My son's ex teachers are sulking with me

[caitlinohara]

I'll try to be brief.

Recently moved ds2 (Y2) to another school because he was deeply unhappy in the class he was in. It was a class of 30 and there were numerous ongoing behaviour problems and he was coming out of school angry and frustrated and often tearful. I raised a few concerns over the last term with the teachers but they were pretty dismissive, although one of the TA's was lovely and really seemed to try to look out for him at playtimes. Eventually decided to move him to a new school and was as open and diplomatic as I could be in the circumstances.

My older son is still at the old school because he is very happy there and will leave in July anyway.

Ds2's old class was a job share and I know both teachers pretty well, since one of them has a son in ds1's class, and the other has a daughter who plays with ds3 at nursery. Since ds2 left, both teachers have barely acknowledged me, although I see one or the other every day when I'm picking up ds1. I texted Teacher 2 the other day to invite her daughter round to play with ds3 and got a curt refusal. Neither has even said hello to ds2 or asked him how he was getting on at his new school. Took Teacher 1's son out the other weekend with mine and she got her dh to drop him off and pick him up and hasn't said thank you when I have seen her since.

I'm not sure what I expected, but I'm struggling to see their attitude as anything but petty and rude. I was really careful not to criticise them as teachers to the head because I wanted to try to stay on good terms with them for everyone's sake but it looks like they have taken offence anyway. I have been very involved in said school over the years. Regularly help out on school trips, run stalls at school fairs, etc etc. It's not me, is it? They are being dickheads, aren't they?

Re-reading, is it also possible that the TA being on your side whilst the teachers "were dismissive" may also have exacerbated the situation?

That probably seemed like tittle tattling to the TA once the teachers had "dismissed" your concerns....

I have a couple of close family members as teachers, you'd be very surprised how closely the job is monitored and assessed. There can be repercussions for the smallest thing. Not saying you acted wrongly - you didn't - but the fact that the head seemed understanding with you means nothing in terms of how the internal processes work. I presume that if you were having repeated meetings with the teachers then they may well have felt obliged to pass on your concerns, so that the school would have been aware that it reflected badly on them. At the very least they will have been "debriefed" after your decision.

Oh yes, and management may well have got the TA's side of the story. Not your fault, but the teachers may well have had a hard time.

No no, TA was there at the same time as I spoke to Teacher 2 and agreed that she would keep an eye on him at playtimes and to be fair, she did.

From their viewpoint you've said that they're not good enough to teach your son and keep him safe and/or happy. You've pulled them up on their professional work. You've basically told them they're not good enough teachers surely? This is obviously going to affect them and your relationship with them. How can it not?

I can fully understand why they may not feel like being friends outside of work as a result of their perceived slight, by you. Not many people would be unaffected by a client (using that term so could be used across any number of professions) making a complaint about them. Why would they then choose to socialise with that person outside of work?

And it's not that the child of the older boy has banned their child from playing with your ds1. They've been out with you and a parent brought him/took him back and presumably dad also did the thank you. Why does mum also need to send thanks?

Of course they should acknowledge your ds1. He is a pupil of the school and should not be ignored.

Likewise it would be rude of them to ignore your ds2. If he is right next to them or speaks to them of course they should respond. However, I don't see that they should have to seek him out to speak too if they'd rather not - it would be nice if them to of course.

ricketytickety you have clearly misread the ops post. Raising concerns WITH the teachers is not raising concerns ABOUT the teachers. Speaking to the teachers about the issues the ops son is having is not the same as criticising them.

Unless you are referring to the fact that she said in the post they were pretty dismissive. But that was said for the purposes of the thread regarding the reasons behind leaving.

Anyway, when a teacher is more concerned about their own reputation when a child chooses to get schooled elsewhere than they are about the welfare of the children in question, something has gone wrong with the education system.

caitlinohara at any point did you make a complain against the teachers in question? People are saying you did, I don't see anything to suggest that, so decided to ask the question outright to try and get clarification.

As I've said though - I haven't complained about either of them. And I don't socialise with either of them - like I said, a bit of small talk and the children being able to socialise would be fine!

To be fair, the teachers have not displayed a lack of concern for the kids' welfare. Being matey with a school mum and even making small talk with a kid they don't teach any more (not sure how much opportunity there can have been for this) are not part of a teacher's duty of care! It's not like they tried to stop the boy from leaving.

BlueMoonRising No I absolutely didn't.

Yeah, we get you didn't complain - but the point is that even if you didn't they might have been told off by management. I work in law. If a client came to the senior partner and said they were switching firms, absolutely no bad reflection on the junior solicitor they were dealing with, he was great, it's just that they thought this other firm was better for the particular piece of work... then the senior partner would be very friendly and understanding in that meeting. But then that junior solicitor would get a bollocking and be blamed regardless. I can't imagine it's any different in teaching, a profession in which performance is assessed and monitored to a higher degree than any other I can think of. I just do not think that you can assume that there is no professional impact on the teachers. It's not something you need to feel bad about, but it would explain their behaviour.

