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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:
hoobledoo · 07/12/2012 15:05

very well guessed teaguzzler!!

ppeatfruit · 07/12/2012 15:19

I agree that that particular school was an extreme example. I am trying to say that there ARE neurotic teachers and also teachers and T.A.s who dislike some if not all DCs. The op's who were waxing lyrical about the teachers moulding our Dcs and correcting bad parenting are sadly living in cloud cuckoo land if my considerable experience is anything to go by. They are better though,some are a lot better, than they were when I was at school (at least they can't hit DCs now).

If the lessons were more interestingly put across there wouldn't be such a discipline problem; the few really uncontrollable ones are generally SN or undiagnosed SN and IMO need to be taught separately. You can't force a DC who doesn't understand much into submission can you ?

Floggingmolly · 07/12/2012 15:29

If the lessons were more interestingly put across there wouldn't be such a discipline problem
That has to be the singular most ridiculous sentence in the entire thread, and it's got some stiff competition.

voddiekeepsmesane · 07/12/2012 16:28

I have just finished reading this thread and even though the OP has flounced off I am determined to say my piece :)

Stop being so melodramatic, no wonder your sons seem to whine and moan about school to you because they have obviously already figured out that you will NOT back up the school. Shame on you.

God help your oldest (and you) next year, year 7 can be such a shock to the families like yours that beleive that the world revovles around them.

Your 2 boys were causing low level disruption and if all low level disruption is allowed then no teaching and therefore learning woulf be done.

But ofcourse the other 30 odd children not to mention the respect of the teachers/school dosen't matter as long as your darlings are not told off Hmm

Endofmyfeather · 07/12/2012 16:35

If the lessons were more interestingly put across there wouldn't be such a discipline problem

Wow... do you work for Ofsted?!

ppeatfruit · 07/12/2012 16:53

OOh that hit a nerve didn't it Shock? Iam a primary teacher and I have met many boring teachers. Flogging why is it ridiculous to state the truth?

ReallyTired · 07/12/2012 16:53

If the lessons were more interestingly put across there wouldn't be such a discipline problem

ds's lessons are fab. Once a year they have an open afternoon where the parents can see the teachers teaching. Boredom is not an issue.

My son's has an excessive amount of hormones at the moment like most year 6s. Many primary school teachers struggle with year 6 because they require a different approach to the more doecile year 3s. Year 6 children are under a lot of stress from SATs, schools transfers as well as their bodies starting to change. Unfortunately this sometimes comes out in their behaviour.

Many year 6 or even year 5 children are similar to secondary school children. They need a very strong discipline structure or its just chaos. Having thirty children in a room is a completely different environment to being at home.
Children actually like strict teachers as they know where they are.

BoneyBackJefferson · 07/12/2012 17:07

ppeatfruit
"If the lessons were more interestingly put across there wouldn't be such a discipline problem"

Do you teach 1 child or 30?
Should you make the lesson interesting for just 1 child or the majority?
What happens when the child refuses to enguage?
What happens when it is an interesting lesson and the child still (god forbid, cos it never happens) still misbehaves?

exoticfruits · 07/12/2012 17:22

If the lessons were more interestingly put across there wouldn't be such a discipline problem
That has to be the singular most ridiculous sentence in the entire thread, and it's got some stiff competition.

I second that-and I have read some silly things!
Does the person who wrote it expect all DCs to be the same? Has she not the intelligence to know that what is very interesting to one child is going to be boring to another?

noblegiraffe · 07/12/2012 17:45

It's astonishing that a teacher of apparently considerable experience could spout such nonsense.

Uncontrollable kids sometimes behave poorly because they can't access the work but many are bright enough and choose to disrupt. Meeting their parents or hearing about their home life can be quite illuminating.

AViewfromtheFridge · 07/12/2012 17:53

ReallyTired, what does the fact that the teacher has no children of her own have to do with anything? Are you saying only parents should be teachers?

