To be angry my 4 year old was excluded

[monicafallulageller]

Name changed for this just incase I'm actually being unreasonable and I don't want to have to live it down!

My 4.4 has just started school. She has been there 2 weeks.

Last week were were sent home a bookmark type card where we have to write down how many minutes we have read with our child at home.

This week I forgot. I work from home full time, have an almost permanently unwell toddler. And I forgot.

Because of this, my child along with another whose negligent parent also didn't time their minutes, was sat inside the classroom while 43 other children were taken to the adventure playground in the 'big school' for an hour.

My daughter was told it was because mummy didn't bring her certificate in and they were disappointed and what a shame it was. She was also told she would be taking the class teddy home for the weekend but that was changed because of this.

I am so upset about this. She is at school 3.5 times more than she is at home every day. She goes to bed at 6:30 and gets home at 4pm. And she has been excluded because they can't monitor the reading done during those short hours she is home.

She is very bright. Easily top of the class already which they have said. I have a very relaxed attitude at home due to how long and tiring school is for her!

I feel really let down and hurt that she was treated like this because of my business and forgetfulness.

Aibu unreasonable to massively fucked off.

In my son's school they get a certificate at the end of the week if they have read 5 out the previous 7 days. And by certificate I mean a scrappy bit of A5 paper photocopied a million times. They get this every Friday for the whole of the infants school so the novelty disappears quickly. Golden time (going to the big playground on a Friday) is a reward for good behaviour which is something children can generally control.

This is really unfair, and I would certainly take your complaint further.

It's disgusting and pathetic of the school.

Are they trying to put her off school??!!

All these people saying formal complaint, Ofsted, write to your MP etc. - wouldn't you at least want to clarify first what had actually happened? I'm still wondering whether it's possible the missing certificate was actually a permission slip, and it's easy for a 4-y-o to get hold of the wrong end of the stick about a class teddy. I'm not saying that's definitely what happened, but I'd want to at least ask for clarification before going in all guns blazing. If it's definitely the case that she was excluded because of a missing reading card then by all means go down the complaint route because that's a completely unacceptable thing to do. But I'd want to discuss with an adult first to make sure I had the whole story.

@morningtoncrescent62

OP said she did clarify that this is exactly what happened.

morningtoncrescent62 OP's updates show that she checked with the teacher straight away.

OP, YANBU. Believe me, I am always against people who feel entitled, "not my kid" "not my fault" "why should we".... but in this case the punishment totally exceeds the crime.

The crime was yours not DD's. She is 4yo and too young to understand actions and consequences. They punish her in such a way that has really upset her and no doubt made you feel bad for not having done this.

My DD kept forgetting to take her home school diary in that recorded daily reading,she was reading avidly every day, but being punished by not being rewarded by the school. After taking it up with the HT, she told the class teacher to just "take it as read" that DD was clearly reading more than the expected time each day and to give her the points. She said that the system was supposed to encourage not punish!

Like I said before, I am totally against "entitlement" but in your case, they have gone totally overboard.

What Chillpizza said. Just make up the numbers and send it back.

I understand you are really pissed off (and I would be too). But it's just a stupid game and you just need to play by their "rules". I'm such a cow that I would write things like 762 minutes on Monday, 43.5 on Tuesday, -19 on Wednesday etc. so it was obvious I thought it was bollocks. But I'd still have filled it in "because it's the rule".

Mine are much older now but we got a random bollocking from a TA about not completing some garbage exercise when they were at primary school. I merely commented that it gave the other kids the chance to catch up a bit. The Head thought it was hilarious (we both quite enjoyed a few glasses of plonk at a parent function and she understood my views pretty well)

Also to the person who said I am unreasonable for not finding time to read to my child? We read multiple books every day. We have hundreds of books as we are all bookworms.

This was not a case of she was not read to, which is something I adore doing and make as much time for as I can. It was a case of juggling a toddler with her third chest infection of the year, and a full time job and filling in a fucking bookmark saying we read for 38 minutes on Wednesday.

