to be annoyed at my son’s teacher?

[ChipmunksInAttic]

I have a 9 yo and he’s brilliant at maths, history, geography and he’s a very good reader. We’ve always received good feedback from school so far at parent evenings etc, encouraged for grammar schools.

Today at school he took an equipment which he was specifically told not to play with yesterday, and broke it by mistake. It’s not an expensive thing, and we’ll replace it of course. It was wrong of him for sure, but in my eyes it’s just a mistake.

But the teacher was really cross with him. She pulled me in at school pickup and told me about this. Then she showed me some of his work at school, which she rightfully said was poorly done. She said these are not up to their standards at all, and she was not happy at all with his attitude too. I said I’d talk to him and we’d work on it to get it better.

I’m not saying any of these were wrong, I think in essence she believes her instructions are being ignored and I don’t blame her for complaining about it.

But to be honest presentation of his work was never very good, his notebooks were always messy but given the good feedback we thought they didn’t care about it so much. I’m a bit annoyed we’re being told about this only now, when she’s angry with him. That just makes all the previous praises questionable. I’m also annoyed she made all these complaints in front of him. He already thinks she has other favourites and he’s not one of them. Shouldn’t she have told this to me privately without upsetting and discouraging him? Or did he need this wake up call?

Perhaps he has developed a bit of a tween attitude and become a bit slap dash with his work when he is capable of more.
Perhaps this has all been building and its all come out now?

The teacher probably said don't touch the equipment because she was hoping to get one more year's use out of it.
Assuming he's not ND, it's normal for a 9yo to remember what was said yesterday. It's also normal for a 9yo to occasionally ignore or go against instructions (especially from a parent) Are you sure the teacher wasn't hinting at an issue like ADHD?
If grammar school is the goal then a primary that has high expectations of him is good for achieving that. If he is as sensitive as you then you might need to consider whether or not grammar is right for him because expectations will be intense. It's better to hear what he needs to work on now than for him to be allowed to coast out of kindness which is what grammar school will be like.
Is this the first time that you've been told that he needs to work on something ? If he's always been amazing at maths etc, this will be a bit of a shock but it's good for building resilience. It's much better that he has the chance to do this now than when he's older and his adolescent brain tries to resist.

And the things that she said need work are the things which don't matter as much lower down the school.

But it's about expectations at his current age.

He can completely understand the topics, be really bright wtc but hw still needs to do the basics like underlying titles.

This was my son! He was bored so would take his mind away from the boredom by doing other things whatever was within reach. His Maths was exactly the same - correct but no workings. We had to teach him how to set out the workings and write it down in a legible way! It took him years to learn that getting it correct was only half the marks and the other half were for the workings! If it made no difference to the mark then he'd just put the answer. 🙄

Thank you for all the comments. I understand I was BU.

To my defence, I’ve already had a lengthy conversation with him before posting here, I’ve already told him I won’t accept this behaviour and I’ve already set up consequences, i.e. he’ll be paying for the equipment from his allowance for the next 4 weeks. I’m not trying to go back at the teacher or side with my son, but I’m trying to understand both sides.

I will be of course supporting the teacher’s stance, I didn’t mean to badmouth the teacher here, I just asked what would be the best approach after the fact. I never said I was angry with the teacher, I did listed everything my son did wrong and accepted it, but I was a bit annoyed that stuff I felt we should have been warned about earlier surfaced only when he broke something accidentally, and he had to listen in tears how poorly he was doing at school.

It seems it’s the norm to include the children in the feedback, and I understand from your comments that any teacher would do the same and she did the right thing being open about it.

So I drop the subject now, thanks again for sharing your thoughts. :)

@ChipmunksInAttic - I just want to clarify something with you. You started the thread and the subject of the thread is "AIBU...to be annoyed at my sons teacher" and you subsequently post "I never said I was angry with the teacher". Some might think that angry = annoyed and the words are interchangeable in some circumstances.
Can you clarify whether you meant that annoyed meant angry in this case?
People are not usually happy when they are annoyed. They are usually slightly or more than slightly angry. It is usually used to show angry irritation. I'm just confused here when you say you weren't angry with the teacher but you were annoyed with the teacher??? They are the same, aren't they??

I think this needs to be broken down into two different issues.

1. Taking & breaking equipment. Wrong. Yes you should pay and he needs to apologise.
2. Poor performance being highlighted at the same time. Wrong on the part of the teacher. It wasn't the time or place and it wasn't appropriate.

Teacher was right to address the issue of breaking equipment and rightly upset. However, if bad behaviour suddenly manifests and school work standard drops off then this should be alerting to the teacher to potential problems, and could be considered something to subtly monitor/watch in case of safeguarding concerns. Confronting a parent in front of a child like this could potentially raise further issues.
If poor work quality/performance has been an ongoing issue then school should have already raised this and suggested ways to help - whether this is in the standard form at a parents evening/open classroom/whatever form parental updates take place, by phone, email or asking you to come in.

I felt we should have been warned about earlier surfaced only when he broke something accidentally, and he had to listen in tears how poorly he was doing at school.

I imagine that of the teacher listed every low level disruptive behaviour or thing your son needed to work on every time it came up, you'd perceive it as overwhelming, negative and petty.

Do you honestly think teachers have got time to let all parents know every time a child has sloppy behaviour or work? They'd never get anything done.

The teacher rightfully noticed a pattern of behaviour. Be grateful they can make the links and are doing their job properly by taking next steps and informing you, rather than burying their heads in the sand or overwhelming you with information on separate occasions.

I suggest you buy them a bottle of wine as I imagine your attitude came across to the teacher.

Today at school he took an equipment which he was specifically told not to play with yesterday, and broke it by mistake

but in my eyes it’s just a mistake. It could only be a mistake if he's too dim to have understood what he was specifically told. Is he?