Jingleflobba · 07/12/2012 18:04

I know the OP has flounced but anyway...
Last week my Ds (yr 7) came home and announced that one of his teachers hated him because she gave him lines for banging his knee on the table. On further questioning of the dramallama it became clear that actually he got lines because he had been pissing around in his lesson, finally tipped his chair backwards a bit and banged his knee. He got lines for acting like a clown, not for hurting himself... Children know how to play on the protective instincts of parents and try for sympathy imho. He got none in this case...
And as for flicking pencils, a lad in my year at school had a pen flicked across the table to (not at) him. It was badly judged and ended up blinding him in one eye. It's not always a harmless thing to do..

noblegiraffe · 07/12/2012 18:11

reallytired while I agree with you about the importance of science, you will need to be careful how go approach it as your DS missing a science lesson is quite far down the list of things that need to be discussed with the teacher to sort out the issue of his appalling behaviour. If you go in and start banging on about how that one incident should have been dealt with differently, it will come across as that you do not support the school, put the teacher on the defensive and your meeting would not be as productive as it could be.

Feenie · 07/12/2012 21:57

It's astonishing that a teacher of apparently considerable experience could spout such nonsense.

It is. Totally incredible - literally.

ppeatfruit · 08/12/2012 18:56

IMO schools are microcosms of the society in which we live; reading so many of your posts one can understand why victims in the current abuse cases were not believed 'don't believe the D.Cs' and "don't complain because you MUST support the school"

You may not mean it but the conclusion I reach from a number of your posts is that telling the truth is not allowed, because we ALL know there are bad teachers and T.A.s but "lets just bury our heads in the sand and blame the whistle blower"

I wrote the above paragraph because DD2 was in a class whose teacher had filmed the boys at football club getting changed. A boy told his parents and was backed up by the other boys in the club. The Head refused to believe it but had her hand forced; eventually sacking the teacher and it went to court. It took a lot of time for anything to get done due to "support the school" issues. There are other true but even worse stories about another school where the teacher was just moved to another school in the same way as abusive priests were moved to different diocese.

simplesusan · 08/12/2012 19:15

I think the op should start and discipline her children and actually set an example of how to behave. They sound awful.

Feenie · 09/12/2012 10:35

reading so many of your posts one can understand why victims in the current abuse cases were not believed 'don't believe the D.Cs' and "don't complain because you MUST support the school"

Total and utter bullshit.

I'm sorry about the experience you suffered because of ds's teacher. But it's not at all relevant to the discussion or the responses here, I'm afraid.

Jingleflobba · 09/12/2012 11:10

I do see your point pp but it's not the same situation. The horrific thing that happened at your DS's school wasn't the result of bad discipline on the part of the parent, it was purely down to an evil betrayal of trust on the part of the teacher involved. This is is one parent complainign about her child being disciplined for misbehaving in class when most other parents would tell their children to behave in future and take the punishment.
I hope your DS is recovering ok?

BoneyBackJefferson · 09/12/2012 11:34

ppeatfruit

Something that has happened in most of the years that I have been teaching.

A pupil "Y" comes up to me and says pupil "X" is picking on me/swore at me etc.
I separate the pupils.
5 or 10 minutes later "Y" who said that has said that "X" is picking on me/swore at me etc. is out of their seat and winding "X" up.

If I had told "X" off on the word of "Y" I would have been wrong because "Y" is in fact bullying "X".

The truth is that some children do lie and they manipulate situations to put themselves in the best light.

ppeatfruit · 09/12/2012 11:49

Of course I never said that DCs don't lie; also parents and teachers and Heads lie and manipulate situations and bully. BUT they are adults and should try to set a good example to the DCS.

Ignoring the reality of bad teaching is not setting a good example IMO

BoneyBackJefferson · 09/12/2012 11:57

there are bad teachers, police, nurses etc.

This is why we have to follow the processes, and is also why their are avenues of complaint outside of these systems.

Feenie · 09/12/2012 12:03

The behaviour of these particular dcs has been fully explained, and is clearly nothing to do with bad teaching.

Arisbottle · 09/12/2012 12:06

The greatest challenge that teachers face in the classroom is low level disruption . It holds up learning, drives teachers out if their job and often partly accounts for the difference between state and independent education.

You are excusing and encouraging such behaviour which is preventing both your children and other children from learning and eventually serves to maintain the deeply unequal society we have.

Do everyone a favour and stop allowing your children to trash the education of our children,

BoneyBackJefferson · 09/12/2012 12:28

Feenie
"The behaviour of these particular dcs has been fully explained, and is clearly nothing to do with bad teaching."

I agree completely, unfortunately some people won't see and let their own experiences blind them.

SmallSchoolPrimaryTeacher · 09/12/2012 13:19

Whenever I am faced with an over-protective parent, I always say, "You believe everything your child says about school, and I'll believe everything your child says about home. Or alternatively, we could siphon out the things which are really important and deal with them."