AIBU to ask whether your child's teacher has ever picked up on something being awry?

[OhDeez]

It happened to me once. I got a phone-call to collect dd1 from school as she was complaining of a pain in her tummy. Her teachers were all lovely. Genuinely kind teachers and she adored them. When I arrived, her teacher asked whether everything was alright at home, because she said it's most unlike her - 'Is everything ok at home?'. I of course lied and said that everything was fine, but in fact, the teacher was spot on - something had happened the day before. DD1 always loved school but the teacher could sense that there was nothing up with her physically, but that there was something up. You don't get that sort of intuition or concern from most teachers I suspect, but I was appreciative that she was totally attuned to dd - probably saw her more hours of the day than I did really!

Has anyone else had a kind teacher pick up on something?

TBH I didn't even realise that dd had picked up on anything being wrong, but it clearly had affected her. She just wanted to come home to see that I was ok.

Teachers especially in primary are loco parentis (in place of parent). They spend 6 hours a day with the little darlings. You know your kids, you know if they are not themselves or if there is something unusual. It of course helps massively if parents communicate things from home and this can be small stuff from a hamster dying to marital troubles. You would be amazed what kids pick up and what effects them.

We definitely notice when things aren’t quite right. Some things are very obvious, a normally outgoing child being very quiet one day or them using the loo a lot more often, or usually polite but suddenly really irritable. Especially in primary when usually they’re with you all day.

I'm constantly surprised by how much we do notice about the children in class (I'm a newish TA so still picking this all up).

As others have said, we notice when the talkative ones are quiet, when the quiet ones are more anxious than usual, the ones that lack confidence in some areas, the ones that struggle to listen/read/write, the ones that are going to the loo more, the ones that are off their food, the pale ones etc.

Sometimes it's stuff we mention to the parents, sometimes we take temperatures/give extra drinks/ encourage to eat, sometimes extra support is put in place.

I had no idea how much the teacher and TAs kept an eye on the kids, and yes it is expected, but also there is genuine care and concern too.

I was a parent volunteer, and used to go in weekly to hear children read. I would always pass something onto the teacher if I felt something was different with a child or they said something that I thought needed passing on. Not usually a safeguarding matter but things like a little boy saying the words were jumping all over the page when he was trying to read to me, or the little girl who seemed to be holding her book closer and closer to her face whilst trying to read.

DD (10) has Tourette’s. The first person to notice her tics was her year 1 teacher when she was 5. It made us take notice and we were a little blind to it, to be honest, until she pointed it out. It’s since got a lot worse, and would have become obvious to us in the end anyway, but I’ve always been grateful to her teacher for noticing.

I'm a teacher and I can almost definitely pick up when someone is going on a home. I can't explain how but the child is just "different" than normal. Certain little behaviours etc are usually the biggest tell-tale signs.
I currently have one boy (aged 10) in my class who is really acting up lately, getting into a lot of trouble, his work is a mess etc and I KNOW something is wrong at home. Parents are denying it when I asked if everything was ok but I heard from someone who lives in the local area that things most certainly are not. So I'm trying to help this child without the support of the parents. Tough.

*something
Not someone

On the other hand we had a teacher a couple of years ago who was very nice but VERY keen to label children as “anxious” about things - no idea why. On one occasion she approached me with a worried look and said my DS looked “extremely anxious” before he had to do a reading in chapel - I mean, it was a reading in front of about 350 children and he was 7 years old! Of course he was a bit nervous.

And then she called me in after school one day and said my DS had been quiet and withdrawn that afternoon and was everything ok at home? I couldn’t think of anything but when I asked him (he seemed fine to me) he said “oh yeah, I lost my ball at lunch time”

She meant well. But I would prefer that she asked and everything was fine than didn’t notice if something was bad.