I think it's just all a bit too blurry- and in small place that is no-one's fault. The social and the professional do blur in that setting. But it sounds like the teachers in question are perhaps trying to make it a bit less blurry for a while. To be fair, could be on advice from the school head or even a union rep.

So yes, you can expect them to be professional (reply when you say hello, but not to get drawn into a conversation). You cannot expect them to extend professional courtesy into social closeness however. In a larger town that would have been frowned upon long before this point. On a personal level they may feel that they have been burned by doing so and are are therefore correcting their previous behaviour.

As long as they don't make it difficult for your children to be friends with their children at school/in neutral settings (i.e. they can go to the same birthday parties etc just at neither of your houses) or are rude to you or disadvantage your other children who are still at the same school, I think it's probably understandable that they want to put a bit more distance into the relationships (both with you and with the children).

I'm not saying it is absolutely the right thing to do, but it is one of a few options that I think most people could understand even if they don't agree with it entirely. For example, another understandable approach would be to try to have a heart to heart with you about it and work out what went wrong, but most people would also see how that has potential to massively backfire. And their jobs are involved here.

Sadly, I think the only thing that might heal this is time.

This kind of thing can get massively complicated in small places, so actually a bit of distance could work out for the best long term.

I think this is unlikely to be because you moved him. It may be because you have perhaps hinted that your son has been moved because of the behaviour of the class. Coupled with the fact that you complained about behaviour on a school trip, this has annoyed them. As a teacher I would have no issue with a child moving school if the school does not suit them and I don't think most of my colleagues would either. It is probably the complaints that you have made that have rankled.

What mellojello said

Just because the head seems fine with you doesn't mean anything when it comes to how they are with the teachers, especially if a complaint of some form has been made.

I worked for a headteacher who the parents all thought was fine before. He was all smiles and professional with parents, said the right things, made the right noises, etc. He was a nightmare to work for. Any slight to 'his' school at all or anything negative to happen - had to be the staffs fault. Regardless of any issues going across the school, across years, across classes - no, it was that individual current teachers fault.

So what you're saying is, there was no chance of me staying on good terms with them, so I might as well have spoken my mind instead of trying to be tactful?

So, what would you have said if you'd spoken your mind, then?

rollon if I have any criticism of either teacher it's that they hadn't seemed to notice that ds2 was unhappy (although as a quiet boy in a class of 30, that's understandable), but when I told them he was unhappy I felt that they were dismissive.

Their response was that he needed to tell them if someone was unkind to him and they would deal with it. I said that I would like him to be resilient enough to deal with things himself if they arose and asked whether we could sit down with him and talk things through and maybe they could suggest some strategies. This was met with "I really don't think that would help. He just needs to tell someone if anyone does anything". Given that he wasn't being bullied, but it was just a general atmosphere of unpleasantness between most of the class, that would have been hard for him and that was the point when I decided that I wasn't going to get anywhere and started considering moving schools.

I can well understand why the teachers may have been less than friendly. Perhaps you need to be a bit more insightful. Clearly removing a child from a school for the reasons you site (which are reasonable) might be taken as a criticism of the teachers. Their response (apart from ignoring your child) is fairly normal. It is, in many schools, quite unusual to move a child for reasons other than moving home. I think it is sensible to keep your distance from people if your actions, be they reasonable or unreasonable could have caused offence. There is something a little unsettling about the post.

Happened to me too.
Ds1s friends drifted away, even though they knew we had very good reason for leaving.

What can you do?
My neighbour - who was a dinner lady there - never spoke to me again :)
Luckily we moved but i imagine she would still be giving me the silent treatment even now!

This is off topic... but I kind of feel like when it comes to a strategy for coping with unpleasantness, tell the teacher is the right advice for primary age children? They don't want kids 'taking the law into their own hands'. Not sure what they could do beyond that? If you mean like 'laugh it off when someone is mean' or 'think of a snappy comeback' there are reasons why both of those might be inappropriate (as the former could be construed as a teacher telling kids not to report bullying, and the latter as sanctioning more teasing!) Out of interest... what did you want to happen?

Well, clearly the consensus is that there is nothing I could have differently that would not have resulted in them taking offence, so I suppose I can sort of take comfort in that!

Removing a child from a school might be taken as a criticism of the teachers
It might be.. if I had criticised them.

Their response (apart from ignoring your child) is fairly normal
I still consider politeness normal.

mellojello I am not sure what I wanted either at that point. We had got to a stage where he didn't want to go in, and I didn't know what to say to him, and I thought that perhaps since they were there they could advise him how to handle certain situations better than I could because they knew the kids involved.

^Removing a child from a school might be taken as a criticism of the teachers
It might be.. if I had criticised them^

The point is that taking a pupil out of their class mid-year is a massive criticism. Nothing to do with what you did or didn't say. So your comment makes no sense.

I agree that this was always going to be the result. Your son is now happy and settled, so this is a really small price to pay for that.

Yes, like I said, there clearly wasn't any way around this, so not much I could change, and absolutely the right decision, no doubt about that.