Really disappointed in DS's Yr 6 teacher...

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I'm probably going to get a lot of YABU but that's ok. I just want to rant a bit.

It is DS's Birthday so he brought in some sweets like all the kids do. However there is a child who has been really nasty to DS throughout the whole year (violently). To the point that DS had to be educated at home for a month. It's all a very long story. He absolutely didn't want to give this boy a sweet. I assumed he wouldn't have to? His teacher said he wouldn't be allowed to give his sweets out if he wasn't going to give to all the children. My DS said that he wouldn't give the sweets out. I thought that was fair enough. But then his teacher seemed to pester him about how that wasn't really fair as the class had got excited about getting sweets and he had taken that away from them. DS said he would give them the sweets outside of the school gates so she confiscated them and said he won't be and that "considering the year he has had, she is surprised by the way he is deciding to treat somebody" no. no. no. no! that's really unreasonable in my opinion, this isn't some poor little boy who my DS is deciding to exclude, this is the child that violently attacked my son many times throughout the year and couldn't give a shit about it as he kept doing it repeatedly. She also wouldn't let him hand out his part invites in her classroom as he was the only boy not invited... But also wouldn't give him the invites back (they have to give them to the teacher at the start of the day). I'm just absolutely appalled. Is it me, or is this not exactly fair?

If you read my post I said specifically that I didn't expect the child to be the bigger person I expected the op to. That would mean taking sweets for the class or not taking them at all. She should have known the teacher would never let 1 child be left out be that in the class or at the school gate. We have no idea if the teacher actually pestered him - she may have just asked him at home time if he was sure he didn't want to give them out to everyone.
There is a child in one of my dcs class who his mum says is bullied and terrified of going to school but what is actually going on is that her child is getting other children to deliberately upset a child with sn to the extent he will lash out physically/verbally and then they all laugh at him until he gets into trouble. The teacher has informed the mum of this but she's having none of it and maintains her child is the one being bullied. So it's not always black and white.
And green yes, as someone who's worked in many schools I'm highly surprised that after hospitalising another child 3 times the perpetrator is still attending the school. I would be interested to know what happened that caused the hospitalisations.

The more I think of it, the more I think the teacher was right...she was trying to include the other boy.

I also suspect she was trying to avoid a further issue when your DS refused to give the boy sweets outside school.

As already said, happy children don't bully and expect the teacher has had to work hard this year to try to build the bully's self esteem, and avoid any more incidents.

This is the bit that the OP is more upset about.

DS said he would give them the sweets outside of the school gates so she confiscated them and said he won't be and that "considering the year he has had, she is surprised by the way he is deciding to treat somebody"

I think that is pretty horrible. OP's son was bullied, put into hospital etc and when he decides to give out the sweets outside of the school gates instead he is told that he should be treating the bully better because he knows what it is like to be treated badly.

Only when you are a child would this happen. If my colleague bullied me and physically assaulted me no one would tell me I should give them a cake because I should know what it feels like to be excluded.

Of course the teacher couldn't let the sweets be handed out in class and watch the other kid not get one, that would be unprofessional. The problem is with the comment when OP's son said he would hand them out outside of the school instead.

I also suspect she was trying to avoid a further issue when your DS refused to give the boy sweets outside school.

Actually, I didn't think about that and it's a very good point.

I still think the comments were out of order though.

The teacher is right .She couldn't let the other boy be excluded with her knowledge, that includes outside of school gates. At that age, quite right it be either everyone has it or no one

Why was this violent child not moved to a more suitable school?

Child in DC school has knocked a child out thrown chairs sworn hit teachers - he's still in school.

Because they have a duty to educate them.

They anti bullying policy states the bullied child should not be removed but the problem child. In reality this doesn't happen.

When you have a child being bullied they cry every bed time they don't sleep they aren't happy every day - school refusal won't join in - it's horrendous and effects the whole family -

I'm not surprised the OP is angry - bullying makes you angry

Schools inability to protect your child makes you angry -

Why do people keep banging on about the teacher being right about now allowing the stuff to be given out in class excluding the bully? OP has made it perfectly clear several times that she fully agrees. The issue is whether she should have gone on to pressurise OP's son, and to confiscate the sweets and invitations. I would say, given the very serious history here, she should not.