It sounds to me as if the teacher was talking to you about something that needed addressing straight away (the broken equipment) and took the opportunity to raise other smaller things that she might not have otherwise bothered with until parents' evening (when you might have then posted a thread wondering why you weren't told earlier).

It might be that your child's behaviour is slipping, or it might be that he's not keeping up with the increased expectations as he gets older. Something that was fine last year, is not necessarily fine this year.

When I said I’m annoyed I meant I’m bothered. English is my second language so I may not be expressing myself correctly but I think anger is much more stronger, no?

I’m definitely not angry with the teacher and definitely didn’t and wouldn’t show any disrespect to her. I’m however feeling bad for my son and hence I asked here for opinions, with the aim of improving the situation. I don’t intend to blame anyone, apologies if I upset people, and teachers here.

You don't intend to blame anyone (for your son's poor behaviour) but you're annoyed at / bothered by the teacher? 🤷🏻‍♀️

that’s not very kind, is it? we’re talking about a child here.

he was in tears and apologised, I do believe him when he says he just forgot about it. He normally never takes stuff without asking, this is a first and he deserves to be forgiven when he apologises, I think. who’ll believe in him even if his mother doesn’t?

I love that he can't remember being told not to touch it yesterday but can remember that he used it last week. Selective memory, I think they call that.

YABU, OP. God knows why we still have any teachers.

yeah. I don’t intend to blame anyone, but I’m bothered and asking for opinions? I do respectfully accept when everyone says I’m BU, what’s the problem? Shouldn’t have I even asked?

I’m not defending wrong behaviour. Yes it doesn’t make sense, but he’s just a kid. I do forgive him as he apologised, as well as the teacher. You’re missing the point, I wasn’t asking if she was right or wrong about breaking school equipment, I know she’s right of course! But I forgive it and that is a smaller part of the issue, I’m more worried about the attitude problem, and sharing and asking here because I thought being confronted about it wouldn’t help him.

I get your point that this kind of a wake up call was appropriate in this situation and I accept it.

But please stop making harsh comments, these are upsetting me.

"He normally never takes stuff without asking, this is a first and he deserves to be forgiven when he apologises, I think. who’ll believe in him even if his mother doesn’t?"

You are not doing your ds any favours by believing him when his teacher has specifically painted a very different picture. She's pointing to long-running problems with his attitude and effort in school, and you're arguing the toss. She's showing you his work as evidence. You're upset no one brought it up sooner. But she's bringing it up now.

Your ds had run up hard into a teacher with high expectations. This is a good thing. Support the teacher and encourage ds to buck up his ideas.

If the teacher didn't care, she'd ignore this and not mention it to you. That is certainly the path of least resistance, and it sounds like many teachers before her have not bothered challenging your view of ds. This teacher cares enough to say something.

And yes, neatness matters. More and more as they move up the year groups. Neat, organised work that is easy to read and shows a logical progression of thought is indeed one of the major things we try to teach.

I’m not really sure why you are making such a drama. He’s a child he didn’t listen to his teacher and broke something, she was cross rightly so and told you etc

these things happen, kids are silly sometimes. Honestly let it go and don’t let it stress you.

It is hard for a parent to listen to negative things about their child when they thought the opposite and find out what little X is really like at school.
Sometimes it can be a change of friends that bring on a massive personality change in your child. I know, my grandson has changed since he started high school. He is much more spirited and a bit giddy at times.
The teacher was being honest with you OP and you need to process this and I believe to back the teacher up. I bet the favourites are the ones who engage in lessons and not mess about and touch things they have been told not to

Who deserves encouragement, and for what?

Your son is responsible for deliberately disobeying the teacher's clear instruction and doing WTF he wanted with predictable results.

It is not credible that no teacher had ever spoken to him about messy work. So yet again, he's responsible for ignoring the teachers comments and doing WTF he liked.

He seems to have acquired an attitude of entitlement; who is responsible for encouraging that?

It sounds like you're confusing positive encouragement with indulgence. He might be academically very able but that isn't a reason to excuse poor behaviour. You don't need to be horrible to him but you do need to set boundaries and make it clear that he needs to listen to his teacher and respect other people's property. Ensure he umderstands that actions have consequences etc.

That’s really interesting. I wonder if this applies at higher levels too?

My DS (13) was reminded about writing down his workings out in Maths.

Unfortunately, he does a lot of the arithmetic in his head so has completed several steps before he gets to a point of writing something down. He scored 100% in the last end of term maths test and she knows he’s always done it that way, but she still mentioned ‘writing down the steps’ in her comments. I can also do complex sums in my head so I couldn’t understand why she was labouring that point as it wasn’t explained any further.

So the onl;y reports you want from school are nice ones! In my experience both as a parent and a teacher the negatives can be far more valuable, pointing out where improvements can be made.

This comment and several of the ones following are over the top hostile and twist op’s words. Annoyed and angry are not the same thing. Op has been very open and mild yet all the harsh comments raking her over the coals are out of proportion to her situation and her courteous manner toward you all. You’re being very unkind in my opinion, overly harsh. She is obviously not ‘one of those parents’. Take a look at yourselves and reread your comments.

That’s really interesting. I wonder if this applies at higher levels too?
My DS (13) was reminded about writing down his workings out in Maths.

This, with knobs on, for example if an answer is written down incorrectly, a transcription error, very few marks will be lost. I once had one of 'those Mums' argue with me because both her cherub and his friend had the same wrong answer, she's not only forensically checked her son's paper but also his friend's paper, but the friend had been awarded 2 of the 3 marks. I got fed up of trying to explain that the other boy had shown his working that led to the common error, her son hadn't. Eventually I told her son to try and get through to her.