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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

100% attendance

310 replies

AgainstTheOddsNo2 · 21/04/2017 06:43

My daughter has just been sick and is currently devastated and not talking to me because I said she will have to stay home from school and lose her 100% attendance.

Fuck that prize!

OP posts:
EduCated · 25/04/2017 13:03

Trifle Bu describing others as extreme, as catastrophising, talking about the end of the world. You're the only one I see using such extreme language.

Trifleorbust · 25/04/2017 13:52

EduCated:

I don't think that is true if you read the thread. My language may be strong but that is because I think it matches what is going on in some of the posters' dealings with this issue.

Anyway, I am out. Clearly I am in the minority but I am not about to change my mind so...

grannytomine · 25/04/2017 14:14

Trifle you identified yourself as a teacher so you are representing your profession on here. Referring to children as thick is not professional and you could be said to be bringing your profession into disrepute, there is probably something about that in your contract of employment.

skerrywind · 25/04/2017 14:22

granny- I agree.

Disgusting way to refer to pupils.

Trifleorbust · 25/04/2017 17:02

grannytomine;

Another example of the usual hyperbole directed at teaching staff! I have heard worse in every staff room I have worked in. I also made it clear it wasn't a totally serious comment, and also that I want those students who aren't clever (and there are many of them) to have something to celebrate.

Anyway. As I said, I am done on this point now.

Whathaveilost · 25/04/2017 17:13

Both my kids got 100% attendance through high school and got prizes and trips and meals out +shopping vouchers.yet I think it is so wrong for many of the reasons stated.

DS2's nan asked if he was proud of getting 100% and getting a fab day out to Douthport. His response was that he couldn't understand why he was being rewarding for going to school, like he was supposed to.
I have to agree with him.

grannytomine · 25/04/2017 17:17

Trifle you were well out of order and I don't believe your school would be happy. What teachers say in private to each other is a bit different to you telling the world how little respect you have for children. I hope you never teach any of my GC.

Trifleorbust · 25/04/2017 17:37

grannytomine:

I honestly don't think you live in the real world, granny.

FlyingSquid · 25/04/2017 17:43

I am in the minority but I am not about to change my mind

Why is that a point of pride, rather than listening to what other people can tell you?

Trifleorbust · 25/04/2017 17:43

FlyingSquid:

It isn't a 'point of pride'.

blaeberry · 25/04/2017 17:45

Trifle regardless of what you feel about these rewards, they are disability discrimination and are therefore illegal. I suspect the only reason schools have not been taken to court over them is because parents of disabled children have worse things to fight - like teachers who cannot understand how their actions and prejudices can destroy a child's education and mental health and instill predujice in their classmates.

Trifleorbust · 25/04/2017 17:47

blaeberry:

I am not sure you are correct. You may be, but it would take a test case to be sure. Meanwhile, I agree with you that there are other battles. I don't like your insinuation that I instil prejudice. I don't.

skerrywind · 25/04/2017 18:24

I don't like your insinuation that I instil prejudice. I don't.

Your dislike of that is not something I can get worked up about.

You are at best deeply insensitive. I can see that you also support prejudice.

Trifleorbust · 25/04/2017 18:46

skerrywind:

Well you are mistaken. That is all I can say, I suppose.

grannytomine · 25/04/2017 20:47

Trifle I live in the world of Senior HR professional. I have disciplined staff for similar offences when they have been identified.

I thought you were leaving, after your were leaving?

Trifleorbust · 25/04/2017 20:54

grannytomine:

Well I didn't.

And I'm sorry you won't get to discipline me, but I still dare to believe that most people, including 'Senior HR professionals' know when to remove the stick from their bum and accept that someone isn't being serious in their phrasing. Oh well, hope springs eternal, even in HR.

Sleepdeprivedredhead · 25/04/2017 20:58

Unfortunately various work studies suggest that teachers are very quick to judge, pigeonhole and label. Possibly a way to handle "getting to know" large numbers of people on a yearly basis. Basically the brain takes shortcuts. Don't be surprised!

grannytomine · 25/04/2017 20:59

Squirming are we? Yes the excuse is normally "I wasn't being serious."

Perhaps you should stop and think before you post, can you imagine how it feels to a parent with a child struggling at school to hear a teacher talking about kids being thick, stupid, useless or whatever insult you choose to use? When you are talking to parents about a child who is struggling do you want them to be thinking, "is she the one who calls kids thick?"

skerrywind · 25/04/2017 21:01

but I still dare to believe that most people, including 'Senior HR professionals' know when to remove the stick from their bum and accept that someone isn't being serious in their phrasing.

What a ghastly attitude.

Darbs76 · 25/04/2017 21:24

Way too much pressure - they do them in my kids primary and I hate them and I always say to my children oh congratulations to them for managing to avoid being sick and explain its not really something that should be awarded. If my kids are sick they are sick and I'd be really angry if other children suggested they had let the class down. I know that each class receives something they get to keep for a week if they have highest attendance so there's definitely some element of wanting your classmates in and I hate to think kids genuinely sick are being made to feel bad. All schools should scrap it, it's awful

zoemaguire · 26/04/2017 00:15

"Students who aren't clever (and there are many of them)."

Seriously? And you're a teacher? All children are clever. All children have potential. There are children who fall behind for various reasons, but low IQ is very rarely a reason. If you aren't careful, you will be that teacher that most kids who struggle at school remember, the one who confirmed their feeling (either actively or passively) that they were indeed as 'thick as a brickie's sandwich' (what a godawful phrase. I'm no HR professional but fucking hell.). Luckily, many children are resilient enough to eventually recognise this attitude as the nonsense that it is, and go on to achieve highly in their lives regardless. The damage it can do though is incalculable. Anybody who thinks non-academic children are so because they are 'thick' has no business being an educator.

Hairyfairy01 · 26/04/2017 00:24

Both my dc have a condition where they regularly need to see the physio and OT. Because of this they have never received the school award for attendance. It's nothing short of disability discrimation in my opinion.

Trifleorbust · 26/04/2017 02:36

zoemaguire:

Seriously, you have no idea of the lengths I go to in the classroom to help all children reach their potential. But no, not all children are clever. Again, this is the real world. Like adults, some children aren't clever. I see no point sugar coating it.

Trifleorbust · 26/04/2017 02:41

grannytomine:

I see your point. My language was unkind. Again, I can only emphasise that I didn't mean the unkind part. It was a joke. In the real world, we make jokes and our behaviours and feelings don't have to match them. The point of my joke was that we as teachers have to find ways to recognise the achievements of all pupils, including the pupils who are always going to struggle to attain because they are not clever. In the classroom, making pupils who aren't clever feel clever is part of my job. I not going to go as far as conceding that making the parents of all children on an Internet forum feel like their children are clever is part of my job. I think that is quite a precious attitude.

Trifleorbust · 26/04/2017 03:03

This has just brought the image of one student I am teaching at the moment sharply into mind. He is completely NT. No SEN. He doesn't have, as far as anyone is aware, dyspraxia, dyslexia or any other condition that makes him slow at learning. He is a delightful, funny lad of 14 and I have taught him, on and off, for two years. We get on brilliantly. But he isn't clever. He says things that are so blatantly daft that they render the children around him speechless. He takes a long time to answer a simple question. He is slow to complete his work. He struggles to think through a problem from first principles. He is what every teacher I know will tacitly (even if they aren't as blunt as I am about it) admit - he is not clever. I am not embarrassed in any way to say so. I differentiate for him. I meet his needs in the classroom. He leaves my lessons feeling good about himself. Why should I also pretend he is something he is not on the internet to a bunch of strangers?

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