Really in Year 6 teachers should keep well out of things like giving out invitations, it just isn't necessary at that age.

The teacher was NOT right. How on earth is it okay to take this boy's property and not give it back?

Billy in that case, I'm sorry but there is HUGE problem with the school and their ability to protect all the children.

Except that's exactly what the teacher did do. Everybody is safe, no incidents, only a few noses out of joint.

*And IF the issue was the safety of the OP's ds then, it would have been very easy for her to explain that to him.

No need for keeping all thr sweets and refusing to give them back. No need for refusing to hand the invites out and to keep them. I'm sure the OP's ds would have understood that. But she didn't. She took sides and she took the side of the bully and did all was possible to make the OP's ds feel bad about it.*

But the teacher can't take sides with any pupil. So that is nonsense. She can't say to one pupil 'x is violent so I'm not going to let you do that' any more than she can she can tell the bully 'you can't do xyz because username and DS have complained about you and say you're nasty.' She has to be neutral except when discussing it privately with the parents involved. She certainly wouldn't be making specific comments about one pupil to another, that would be totally unprofessional.

The OP herself said she knew the doors to knock on so she knows the addresses, others can be covered by Facebook or telephone. Those few who can't can get an invitation at school but that won't involve all the children getting an invitation except for this this boy.

And quite frankly, facilitating party invites and sweetie handouts is not her job, she does it voluntarily as a favour and if she chooses not to then that's her decision.

Well firstly we have no idea if the teacher actually did pester the child. That was their interpretation.
And secondly if the ops child.was upsetting the other child with 'fine I will give them out at home time and you'll be the only one who isn't getting one and you're the only one who's not coming to my party' etc the teacher is well within their rights to return them to the mother. Just because something is your property it doesn't mean you have the right to come to school and upset people with it. And minor bullying isn't ok just because more serious bullying may have taken place. The teacher needs to tackle all bullying.

bumsex, I agree that this is one of those posts where we are very much getting half of the story. All I can see is a teacher who is trying to behave professionally, take neither side and avoid any further trouble.

Surely with 3 incidents there must be some sort of SEN in play? There are some other things that make me wonder what the other side of the story is too, like OPs DS being friends with every child in the class, the details just don't quite sit right.

Did you not collect him that day? Why didn't you go and get the sweets and invitations back from the teacher? She may have forgotten to give them back to him at the end of the day, but if she is deliberately holding on to them then that is unacceptable.
It's your/DS property and she must return it.

"diddl if I felt something would kick off at the school gates, I would take action to try and prevent it."

Yes, true.

Perhaps this was her reason for also hanging on to the invitations?

I have to say I just don't get whole class parties or teachers being involved with invitations.

Here at primary your child takes in sweets/biscuits/cake but these will obviously be offered to everyone at the first break.

Have never known teacher to be asked to give out invitations. Parents do it until the kids are old enough.

But as I said, class parties aren't a thing.

Everything as a teacher, you have an obligation to both children equally. It does not come down to who is the victim. In my class I would not allow the OP's son to begin victimising the bully just because he was bullied first. Or let's just hold a grudge against everyone forever shall we? It's our job to prevent instances like DS's happening again. This event could instigate further violence. How is that victimising him? It is protecting him for the future.

I'm absolutely horrified.

Right. No, I didn't say I could knock on the doors, I said that wasn't possible.

Also, this is a rule at my son's school, that you give the sweets to the teacher and the invites, so please stop with the "it isn't her job" and "she has better things to do" it is her job! As that's the rules of this school.

I want to say for THE LAST TIME, I get that she can't exclude that child, I UNDERSTAND. I realise she cannot do that and when I said ok to my son, I should have thought about it a bit more and said it might be best to not bring in the sweets, but I didn't really think about it and that's my fault. The invites, I really do have to do through the school, every child does... It's the easiest way to make sure they all get them.

I am happy for you to disagree with me, that's fine. I just wish you would read the bits I'm annoyed about and when you did and then said you still think she was right, that's fine, you are allowed an opinion. I'm absolutely disgusted at the comments about how my son is probably the one who has cause the bullying as he has done something to get it, etc. etc. wtaf? Why are you sticking up for the violent, out of control child? I can't honestly see a reason to. No, my son didn't do anything to cause it. He was an incredibly shy child who had just lost his dad (not death, but he left) and wasn't very confident in school and it made him an easy target. I know that may come at a surprise but some kids don't actually deserve to be bullied.

