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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think this teachers response was a bit shit? Or perhaps I am being horrendously precious?

251 replies

Gallopingthundercunt · 30/09/2016 09:53

Hugely identifying if the teacher is reading but what the hell.....

DS(12) wanted to start a club at school yesterday but (for reasons best known to himself) turned up at the wrong time. He immediately went to find the teacher running the club and apologised to her, asking her whether he would still be allowed to take part. She told him that part of the requirements for the club were that he was punctual and reliable, since he had been neither then he couldn't Confused

When DS got home he was in tears over the incident. In fairness, my DSDad (his grandad) died unexpectedly last week so I feel his response may be slightly coloured by emotion. We discussed what had happened and he accepted that he was in the wrong to turn up late and that the teacher has every right to refuse him entry to the club.

I then emailed the teacher to explain the situation (as I have above) and ask whether she would reconsider, given the circumstances and how upset DS was. For the record I have never sent an email like this in all of DS's school career, but I felt very strongly that I needed to raise the issue. This morning I received a rather curt email telling me that despite DS being under "some emotional strain" that she would not reconsider. She also reiterated the qualities that were required for the club and how DS was lacking in them.

My first response was disbelief and now (if I'm honest) real anger. I need to acknowledge her reply but I'm seriously unsure whether to take it further or whether I will appear a raving harpie who thinks the rules shouldn't apply to my precious snowflake. I'm normally quite laid back and would simply tell DS to learn from his mistakes, but this incident and the subsequent email have really got my hackles up. So AIBU or is the teacher?

OP posts:
OurBlanche · 01/10/2016 19:30

As am I, casual

Ooops! Blush Glad that I have retired, not glad that you have Grin

acasualobserver · 01/10/2016 19:33
Grin
SirChenjin · 01/10/2016 19:35

If the first meeting was the registration stage then why on earth didn't the teacher communicate that to you and or your son OP? It would have been so much more helpful - sounds like communication is a training opportunity for her.

SpongeBobJudgeyPants · 01/10/2016 19:39

And this is the sort of incident that I remember so many times from my youth. There is only a couple of teachers I remember fondly. She is being a bitch IMHO.

acasualobserver · 01/10/2016 19:41

Interesting article and relevant to this discussion:

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/education-system-would-fall-over-without-many-hours-teacher-overtime

a7mints · 01/10/2016 19:53

I am going to go against the grain here.I think the teacher is right.
If you want to be a politician

  1. you SHOULD have the organisational skills,ability and inclination to get yourself to the right place at teh right time.
  2. You are a representative.By enlisting mummy to sort out your problems, you are showing you cannot even represent yourself, let alone other people!
SirChenjin · 01/10/2016 19:57

The public sector generally would fall over wihout staff doing overtime (unpaid usually ) - it's not just teachers. In fact , most companies expect their professional staff to do more than their paid hours, sadly.

BoneyBackJefferson · 01/10/2016 20:38

Threads like this make me wonder why we run the clubs in the first place.

incywincybitofa · 02/10/2016 00:40

a7 those skills are great for a grown up politician but he is 12 and on a learning journey, we can cut him some slack on one mistake surely?

SparklyUnicornPoo · 02/10/2016 01:55

I was on the uk youth parliament, back when it was new, it's amazing how many of the MYP's from my day are still around in the background somewhere. It is possible that the teacher had to have manifestos emailed off by a certain time for him to be able to register and that they actuallycan't reconsider, I know that happens to people every year.

Assuming the teacher had told all the kids that if they were late they couldn't join then that's his own fault, teacher could possibly have been a bit nicer in their reply though.

PerspicaciaTick · 02/10/2016 02:05

If there was a good reason for the OP's DS not being able to be a late participant then why not say so - let the facts speak for themselves.

Why make up some cock and bull story about missing attributes, which seems specifically aimed at undermining the poor lad's self-confidence.

OurBlanche · 02/10/2016 07:00

specifically aimed at undermining the poor lad's self-confidence.

