to speak to the school about this?

[Queen0fFlamingEverything]

DD is in Yr 6 at a small village school. Every day, almost without fail, her class are at least 5 minutes late out of school. The other classes are generally out on time, and on the one day a fortnight that her class has a different teacher to the usual class teacher, her class are also on time.

They are meant to finish at 3.15 but the earliest her teacher has ever let them out is 3.19. Most days its more like 3.25 and several times it has been 3.30. DD says this is because the teacher insists on everyone standing silently before anyone leaves.

There's no shelter in the playground and its pretty unpleasant waiting with smaller children. I often just turn up at 20 past now, but for people with DC in other classes thats not an option.

More seriously though, DD wants to start walking home on her own. Its a 15 minute walk over fields with no major roads to cross, which I am otherwise happy with her doing - but I want to know when to expect her back and when to start worrying if she's late...

lljkk

"Quiet before departure will NEVER be required in secondary, it's control freakery on yr6 teacher's part imho."

I expect it in every lesson. Not just at the end of the day.

queen I wasn't insinuating that's what you did. Just that the consensus on this thread seems to be that it's about being a control freak, unrealistic, stupid, a PITA. Perhaps the kids who are stuffin it up for everyone have parents who let on that attitude and therefore their children think it's one big joke and that mummy thinks it's stupid so why bother.

I personally don't mind a few minutes kerfuffle and sorting out after the bell. But it annoys the fuck out of me if DDs class is more than 10 minutes late for whatever reason.

The teacher is then eating into my time. I will have a newborn with me in January and I am buggered if me and the baby stand there in the freezing cold whilst the teacher does whatever she is doing. I am afraid I will be knocking on the door and withdrawing dd if she goes over a lot.

She is welcome to call me and let me know to come a little later. But not just hang on to dd.

I think the teacher must be incompetent if she has failed to get her class to be silent every single day in order for them to leave.

I would get silence if I wanted it even as a casual supply teacher. It beggars belief that she cannot manage this.

I am really confused as to why people are blaming the parents for this.

Well, it depends. How would the school react if you dropped your dd somewhere between 5 -15 minutes late every day?

If they would not be OK with that, then you are absolutely right to point out that they should be as timely as they expect you to be.

Regardless of whether one agrees with whole class punishments or not, it seems pretty clear that this whole class punishment is not achieving the desired effect - and surely it is poor practice to carry on doing something that isn't working?

As others have said, there must be other strategies the teacher could use to achieve a quiet and orderly exit from the classroom at the end of the day. Surely it would make sense to abandon the strategy that is not working, and try other strategies?

I'm with you OP. I have DS2 in year five......small village school, 54 pupils, 3.15 finish nearly always ends up as 3.25 sometimes more. Now I have DS1 in secondary in town, his only option apart from me picking him up is the bus that he has to walk ten minuets to the bus stop to get and then wait for thirty before it meanders it's way half a mile from our house for five........so I have to to grab DS2 and hot foot it into town....with 2 YO DD in tow to get DS1. It takes the piss.

Add message | Report | Message poster lljkk Wed 27-Nov-13 20:26:2
Quiet before departure will NEVER be required in secondary, it's control freakery on yr6 teacher's part imho.

All my lessons, with the exception of sixth form start and end with silence. My classes do not leave until silence has been achieved. Fairly standard, I would have thought.

Do you achieve this phil?

On time I meant.

VOLE [flowers}

Every now and again I may have to wait a minute or so.

I do wonder why these children are not keen to go home, even the most hardened naughty boy on a Friday will usually stand behind his chair in silence because they want their weekend to start.

It would worry me if after 9 weeks of lessons a teacher could not routinely get silence from a class so that she can send them home.

Maybe teacher doesn't start to ask for silence until 3.19 ish? dd may not know what time it is when they are ready for silence.

My DD's maths class (year 10) get kept back for around 10 minutes after ever maths lesson because a handful of boys find it impossible to shut up and get on with the work. The other day they got kept back 15mins into break (it's only 20mins long!) and I was fuming. It seems her teacher is incapable of controlling a class and simply holds them back as a punishment. My DD is very hardworking and doesn't have any friends in her class so she sits quietly and does all of the work yet still gets kept behind with the rest of her class.

What do you think this achieves phil? Can you achieve such good class control in the absence of any undesirable consequence?

Silence at the start of the lesson ensures they can all hear me and that I am not straining my voice, fairly essential. It also sets the tone that they are in a place of learning and not a social arena and need to listen, focus and work.

Silence at the end of the lesson means that they leave my room calm and orderly, a table at a time rather than crashing into the corridor and causing chaos. If they have a lesson next they will arrive calm .

I am the teacher, I am supposed to in control of my classroom and make no apologies for that.

If I felt that I could not achieve silence, I would kel behind the pupils who were causing the problem. Once on their own they would be quiet because they have no audience to play to.

Do you have as much success in achieving silence at the start of lessons phil? Where there is not the same desire to get home?

Teachers should keep behind the kids who are making the noise. Simple.

Not so simple chocolate. Would you punish a child for being behind n maths? Some children are not as proficient in keeping silent just as some are not as proficient in maths.

capsium if the child has a problem where they cannot be quiet they should be dealt with properly, but if it is just children gossiping or messing about then they should be kept behind and the well behaved children should be allowed to go

Yes I do, the students know that if they do not complete the work in class they will need to complete it at home or in a detention, so they want to get going.

More importantly I plan interesting lessons so they want to start, I also have good relationships with my pupils so they generally want to cooperate .

By the time they get to secondary there are very very few children who cannot stand in silence for about 45 seconds.

The interesting lessons is what I would be most impressed with phil.

Well, I had a child to collect from another school 15 minutes after chucking out time so I would have had to say something. It wasn't negotiable.