Unfair treatment of my daughter by class teacher

[Mummy20192]

Need some opinion please... my 9 yr old dd was very excited since summer holidays to return to school and to be able to run for the class eco monitor.. she did research on oceans, pollution over the lockdown all ready for election of the year. Anyways she won the ecomonitor role in class by democratic vote of her peers. She was super proud and excited.

Today she goes into school, and her teacher tells her that a senior member of staff has said that she has to share her role with the eco monitor of PST year as that child is very passionate about the environment.

My port dd is sad and embarrassed as she thinks her teachers think that she’s not good enough to be eco monitor even though her classmates voted for her.

I explained to her that’s it’s ok to share the role, but now I’m thinking that it’s completely unfair on the part of the teachers to put my child in this situation when no other children in the school is having to jobshare apart from my dd. Am i overreacting?

A new monitor has been elected, and the teacher has kindly suggested that both my child and the new monitor perform the role together.

Have you read the thread? 🙄

Teacher should have told the class it was a shared role with previous rep before the election . I'm 55 and still remember the hurt of being removed as elected netball captain when I was 10 to be replaced by the teachers favourite. I was told I could be deputy . So kind of her . It does actually matter.

@FridayNightAtTheBronze

Can you imagine a thread from the opposite side?

Hello Mumsnetters, last year my child was made environmental monitor, but due to the pandemic, she barely got to perform in the role.

A new monitor has been elected, and the teacher has kindly suggested that both my child and the new monitor perform the role together. However, the new monitor's mother has a problem with this.....

What do you think?

Exactly what I was thinking. That poor kid on the receiving end of such venom from an adult. I was also thinking of the teacher’s point of view...

sunglassesonthetable

Yes I read this looooooong thread. The last year's eco monitor is sharing the role, or did I miss something?

you missed loads.

@FridayNightAtTheBronze

sunglassesonthetable

Yes I read this looooooong thread. The last year's eco monitor is sharing the role, or did I miss something?

Nope. You haven’t missed anything

Exactly what I was thinking. That poor kid on the receiving end of such venom f

you haven't read it have you

who is receiving venom exactly? 😉

sunglassesonthetable

Please explain what I missed?!

There's this amazing new function on Mumsnet where you can read just the OPS posts and even then I couldn't find anything.

Last year's eco monitor sharing the role.
Current year eco monitor's mother not happy.

Not sure I missed anything there.

@sunglassesonthetable

Exactly what I was thinking. That poor kid on the receiving end of such venom f

you haven't read it have you

I have read it and utterly bemused by your attempt to monopolise it and your huge over investment. You don’t know the kid. You don’t know the reasons behind the teacher’s decisions. You really need to take a step back.

@sunglassesonthetable

who is receiving venom exactly? 😉

The other child and the teacher

I was also thinking of the teacher’s point of view...

Teacher handled it very badly. You can think of a hundred reasons and excuses, but if the thing is so trivial at the end of the day - scrap it altogether. No need to create a conflict situation.

No not unhappy about " sharing the role"

unhappy about the PROCESS and the handling of it

No "kind explanation "^^ Don't know where you got that.

yep you seem to have missed stuff

sunglassesonthetable
who is receiving venom exactly? 😉
The other child and the teacher

You DEFINITELY didn't read this thread. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

sunglassesonthetable

Starting to think the hobby/career thing applies to you too.

OMG have you any idea how stressful the life of a teacher is in this new world we are in?
Please stop being ridiculous,

@Mummy20192

I wouldn’t have a problem if the teacher chose two children to share the role.. that would have been great.. two heads better than one.. but the problem is, when the teacher says we are going to vote to choose our next eco monitor.. then 3-5 children prepare and present a speech, class votes and declares the children who have all been selected for their roles through peer votes and then after one day teacher says oh wait... another member of staff thinks that another child in the class would do a better job.. so let’s job share... shouldn’t the job share be decided before 29 children voted on who they want as their class ecomonitor? So next time we get a pm by election and the queen thinks someone is passionate, should the pm have job share Because life isn’t fair?

You do realise that most of the kids really don't care who get the various rep roles and just vote for their mates most of the time.

tbh @FridayNightAtTheBronze* @AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken *

you just piled in being really rude.

Take a break.

I am over invested . I'll leave you to have a read.

Starting to think the hobby/career thing applies to you too.

tbh is that everyone who doesn't agree with you?

sunglassesonthetable

I am over invested . I'll leave you to have a read.*

I don't even know what this means. I have an opinion. Something which is (currently) allowed on Mumsnet. I'm sorry that you can't handle other opinions than your own.

sunglassesonthetable

tbh is that everyone who doesn't agree with you?

Actually no I really do need a hobby or career myself. I just can't have one right now (cleft lip and palate child, surgeries, therapy, assisted feeding etc etc etc). I would LOVE a hobby or career though. Here's hoping for the future.

This is one of those times when it isn't what you say but how you say it that counts. Resilience is a skill that can be developed, but you need to be given chance to practice it! So be told in advance that you will be sharing the role. Then you have chance to get over your original disappointment and move onto the positives of having someone to split the work with. Rather than be told in public you will be giving up half the role (and probably be expected to be happy for the other girl then as well). The teacher messed up because she didn't think how it would feel to the OP's daughter. She could have handled things better.

And I actually don't think the role share is entirely fair to the OPs daughter. Having fairly won the position she has to share it with someone else - who also got time last year on her own in the role , which could be 6 months if the role runs Sep-Jul. The other girl ends up with much more time as Eco Monitor than the OP's daughter (as well as the Library Monitor role).

I don't know if I would say anything to the teacher if I was the OP as any thing the teacher does now regarding the eco monitor role is likely to make things worse. I think I would wait and see if this was a one off.

I was on the receiving end of similar treatment in the workplace and it was very upsetting. The second time I was expected to compromise my own wellbeing to give a colleague a boost was when I decided to start looking for a new job. I'm not suggesting that the OP consider other schools - just giving context that this sort of thing is upsetting at any age!

@MissHoney85

I suspect that what has happened here is that the other child's parent has also contacted the school to say something along the lines of "my DC never gets chosen for anything, it's all a popularity contest, that girl gets chosen for everything" etc. Teachers have their reasons for making decisions like this and I can promise you it is not because they have 'favourites'. It's best just to stay out of it and not get yourself a name as a difficult parent this early on in the year.

Actually, it may be that this teacher had their reasons in this instance. But you simply cannot promise it is because teachers do not have favourites. As a witness to utterly shameless favouritism towards a child in my daughter's class (said child's parents were both famous) and having watched my friend's children get chosen for everything, literally everything in their school (their mum was on SLT - it really was that sycophantic). I don't believe for a minute that these decisions are made with good intent in all cases. I used to shrug it off with my daughter and we laugh about it now - how openly outrageous it was. We parents used to just eye-roll at any results because they were a complete foregone conclusion. And there was a good learning curve to it for my daughter (that life isn't always fair and that sometimes people behave badly) - but it is still felt hard on them at such a young age.

@FridayNightAtTheBronze

I'm sorry to hear about your mum.

Not wanting to derail - just wanted to give a hand hold. It is hard having a baby with a cleft. Which isn't saying that having a baby without a cleft is easy, only that babies with a cleft end up on a very different journey to other babies the same age, that is both time consuming and isolating.

Please email the school. Teachers need a giggle in the current climate.