Or giving him a prime example of consequences to behaviour!

As I said earlier, if the email OP received was curt to the point of rudeness then she has every right to expect better of the teacher, but all of this still amazes me!

The epithets used and assumptions made about this teacher are a prime example of MNs ingrained dislike/hate of the profession - despite many of us being bloody teachers (retired or otherwise)!

Hey Everybody! Did you know that every single MNer and all mothers are cunts, liars, total bitches, fucking dickheads, really need to learn about communication? They are sneery jumped up, self-important management types. Deeply unpleasant dragons, butt heads, rigid jobsworths, arseholes.

Every single poster here is ridiculously inflexible, officious eejits. So spiteful you can’t talk to them cos they can be vindictive and mean, especially if you don’t follow their crazy rules They wander round the Earth with a big stick up their arses, power tripping, pathetic twats, stuck up cows, utter arses, idiots, nutters…

Yopu all deserve to lose your jobs, be held up to ridicule, taught a fucking good lesson!

acasualobserver · 02/10/2016 09:14

The public sector generally would fall over wihout staff doing overtime (unpaid usually ) - it's not just teachers.

And when they do they should be called bitches, cunts and dickheads just like teachers?

BakewellTartAgain · 02/10/2016 09:19

a7 : Stephen Woolfe (who missed the deadline for the UKIP leadership applications) needed this teacher's training!

birdsdestiny · 02/10/2016 09:35

I think she may have been right to exclude him. Sorry op. He wasn't late he missed the entire first meeting. From what people have been saying that first meeting will have included registration and who knows possibly allocation of political parties, roles etc. I can see it may be difficult to admit someone late. Possibly she has had emails in the past from parents saying ' how come my child has to be a backbencher but little Johnny got to be leader of the opposition when he didn't even turn up for the first meeting'. But it would have been polite for her to explain these reasons.

Trifleorbust · 02/10/2016 09:36

We don't know what the teacher did or didn't communicate to the kids before the start of the club. It is ridiculous to imagine that the teacher has time to communicate the start time and agenda for a lunch time club to every parent, though Confused

What do people think teachers do all day?

MistressMerryWeather · 02/10/2016 09:38

The truth is that this woman being called a dickhead has very little to do with her being a teacher and every bit to do with her acting like, well, a dickhead. :o

If she were a scout leader/ran a youth club/managed a football team the responses would have been exactly the same.

In my experience teachers are pretty well defended on MN and at times overly so as this thread demonstrates.

SirChenjin · 02/10/2016 09:38

Point to where I said - or even infered that casual

BoneyBackJefferson · 02/10/2016 09:39

PerspicaciaTick
"If there was a good reason for the OP's DS not being able to be a late participant then why not say so"

The reason is that he didn't turn up, he wasn't just late.

Trifleorbust · 02/10/2016 09:40

Mistress, but we don't actually know why she has been so strict about this, do we?

SirChenjin · 02/10/2016 09:42

Inferred even.

I agree Merry - my experience of MN is that posters are usually rounded on for being 'that parent' and their child accused of not telling the whole truth. Very rarely is it a pretty unanimous 'the teacher is wrong', as in this thread

Trifleorbust · 02/10/2016 09:43

I don't think it's unanimous. We don't know if she was wrong because we don't have enough information about why, from the teacher's perspective, the child was turned away.

SirChenjin · 02/10/2016 09:44

pretty unanimous

BoneyBackJefferson · 02/10/2016 09:45

MistressMerryWeather
The truth is that this woman being called a dickhead has very little to do with her being a teacher and every bit to do with her acting like, well, a dickhead. grin

It seems to take very little for a teacher to be called OTT names. The teacher will have said in the information sent out what the rules are.

If she were a scout leader/ran a youth club/managed a football team the responses would have been exactly the same.

IMO, Not to the same level of vitriol as this thread, and it wouldn't make it right.

SirChenjin · 02/10/2016 09:45

The fact the the OP doesn't have any info as to why he was turned away is in itself very poor of the teacher.