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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

What to do about neurotic YR 5/6 teachers?

193 replies

AnnaLiza · 05/12/2012 20:47

I'm not saying that my DSs are saints but the teachers of previous years have never complained about their behaviour at school! Since the beginning of this academic year, though, the two female teachers for Yrs 5 and 6 are telling them off and making them cry at least once a week! For example:
DS1 (yr 6) got badly told off for bouncing a ball while he was walking to the assembly line and the ball was confiscated for two days.
DS2 (yr 5) got into serious trouble for flicking a pencil during a lesson.
DS1 got shouted at for talking during a lesson and for daring to say that other people were talking too.
Also they tell me that one of these two teachers refers to some other children as "idiots" and the other one is shouting half of the time and almost always at boys only.
AIBU or this is totally unacceptable?

OP posts:
TheNebulousBoojum · 06/12/2012 01:35

I am a Y6 teacher.
I have enjoyed the majority of the answers on this thread, I have several precious parents.
Thank you people. Grin

sashh · 06/12/2012 02:28

I thought that perhaps he shouldn't have replied but also i was a bit proud that he wasn't afraid to say politely what he thought.

Sorry OP but, "Everyone else was talking" is never polite.

ThePoorMansBeckySharp · 06/12/2012 02:36

The teacher is neurotic for daring to discipline your kids for bad behaviour? Christ, now I've heard everything. Teenage years will be a hoot at your place. Good luck with that.

MrRected · 06/12/2012 04:14

The thing is OP (if you are still around)...

What happens at school, should really stay at school. The school have expected standards of behaviour of your children which are consistent across the cohort. Why should your child be able to behave in one manner when the rest are expected to abide by the rules. Imagine if they were all bouncing balls, they were all flicking pencils, or if all if them spoke back to the teacher. It would be chaos.

Your children are old enough to make reasonable decisions and accept the consequences if their decisions are poor. The bottom line is, is that if they hadn't misbehaved, they would not have been reprimanded.

The limits you choose to impose at home with respect to standards of behaviour, courtesy and self moderation is entirely up to you. I think you sound disrespectful of the school's rules and this is rubbing off on your children.

Endofmyfeather · 06/12/2012 04:57

What to do? Discipline your children for messing about.

Where has the concept of 'personal responsibility' gone?

YABU

LindyHemming · 06/12/2012 07:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

heggiehog · 06/12/2012 07:17

What a hilarious thread.

Children being rude and disruptive and it's okay because they're "just children."

I would have told them off for such behaviour too. They should know better and you shouldn't be encouraging their bad behaviour.

Parents like this need to spend a day in school to understand why it's not okay for children to be rude and disruptive.

heggiehog · 06/12/2012 07:18

"What happens at school, should really stay at school. The school have expected standards of behaviour of your children which are consistent across the cohort. Why should your child be able to behave in one manner when the rest are expected to abide by the rules. Imagine if they were all bouncing balls, they were all flicking pencils, or if all if them spoke back to the teacher. It would be chaos."

THIS.

exoticfruits · 06/12/2012 07:26

It would be hilarious if there were not really parents like OP! All you need to do OP is tell them to behave in an appropriate manner and they won't be in trouble! It is all the low level, disruption, things that are extremely irritating. The 'neurotic teachers' may well be asking how to deal with neurotic parents!

ohfunnyface · 06/12/2012 07:31

I honestly think I might run a teacher training session on that: how to deal with difficult parents.

How to train your dragon??

ThursdayWillBeTheDay · 06/12/2012 07:32

One could almost sympathise with the OP's story if it was just one of her precious babies being treated so appallingly by this vicious neurotic harridan.....but, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, whilst one victim in the family may be seen as just that.....to have both children in the same situation might be seen as careless......Wink

LindyHemming · 06/12/2012 07:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

takataka · 06/12/2012 07:43

It's not even as if the discipline was that harsh. They were talked to 'sternly'? Confused

Valdeeves · 06/12/2012 07:50

You've got to remember they are being prepped for secondary school. All those things would have got them a detention. All minor (apart from pencil flicking, you'd be surprised at how much that can hurt.) but minor disruption needs nipping in the bud.

Groovee · 06/12/2012 07:51

I'd expect a child to be told off and have something confiscated if they are unable at age 10 to stand in a line without bouncing something.

Flicking pencils is dangerous. It could hurt someone.

There is nothing worse than a parent who gets annoyed when their baby gets discplined by someone outwith the family home.

You call the teachers Neurotic... maybe look closer to home instead of blaming everyone else.

exoticfruits · 06/12/2012 07:53

I expect OP still thinks 'my DC, my rules' - which is only true in her own home- elsewhere it certainly isn't!

SilverBaubles33 · 06/12/2012 08:28

Neurotic? The TEACHERS ????

I have been so heartened by this thread's responses.

Teachers do a bloody amazing job, they shape and influence a whole new generation and thus make an invaluable contribution to both

aamia · 06/12/2012 08:31

I have a blanket rule when I teach a class that is explained clearly and regularly. Throwing ANYTHING, even by accident (it is only possible to throw things by accident if you are not holding them securely), loses the child most of their lunch hour. It is extremely dangerous, pencils can end up in eyes so easily. As a result of this rule, nothing gets thrown.

The ball would have been removed until the end of the day for a first offence, end of the week for a second.

Basically your children need to learn to behave.

SilverBaubles33 · 06/12/2012 08:33

Neurotic? The TEACHERS ????

I have been so heartened by this thread's responses.

Teachers do a bloody amazing job, they shape and influence a whole new generation and thus make an invaluable contribution to both our communities and wider society. Not to mention the actual imparting of knowledge among all that extra admin.

It is thanks their talent and dedication that we have fewer over-entitled spoilt buggers chucking their weight around and expecting the special indulgent treatment their own parents (am sometimes guilty myself!) give them.

To all teachers, Thanks

exoticfruits · 06/12/2012 08:34

I am heartened by the responses- nice to know that people don't expect teachers to put up with poor behaviour .

whois · 06/12/2012 08:36

Aw, OP did you little ickle precious snowflake cupcake get told off at school? His teachers don't think he is such a super duper little trooper as you?

He's 10 ffs. Old enough to know that talking & backchat are wrong. Bouncing a ball In line isn't right etc etc.

Grip

There, found it for you :-)

noblegiraffe · 06/12/2012 08:44

I've had kids cry at a mild telling off in secondary school and wondered how on earth they managed to grow up so wet. Apparently it's because it works with mummy.

Feenie · 06/12/2012 17:53

freenie, I don't think op has said it to the teacher's faces, just on here. So not really any need for your indignation on their behalf is there?

NolittleBuddha - if you read the thread carefully, you may find that 1)I am far from the only indignant poster, 2)you might actually get my name right and not, therefore, look quite as foolish and 3)that you are also stamping your feet with the best of us - only with far less reason.

Hth.

Seabird72 · 06/12/2012 17:58

depends if it's the same teachers all the time - at my dd school there is a teacher who spends most of the lesson shouting about things - it seems to me that she can't cope well at all - mostly it's at boys who then know that they're getting to her so they mess about even more but instead of splitting them up or sending them out of the classroom she just continues to shout and not teach - even the other teachers hear her and laugh about it to their pupils (I only know this because DD's friend is in other class and said that her teacher considers it their "entertainment" for the day! However the things that you mentioned perhaps should be knocked on the head now.

clam · 06/12/2012 18:24

"However the things that you mentioned perhaps should be knocked on the head now."
I presume you mean the boys' behaviour, as opposed to the teachers'

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