's a level 4. Levels are criterion referenced, if your DS wants a higher level he needs to meet the criteria. Again no point in getting pissy at the teacher.

Finally, if your DS is colour blind he needs to learn to compensate for it. Labelled pencils, asking a friend to help. Could he have a labelled colour chart to match his pencils to (I think I heard that helping one colour blind child, but they're all different). He should be determined to overcome the limitations not use them as an excuse.

I'm not saying the OP should convey that it's only D and T to her ds, and yes I KNOW no one subject is of more value than another.... BUT be honest, who wouldn't worry more if their child was struggling in say English or Maths than in D and T? I know I would.