To think my 5yr old and her friend shouldn't be able to wander out of the class room and go wandering for 10 mins without her teacher noticing ?

[ilooklikemrsploppy]

Background : I've took a bit of an instant dislike to DD's teacher but am trying my best not to be the psycho, over protective mother that teachers must come up against all the time. I find her very abrupt and stern for a P1 teacher. On the few occassions I've spoke with her she has also insisted on speaking to me as though I'm also 5 despite being 41. She's early 20's. I know DD can be a handful and is a mischevious wee minx given the opportunity.

Today DD met me at the school gates in floods of tears as her face had been moved down from the green zone (all is good in the world) into the red zone (you lose half your golden time on a Friday afternoon). She mumbled something about going to the toilet with her friend but I couldn't make sense of what she was saying. So I approached the teacher with DD hanging off one arm in floods of tears and DS hanging off the arm moaning about wanting to go home. I asked why her face had been moved and her teacher told me that DD and her friend had decided to leave the class room without asking and went for a wander. Her teacher said that she got a fright and was looking for them before they eventually appeared about 10 mins later. They'd gone to the loo. She said that it was obviously unacceptable for them to do this and she had to know where the pupils were at all times. In between two screaming/crying kids I couldn't think of everything I should have said but when I was driving I thought "how the fuck did they actually get out the class room without her noticing ?" I've been quizzing DS and he says sometimes the class room doors are open, sometimes closed depending on what the teacher is teaching at the time. DD was naughty but AIBU to think that two 5 yr olds shouldn't be able to sneak out a classroom. There was never any chance of them getting out of the building as there is a main door which is a security type door and the janitor sits there.

Is there something you'd have liked her to have done differently OP?

I think the behaviour of both of your children as described in the op leaves a lot to be desired.
Any child could slip or fall on the way to the toilet given permission to go or not, what can the school do about that? More chance of being helped earlier if you follow the very simple rule of ask first.

Hampsterdam- I frankly couldn't give a shit what you think about the behaviour of my children. You are a faceless stranger on the internet and your opinion doesn't really matter. We were having an off day - it sometimes happens to normal families. No doubt my child should have asked first. My question in the OP was in relation to the teacher's actions and I've now realised that there really wasn't a great deal she could do differently if my daughter was intent on leaving the classroom.

How would I prevent it? This is very easy. We do it here in the US and it works quite well.

We have a teacher, and we have a teacher assistant/aid. Sometimes it's a professional hire, sometimes it's a parent volunteer. Both watch and help out the children. They also close the doors during class time. But then, I suppose we have better guidelines here with child to adult ratio (here it's 1:10, and classrooms aren't much bigger than 20, 25 max). A kindergarten class with only one adult in the room is unheard of here, even the older grades have parent volunteers to come in and help out with the class. Imagine... with all the stay at home moms, one could come in to volunteer. Or the school could hire another aid for the younger classrooms. I don't understand why no one has thought of it before over there?

It really is sad when a first world country is further behind us when we have consistently gotten appallingly low test scores across the board...

In any case, it's not really my responsibility to figure out how a teacher is going to do her job any more than it's my responsibility to figure out how an incompetent contractor is going to properly do the job I hired them to do. I leave that up to the company to fix problems and come up with preventative solutions that work best for them. The teacher now knows that children escaping is a possibility, I expect her to figure out a way to deal with it. Just like I expect a contractor to figure out a way to do their job without ruining my house further.

I've watched large groups of small children as a teen, sometimes without an assistant and at any given time I could account for each and every one of them, and I still was able to coordinate successful step by step activities. I expect a teacher who has gone to school to work with this particular age demographic to be able to do better than an untrained teenager.

The only reason everyone is alright with this is because no one got hurt, and the children were only in the bathroom. There could have been an emergency, there could have been an injury that no one would have known about for a while considering the teacher didn't even find the kids until they came back.

The legal ratio in schools here is 1:30 in KS1, if the teacher couldn't leave the room to look for the errant child this presumably means she was on her own, not 1:10 with a max of 20 children! We asked what THIS teacher could do under the circumstances, not what could be done if resources/funding/staff were no object!!

I'm sure you'd get far insisting the school budget for another staff member to ensure naughty children can't leave the room without permission

Bulbasaur good to know you were able to watch 20+ 5 year olds, all busy doing different activities, without ever having to take your eyes off all of them to help a particular child though...

I've watched large groups of small children as a teen

huge difference between watching them and teaching them bulbasaur.

OP, you presumabley don't want your child locked in, or restrained in some way.

Walking out of the class room is exceptionally bad behaviour. Also extremely unusual.

What consequences will you impose at home for this?

Op your attitude probably goes someway to explaining the poor behaviour of your children. I'm giving my opinion because you've come to a public forum asking for opinions. Also interested to know if there will be consequences at home?

So, bulbasaur as you're an expert. you obviously know that UK schools have a limited budget, so what should the schools cut back on in orde o fund an extra member of staff, and pay their pension?

