Dd and Hungarian boy in her class

[GastonsPomPomWrath]

This is wwyd situation. Please be gentle with me.

It's my children's first day back at school today. Dd is 8 and has just started year 4. She's a bright child, top of the class, good in all subjects.

There's a new boy in the class. We'll call him Y. Y is Hungarian and speaks no or very very limited English at the moment.

The teacher has put my dd with Y to partner him in everything. She must work with him, talk to him, play with him at play time and lunchtime and help him during dinner in the hall. He has to copy her work exactly so he can learn to write our language. Dd didn't manage to finish her work because Y was struggling to keep up with her.

Dd told the teacher that she was having trouble understanding him and him understanding her and the teacher replied that she "hasn't got a choice" and she "must teach him how to speak and write English."

Now I do understand that the boy is probably better off being integrated in the classroom to pick up the way things are done and the language but is it totally reasonable for the teacher to carry on with her lesson whilst letting my dd teach Y? The school don't seem to have any resources or staff available to teach one to one for children who don't use English as their first language. The teaching assistant didn't offer any help (I asked Dd)

Would you be happy with this situation?

Dd came home asking me to help her figure out how she will communicate with him tomorrow.

[blowmybarnacles]

YANBU. The teacher should be doing the teaching and the class helping integrate him, same with any new child.

[Queenbean]

If she was being asked of this the week before her A-levels when it would genuinely impact her future then, yeah, sure that's not right

But aged 8? On the first day of term? It will have zero impact on her. The talk of going to see the board of governors immediately is very sad

[Headofthehive55]

IT can be very difficult when a school decides that your child can "help" another child. Mine was linked with someone with behavioural issues. Children do need a break, for them to make the relationships freely with the children they want.

[happy2bhomely]

We've experienced this. There was a child in my dc's class with learning difficulties and some behavior problems. English was her second language. My daughter was put on 'Kerry' duty. When I asked her what this meant, she explained that it involved stopping 'Kerry' form escaping the classroom, escaping the playground and escaping the dining hall. She was to try and persuade her, but physically block her if necessary!

This meant that my dc lost friends to play with at lunch time because no one else wanted to play with 'Kerry.'

I doubted her version so much, that I told her that she must have it wrong and I wanted her to try her very best to be kind.

At parent/teacher evening her teacher praised her for all her help with Kerry, and told me she chose my dc because she was especially kind and helpful (and compliant). I made a formal complaint, but made an effort to encourage their friendship outside of school.

[bigTillyMint]

Exactly QueenBean and 2StripedSocks said.

[ConcernedMum420]

the school is wrong to burden your dd with this young chap. what will likely happen is that your dd will learn fluent hungarian and become a carpenter.

[bigTillyMint]

[Ninasimoneinthemorning]

happy that's bloody awful!

[happy2bhomely]

DD was in year 2 when this was happening. It was one of many reasons why we decided to home educate.

[mypropertea]

This is ludicrous for many reasons, what happens if dd is off sick? What happens if Kerry escapes and your dd goes missing while looking for her? So many things can go wrong with this!! And that's ignoring the impact it has on the kids involved and there lack of down time. I find training people at work with no break from them maddening, and I say this as an extrovert and an adult!

[LyndaNotLinda]

OP - no one has said anything unkind about your DD being bright - I assumed your school streams in the same way my DS's school does - where the whole year is streamed across classes so the 'top' set in English has maybe 20 kids in it and I have no idea which of those is 'top'.

And of course it's fine to say that your child is bright and doing better than her peers - what a bizarre perspective you seem to have Nina. MN is full of parents with children who are doing better than average - you only have to read the university threads to know that.

But that isn't the point. It isn't remotely fair if the OP's DD has been asked to take sole responsibility for the new boy all day long. As the children are streamed, that seems extremely unlikely, despite some of the dire predictions on this thread.

So the OP absolutely should talk to the teacher first thing tomorrow. If things are as the DD says and it is making her unhappy/having a detrimental impact on her achievement, then obviously it's fine to escalate but FGS don't go bleating to the governors until the facts are established. Otherwise you just end up looking like an utter tit.

[SukeyTakeItOffAgain]

But Nina, you don't actually know that's the case yet. The OP has said she's going in to clarify.

I think the "empathy" comments were more directed at posters who talked about "dog eat dog worlds" etc.

[ManonLescaut]

I am not sure it necessarily has anything at all to do with not being able to cope with the class in front of them

At a theoretical level no, at a practical level in some cases that's how it ends up being used.