I also cannot believe you assume that I take him to A+E for scrapes and small bruises, why have you got that assumption? I'm not sure if you're aware, but they don't remove the children easily. This boy wasn't even at a break/lunch exclusion, he would have needed to do even more to get to that. It's awful how they handle it, it really is. He should have been made to leave. You do realise my son had to have some assessment type thing to be tutored at home for that month as it was provided by the LA? I had multiple meetings as their funding is very limited. I also had to provide doctor notes/CAMHS letters.

I don't know why I should have to go into what happened to him, but they all deserved a trip to the hospital. He had a suspected collapsed lung (thankfully wasn't) and also needed various X-Rays. Are you saying that he didn't need to be there?

Also, if you think this is off/troll, whatever else you want to assume, please just report me, MN can do their little checks and whatever else they do behind the scenes, I don't make threads on here and tbh, won't be again. It was just because I wanted to rant a bit and I said that in my OP.

The teacher had no right at all to tell OP's son that she is surprised by the way he is treating the kid that bullied him.

What does she fucking expect?

If someone told me I was treating someone badly because I didn't want to give the person who bullied me and put me in hospital a cake I would tell them to fuck off. But hey, he's a child so he should just suck it up and be expected to treat the bully kindly because he should know better.

.

Ok fair enough don't allow the sweets to go out , if they have to stick to rules about inclusion (although rules about bullying don't seem to have been followed too well previously but that's a whole other) but what grounds has teacher for keeping them and not returning at the end of the day? Also re party invites it should be entirely up to the child who is invited whether one child or 5 is excluded. In DD school many parties don't invite all the class or all boys/all girls just a group of friends however big or small so it's not a matter for teacher to confiscate and not return, they can't dictate who you have especially a violent bully

Not giving a sweet to someone who put you in hospital is not 'victimising' them ffs.

They can't make it a rule to give out invites or sweets in class. Do it outside of school grounds! I'm sorry but if you don't know the addresses of the kids then they can't be great friends.
I am truly sorry your child has been bullied and the whole experience sounds absolutely horrific. It has clearly left scars. I absolutely don't think your hold should have to invite this child to the party. But equally in Y6 he should realise it is unkind and possibly could cause an issue to publicly exclude this child. Perhaps the teacher was trying to make this point. What do you expect the teacher to do?!

To be honest if you knew you son was going in with sweets for the whole class and wanted to hand them out in front of this boy but not give him any you should have stopped it there and then not left the teacher in the awkward position of having to sort it out.

You only have your sons word that she was "pestering" him to handout to all, its likely she knew he wanted to handout his birthday sweeties and was encouraging him to do the right thing and hand out to all and it got out of hand.

I think you should go and speak to the teacher and apologise for putting her in this position.

In my class I would not allow the OP's son to begin victimising the bully just because he was bullied first.

It's a natural consequence.

Something the bully needs to learn. You bully and physically assault someone then that person isn't going to include you in anything. It's how life works and a lesson he probably needs to learn.

The bully hasn't had many consequences it seems and now the teacher expects the victim to give the bully a sweet... fuck that.

It is not victimising someone to not give them a sweet. Actions have consequences and this is one of them.

BTW as I said earlier, I completely agree with the teacher not allowing the bully to be left out in the classroom. Even the OP does, but her comments were awful and he should have been allowed to do what he likes with them out of the school gates.

I'm still not convinced that there isn't another side to this story. For one thing a few minutes ago you said that your son was such close friends with everyone in his class that he couldn't possibly not invite the entire class except for this boy. A few minutes later he is very shy. Those statements seem to conflict. As does 'it has to be done that way with the invitations' and 'it's just easiest for me'. Plus the account of the hospital visits seem to indicate that you've taken DS to hospital, had tests done and ultimately they've not found much of anything wrong with him. And you've avoided questions about whether the other child has special needs.

IMO there are far too many questions hanging over this story for the teacher to get an unequivocal bashing.