School Help

[Flissypix]

I am looking for advice I am quite cross but as its my dd can't decide if I am being UR.
My dd who is 8 has been doing gymnastics since she was 2.5. She did it for fun and her coach outside of school was also a teacher at school. Just over a year ago she moved to a new Gym and is now a competitive gymnast she trains 12 hours a week. When she made the move the teacher/coach was awful and made life very difficult for my dd (I posted on here)We complained to the school as she was horrible. My dd moved to another class in september and we just stay away from the teacher.
Anyway a few months ago said teacher approached me at a meeting and asked if my dd would consider trying out for the school team. I really wanted to avoid it but said I would speak to dd. I did and she said 'no I don't want to Mrs X never picks me for anything'. Teacher approached me again so I talked to dd again and she said she would go for it.
My dd really lacks confidence and is under CAHMS for anxiety however she is totally at home and in her element with gymnastics. It her 'thing'
My dd tried out on Friday and was left out of the team the coach said she wasn't good enough. She then picked 4 girls who go to her gym and few with no experience at all! My daughter grades next weekend and it has really knocked her confidence and she keeps saying Mrs X says I am not good enough. Without sounding like a braggy witch I know for a fact my daughter is hands down the best gymnast at the school (its a small school) she has won the Sports personality award twice and at her last competition she came 3rd in the county (obviously against competitive gymnasts.)
I am furious that she approached me twice and then did this knowing that how shy my dd is and how much courage it took for her to try out. I feel like it was quite personal and unneccesarily unkind.
I want an explanation AIBU?

I'm generally on the side of the teacher in threads about not getting picked/not having talents recognised, as there are a lot of very precious parents out there. DS1's class has more than its fair share of uber-competitive mums.

But this sounds very much like an irrational grudge being held by the teacher. The vast majority of teachers I have come across have been lovely, dedicated, fair and hard-working individuals. But there are one or two out there who are thoroughly unpleasant. When I was 7, I was on the receiving end of some horrendous treatment by my class teacher. She picked on me at every opportunity, told me to do a piece of work and then claimed she'd told me to do something else entirely and punished me for wasting time, marked my homework down (I've still got some of the exercise books from school, and there are some awful comments in the ones from that year), blamed me for things that were nothing to do with me, 'lost' things that i'd brought in for displays or projects etc etc. It was horrible.

I found out years later (through a former teacher from the school who I met in another capacity, and also through the mother of another 2 'victims' of this woman) that she had form for choosing one child in every year to pick on - and it would often be sets of siblings. There was apparently a group of parents who went in to complain en masse and she left not long afterwards. There was no rhyme or reason to it - I was quiet, shy, well-behaved, and nearly always in the top 2 or 3 in the class. The only suggestion I ever heard about a pattern was that some of the children, including me, were on scholarships or bursaries.

I think you just have to try to avoid any dealings with this teacher, and reassure your daughter as much as possible.

SuburbanRhonda are you the teacher? It's beginning to sound that way. Or perhaps you just have similar ways of operating...

Feel free to report this post too if you like I didn't realise twat was such an offensive word.

Ejzuudjej, I was wondering what SuburbanRhonda's issue was and your explanation sounds good to me.

Good luck OP, it is horrible when teachers behave like this. I think some people go into teaching in primary schools because they are bullies and the little ones are ideal victims. Thank heavens for all the teachers who do really care. Can you tell I had an experience with a teacher like this who made my DDs life hell for two years?

Of course there are some nasty teachers out there; it sounds as though this one has taken a dislike to your DD, or to you, and chose a mean way of scoring points. Perhaps you could say to DD that she is a little bit more advanced than the other girls, and so they would fit better as a team. Sounds like this teacher was always going to reject your DD, however well she performed.
Nasty piece of work.
Oh, and I am a teacher.

I don't think you're BU either OP. I've come across a few sadistic female PE teachers in my time...(shuddering at the memories).

Sounds to me like she's holding a grudge and acting on it.