[HoppityFrogs]

If the situation is exactly as you describe then you need to discuss it with the teacher. I'd check that it actually is like that first, maybe your DD has got confused

[MammouthTask]

OP as others have said, have a word with the teacher. The responsibility can't be soley on your dd's shoulders and i suspect (or strongly hope!) she misunderstood - maybe due to what she saw the previous year and the way she interpretated it.

Please also remember that children at that age learn another language VERY quickly, much more quickly than us adults. So the issue with communication, whilst understandable, won't last that long and certainly not the whole year.

Fwiw, I don't see that as massively diffrent as the teacher putting a disruptive child next to one who is concientious and hard working. My dcs have had a lot of that on primary and still in secondary (or they have been asked to 'help' a child that is struggling - that means they are doing the work for them, or they are paired with a disruptive one on the ground that actually, even though it's a group work, they are good enough to do it on their own).
Whether you agree with it or not, this is certainly a class managemnet tool used a lot ime.

[SolomanDaisy]

My DS goes to school in his second language. I'm pretty horrified by some of the attitudes on here. Interestingly his vocabulary in his second language is now way ahead of the average native speaker of his age, but if you're too busy worrying he's going to turn your kid into a carpenter or that he has a slight English accent, you probably won't notice. This sort of attitude does explain the native German speaker boy who was desperate to be his friend because they were 'the same' i.e. foreign.

[Italiangreyhound]

Well I think you have had some brilliant answers here, pom and of course go in and ask the situation. I might be tempted to ask in the morning if you can see her at pick up (or lunch time if you are free).

I'd ask her to tell you what the situation is and then, if different to what your dd has said, I would tell her what dd said very calmly.

Caipora has some excellent comments to make. Re 2What happened in the case of the Spanish girl and both my children is that everyone wanted to help them intergrate. I remember my children would alternate who they worked with, even children who did not do so well themselves and within less than 6 months they were doing all their work alone. Now they are like natives."

Having it as a privilege to help the child, and perhaps use some fun technology as someone else mentioned, sounds ideal. This could be something that really connects the class and makes all the kids feel good and special, if handled well, or it could make your dd feel a terrible burden to get it right and make this little boy feel like he is a burden, which is crap for both of them!

Also, by waiting until the end of tomorrow you will be able to have a better idea if the whole day was actually one whole day and another child took over today, or whether your child has this task for longer, or whatever.

[smallfox2002]

Sure, that happened.

[Jaimx86]

Lorelei76

I believe we're talking about one day. Were they going to do musical chairs so that the lad could sit next to everyone?

[Lorelei76]

Bengal, many of us had this at uni.

Kit, you say some of us are shrieking but quite a few of us are just saying the child needs to have other children take turns to help. It's horrible being told you have to look after someone all day! Sometimes even lesson is a nightmare.

Interesting that another poster mentioned a top table full of kids who spoke another language. If we'd had that table at primary, two of us would been assumed to be that child but actually don't speak a word of the parental language.

[Lorelei76]

Jaim, yes, swap seats through the day. I'd have lost my 8 year old mind if we hadn't swapped these things at school. What's wrong with that?

[Mycatsabastard]

Firstly I think your DD may well be exaggerating.

I used to volunteer in a reception class and we had several children each intake who had no English at all. The children were buddied up with another child or a small group. This meant the new child with no English had someone they could follow/copy throughout the day.

None of us spoke Polish or Pakistani or any number of the different languages in that school but we managed to communicate. We mimed actions, we pointed to things, repeated words to let him/her know that was the word we used. We mimed eating at lunchtime, a buddy would take them to the toilet just before break times. It worked. And every single one of those kids was in the top reading group by the end of the year. Without fail.

My own DD has a friend who came to her last school who was Polish. She spoke no English. DD and another girl took her under their wing and spent ages trying to make themselves understood. That girl is now also fluent and one of her best friends. They had lots of fun and DD would come home telling me what things were called in Polish.

Your DD has an opportunity here to really help someone feel included. The school should be providing some English lessons separately but yes, your DD should be taking him under her wing and including him in play time, lunchtime etc and him copying her work should not be slowing her down in the slightest.

[Queenbean]

It was a rumour at university that the uni would accept lots of foreign students with a poor grasp of English as the overseas students paid more in fees than the uk ones did

Not sure how true that was as the university would want to maintain its reputation but there were a lot of people at my uni in first year who didn't speak much English