And I know you know you know all about the DBS system over here, and how it's so very easy to get a parent helper into a school. Obviously

With all this experience you have of teaching small children, it's a wonder you don't pop over here to the UK and show us how it's done.

"How would I prevent it? This is very easy. We do it here in the US and it works quite well. " Ahh, so it only works "quite well" your system? Why would we adopt a system that works quite well? I hardly imagine no children go missing for a few moments in US schools ever.

you clearly have no experience of UK schools if you think the reception classes do not have helpers/TAs in them or the doors are left open.

Do you imagine it's 30 kids running feral and a teacher not having a clue what they're doing?

I find allowing trust in children works. OP your daughter will be greatly watched as she cant be trusted. She will have to earn that back. I doubt she`ll be allowed to the toilet with a friend in future. Your call. But please do volunteer in a school and see how thing work.

Or the school could hire another aid for the younger classrooms. I don't understand why no one has thought of it before over there?

You really really can't think of any reasons?

Yes, obviously NO-ONE in the UK has ever thought to put another member of staff in a classroom! We're so stupid... if only someone had thought of that!

You forget rollom UK schools have unlimited budgets to hire as many staff as they wish and can completely ignore DBS checks,, and obviously there's that queue of willing parent volunteers just waiting to help out!

ego wait, what your kids school doens't have open doors everywhere?? no way?!

Hampsterdam - when my dses were at school, the teachers were very clear that they didn't want parents imposing a second punishment at home - they felt that, if something had been dealt with in school, that should be an end of it.

That didn't mean they didn't want us to back them up, or to speak seriously to our children if we were told they'd done something wrong - but they didn't want the child getting punished again at home. When I was at school, if you got caned or got the slipper at school, you'd probably get it again at home - those are the bad old days, and I think this way is better.

The OP has already said that she's had a very serious talk with her dd, and made it perfectly clear that what she did was wrong, and she mustn't do it again.

Hampsterdam - my attitude is a result of the rather personal comments on here about my parenting skills and my daughter who has been called manipulative amongst other things. I think most people would react to their 5 yr being made out to be an absolute horror. This happened on Thursday and was dealt with that evening. Do you seriously expect me to punish a young child for 3 full days? Anyway all if this is irrelevant! My question was with regards to the teacher and I am now in full agreement that I was being unreasonable !!!

when my dses were at school, the teachers were very clear that they didn't want parents imposing a second punishment at home - they felt that, if something had been dealt with in school, that should be an end of it.

that's just weird, and very ineffective.

The input, involvement and discipline from the parents count for so much more than that from teachers.

Its the parent's standards for behaviour that influence the child, not the schools.

there might have been a very few incidences over the decades when I said that to parents, but only if I had reason to believe the parents were likely to go over the top, and be totally unreasonable, such as the girl in my tutorgroup who was made to kneel on stone overnight if she got a bad note from school.

Otherwise, of course it helps for parents to reinforce the punishment with their own consequences at home. Apart from anything else, there is nothing teachers can actually do, scold and keep in at break, after school, that's it. In a case of a very serious breach of the behavioural code of a class room, this is inadequate, and we would be totally reliant on the parents to punish adequately at home.

Am I right in thinking that most schools are pretty secure, in terms of exits to the outside world, now? I remember all the gates being locked at the dses' primary school - you could get from the road to the main doors, but those were electrically locked and the receptionist had to let you in, but all the gates from the pavement were locked.

I think it would have been nigh impossible for a little one to get right out of the school, and assume that things will only have got tighter since my day as a parent of Infants.

I would say for a 5 year old walking out of a class room, 3 days wouldn't even begin to cover it. What are you going to do if she is still doing this at 6, 8, 13????? this has to be taken seriously.

"...that's just weird, and very ineffective..."

It seemed to work at the dses' primary school, Charis - good results, well behaved children and a happy atmosphere.

Charis - ok what exactly would you suggest ? I had a serious talk with her when we came home on Thursday, explaining that her teacher was "the boss " in the classroom and no matter how much she needed the loo she was not to wander off without permission. I went through scenarios of what if there had been a fire or she'd been locked in the toilet and no one knew where she was. I asked her how she thought her teacher felt when she realised she was missing ("miss X must have been very worried Mummy) and was it a nice thing to do to make Miss X worried. Then when her Dad came in from work he was the same with her. Going to bed that night I asked her what she was going to do the next day if she needed the lo and went over it again on Friday morning. So it was drummed into her.

As I explained earlier in the thread ( if you've read the whole thing) I think Dd is finding school a bigger step than I'd thought it would be for her. She is extremely tactile and was always cuddling the nursery nurses. She's been told to stop cuddling in school, her teacher is understandably a bit stand offish when Dd approaches her for a cuddle (I've seen this first hand) and she was also teased and made fun of fir holding her wee friend's hand ( her partner in crime). Taking this all into account I think she's dealing with quite a lot at the moment so I'll trust my own judgement regarding any "punishment". And if she's still doing it at 6,8 or 13 then I''ll think back to all those perfect mothers on MN who were right all along.