I'd request an explanation and speak to the head.

Why are people having a go at SuburbanRhonda? I get that the majority don't agree with her, but why does that need to veer into accusing her of being a bullying and vindictive teacher? Just say that you think she's wrong, and why.

The first thing to do, it seems obvious to me, is to ask the teacher concerned for feedback.

Then decide what to do after that. Surely you can't do anything at all until you have her side of the story?

Can I ask has your DD represented your county and competed for them or just came third in a county level competition? As these are two very different things!

My DD does gym and my experience would say that the very best girls do not tend to do county level competitions - county comps would be below their level, and they would instead do regionals / nationals / compulsories instead.

Whilst 12 hours a week seems a lot of hours The very best 8 year old gymnasts I know are training well in excess of 12 hours a week - 16, 20 hours plus. I even know one gymnast year old who was training over 30 hours a week at the age of 9! That's top flight gymnastics. My daughter (11) trains just under 20 hours, and she's been Doing that for a few years now. She took her nationals last year, but she's between regional and national grades level. She doesn't do county level competitions - girls who train at a lower level than her (and fewer hours per week) do those comps. And my DD is nowhere near a top flight gymnast. She's good, but she's not amazing.

I'm not saying this to put your daughter down, but to give a bit of perspective. 12 hours in the world of gymnastics is not a lot of training. So if she training for county grade competitions, she's not a top flight gymnast - even if she comes first, simply because the top flight gymnasts tend not to be at county level competitions (in my experience).

So bearing that in mind, the next question is to ask is how neat your daughter is. Obviously, your daughter will have the skills beyond anyone else at the school, but that won't be what they're looking for. They will be looking for the perfect execution of the moves. Again, I've seen gymnasts who can perform moves much more complex than my daughter can but they're not neat, and so when it comes to comps they don't necessarily win, and I've seen parents at comps saying their daughters were better because they could do harder stuff, but that's not what wins - perfection does. So if you're going to challenge the teacher you need to be sure that she performed the moves perfectly.

Finally, don't forget that they do lose skills as they progress onto harder stuff. My DD passed her national grade with distinction last year, but this year is doing her regional grade - some of the moves on there are really simple compared to what she had to do last year, but she's really struggling with a couple of moves that she learnt years ago, but has since gone beyond them, and is now finding it hard having to go back and having to relearn those easier moves.
Could this be something that perhaps has affected your daughter...?

Again, I'm not saying any of this to put your daughter down, but perhaps to give a different perspective before you confront the teacher. I'm sure your daughter's gymnastics skills will be beyond those of anyone else in the school, but it may genuinely be that she wasn't the neatest at performing the simpler skills. Of course, it may also be that the teacher is out of order, I don't know - I'm just giving you a different view to consider before speaking to the teacher.

My

On the face of it it seems like YANBU. There may well be a logical explanation but I think it's worth making enquiries.

I run a gymnastics club at my school and would love to have some of the competitive gymnasts attend - but they don't have the time!

As a performing arts teacher I am very aware of pushy and easily offended parents and very aware that not every child can get picked. However, if I were to go as far as actually requesting to a parent and child that the child audition for a group or show then I would make very sure that said child got in - it would be too humiliating for them to be specially invited to audition and then be turned down! That wouldn't mean I ended up with children who don't deserve to be there - it would just mean that I wouldn't go out of my way to get someone to try out unless I knew for sure they were good enough.

Are you sure she wasn't putting a team together for the 'key steps' schools gymnastics competition? My DD (alo a competitive gymnast) did this and then the school found out that only kids who train up to 2 hours per week are eligible.

letch in regional grades the moves are set moves , so of course the OP's DD had to be neat to come 3rd

I too agree. I also understand the difference between complexity of moves, natural flair and mostly the neatness that the judges look for.

This teacher (with history) asked twice for the op's dd to attend. Op's dd wasn't 'neat' enough? Compared to other candidates, some of which maybe barely be able to do an Arab spring! No. I don't think so.