Sorry, I didn't see the updates - I thought I'd RTFT but obviously not paying enough attention

In which case, no, YANBU. That's a horrible way to treat anyone, let alone a small child.

I’d do as suggested above and make up random times. 17 2/3 minutes Monday. 136 minutes Tuesday etc

Well I whole when she was kept back they dedicated a member of staff 1:1 to read with her then? Because the only reasonable (and then not really!) situation is that they want child to read so they make up the home hours in school instead of the adventure play.

I'd even go as far as asking them why they don't read in adventure playtime instead of adventure play instead of expecting parents to do it in the evening when they could be doing parents stuff like, I don't know - taking child to the park!

Reading at home is important. Logging it helps them know who is and who isn't. Punishing a 4yo isn't going to make parents who don't engage in books engage. Parents don't read everyday with their kids for a variety of reasons (EAL And illiteracy to name a few)

I'd be making it up randomly as I went along. The school is just asking to be lied to. What an utterly stupid policy! Way to turn off engaged parents who also happen to work and have real lives...

Can you speak to the Head? It sounds like a particularly vindictive teacher, children shouldn't be punished for something they haven't done in my opinion, it sends out wrong and confusing message that being held responsible for something that isn't your fault is ok (no offence mum not blaming you! Just don't think it's fair to blame / punish your little one) x

Absolutely bloody outrageous, I would report to OFSTED.

Reading at home is important. Logging it helps them know who is and who isn't.

In other schools that don't punish 4-year-olds for their parents' failure to log their reading, maybe the logs do provide a useful indicator. In the OP's child's school, I imagine many parents will "log" reading that hasn't happened in order to make sure their children don't get punished, so the time logged is probably unlikely to reflect the reality in most cases.

Wow way to go putting a child off learning, and one so little. I woukd be looking girls a new school, totally unacceptable.

Reading at home is important. Logging it helps them know who is and who isn't.

No one is doubting this. They are stating that all of the above is the parent's responsibility and if the school feel the parent isn't doing it well they should take it up with the parent not punish a child. OP will probably remember in the future (even if she just writes fabricated numbers) but there will be kids whose parents either don't care or don't find the time to do it and the kids should never be punished for that.

It's also probably the tip of the iceberg. What about attendance awards, punctuality awards? Awards for getting 100% in spelling tests. These "awards" which are really a way of passive aggressively punishing kids who don't meet certain standards create massive anxiety and resentment for very young kids who often have no control over it anyway.

Like pp said, fill in the stupid bookmark on Monday, put it back in the bag for Friday. Bloody ridiculous to punish your poor DD for that.

And here was I feeling guilty my year 4 child
Had been moved half onto the cloud because he had asked me twice and I had forgotten to write in his reading diary! He is 9
Years old so really I guess can write in himself if I forgot! In reception - having just started that's awful treatment and I think I would bring it up with teacher tbh!

That is atrocious.
I would be taking this a lot further.
Head Teacher first, then to the Governing Body if need be.
You do not punish or exclude a child for something that isn't even their responsibility.
I am appalled (as both a parent and a teacher).

Its cruel and bullying and punishing someone for something someone else has done or in this case not done is not something I would want my child taught. I would be looking to change schools over this, not because I regularly throw my toys out the pram but because I disagree entirely with their ethics and what values they are teaching their pupils.

Absolutely disgusting and I would go to the head. If they persist in this being their policy I’d be looking for another school.
I’m assuming it’s a “nice” school in a “nice” area. If they tried this at he school I worked with it’d be 43 kids kept in while 2 went to the playground.
It’s a horrible attitude and these teachers need to live in the real world.

Wow a lot if sanctimonious perfect parents out there who do it right all the time. Op forgot to fill it in as she was looking after her sick child ffs, not coukd not be bothered.

People have quoted 1 line of my post. Read the whole thing in context and you'll see I've said challenge school.