Teacher using the B - word.

[Cabanabar]

My sons Geography teacher has upset him by calling his handwriting ‘bad.’ Son is very dyslexic, has an EHCP and is in Year 7 of a mainstream boys school. Truth be told his handwriting is pretty illegible due to his difficulties with spelling and punctuation, but I feel he needs encouragement from teachers not this kind of negative language. The school has an intake of over 40% EHCP kids, if you’re wondering why I sent him there. I thought they would be more sensitive to issues surrounding dyslexia. I am thinking of making a complaint to the Head. AIBU?

Teachers are leaving the profession in droves and it’s partly because of the constant complaining of parents over the pettiest of things. If the writing is illegible it can justifiably be called bad. Far more constructive to contact the SENDCO and get a laptop organised - illegible or scruffy handwriting will not be pored over and carefully deciphered by time pushed and poorly paid examiners or teachers so it is a genuine access issue and needs addressing. If it gets addressed as a result of this conversation then the teacher has done you a favour

Chances are, if he has dyslexia, it is bad. Surprised he’s only hearing this for the first time in y7. Does your child agree with teacher? If so, encourage him to improve with handwriting exercises.

Op hasn't been back.

I'm calling bollocky bullshit.

Yes! I was running through every B word I knew in my head....at no point did I think 'Bad'

I think you need to help your son work on his resilience or life will be very tough for him in the future.

I thought they called the child a b!tch or something, bad is not such a bad word...

Also,some children have handwriting (sometimes because of SEN,sometimes because they just do) that you can't read and therefore mark anything. Ultimately, if the teacher can't read his handwriting ebcause it's illegible (and it does not matter if the school has an uptake of 100% EHCP students)- your child will suffer as the examiners etc in future won't be sitting with a microscope trying to decipher what the letters are. Bring up using of the laptop of handwriting workshops with the school.

If his handwriting is illegible then it is bad. The problem is his handwriting. By year 7 I would have thought he’d have some strategies.

Oh, I know. It's so tedious.

Indeed. The head (and I speak as a former secondary head) will pass it to the head of year to investigate.

💯

I thought you were going to say bastard.

DS is dyspraxic & dyslexic and his handwriting is bad.

Another zombie thread....from January

Good spot!

I expected Bloody Atrocious.

You can't get any marks for something that cannot be deciphered.

It's OK for your son to know it's bad and work on improving it.

Kids need to know. We can't shield them from life's realities. It's important. I have marked exam papers and they have gained no marks because I can't read it

Of course you could complain or you could think about what would help your ds improve. If you don't think that his handwriting is important then contact the school and ask that all his teachers ignore it and make no comment. Of course it might also mean that his handwriting gets worse. Students tend to ignore anything that isn't checked or pushed. This could impact on exams as it needs to be legible and revision as it is hard to revise if notes are illegible. If you want him to only use ICT, you need to address this with the SENCO. The teacher may well have said that he needs to try and improve his handwriting. This is a factual statement. If you jump too quickly to assume that everything said is a personal attack then you will find that people avoid dealing with you and may well avoid pushing your son to achieve his best. That would be a shame.

My now adult ds’s handwriting was horrific and almost totally illegible. I have no idea how the poor teachers read a single word. He knew it was terrible and neither of us would have given a stuff if a teacher called it bad. It was. Still is. However he can write really impressive stuff on a keyboard, if he puts his mind to it.

OP, that's the sort of thing that really upset me and my SEN DS when he was little. But with hindsight, rather than make a fuss, I'd use that as an example of teaching him resilience. If we can teach our children not to feel broken and crushed by criticism, especially badly worded criticism, then we are doing them a huge favour later in life.

You could say, 'That's not a very nice word but he just wants you to work on making it more readable. How do you think you could do that? Get him to use squeezy balls to build his wrist muscles and to have arm wrestling comps with you. Get him rubber or foam grips that slide onto the pen. Get him to do drawings with lots of repeat swoops and loops in (waves, fish scales, roof tiles, rows of faces at a footy match etc.) tell him it doesn't matter too much how the teacher phrased it, what matters is that he raised a concern and DS can do something about it.

I don't see the issue

My handwriting is bad. Abysmal actually. Teachers always told me so.

My parents just laughed with me about it

Never really held me back although some
Examiners may have struggled to read my work

I’ve heard it all now.. so you can’t say someone has bad manners, a bad attitude or bad luck because it sounds too judgmental 😂