Terrible class teacher causing concern amongst parents

[DodgyMcDodgerson]

My son is in Year 2. To briefly summarise, his class teacher shouts at the class frequently, there’s alot of punishments both individual and whole class, alot of putting kids down and responding to them very abruptly.
most of the girls in the class are terrified of her (as in to the point some girls are crying coming into school, another little girl wet herself rather than interrupt the teacher to ask to go to the toilet. When the girls mother suggested her daughter had been nervous to put her hand up in case she got shouted at, the teacher completely dismissed this as unthinkable). There are a few boys in particular who she seems to really
single out to tell off, and these are lovely kids - not unruly or being disruptive. She’s telling one boy off for not understanding the work as an example. The kids are unanimous in their dislike of her. The parents in the class are unanimous in their dislike of her.Literally not heard one positive word about her.
one child has already transferred to a different school and there is talk of more
following.
bearing in mind that this is not even 6 months into a new job and in a class of 28 children there have already been at least 5 complaints (that I’m aware of) - is this teacher likely to remain at the school????

Definitely complain. We had an awful TA once but she would be in charge of the class 1 day a week. My child said she was mean and then one day we were let in the playground at pick up to wait outside the class, and she was screaming at them so loud us parents went in to the class to tell her to calm down. She's still at that school now some how.

This

Why are so many people not willing to hear that a teacher may not be coping in their position?

I had a teacher like this in primary and I’ve never forgotten the red face shouting in the kids faces and the fact that everyone was terrified of them. That’s not ‘good discipline’ that’s a person who cannot handle when things get out of control. The children will not be learning. You cannot learn if you’re terrified.

This is a teacher who cannot cope and needs training or a new career. OP you’ve had some great advice on here, you need to do this formally and support the children.

I have come across some right old stinkers both personally and professionally. Most teachers have hearts in the right place, so the occasional bad ones stand out. Weirdly, in my experience, they were very attractive women.

I wet myself in year 3 because I was too scared to ask the teacher during an exam. And in Year 4 I had a horrible teacher who use to bully us by saying we were too stupid to know the answer to a question.

Wierdly the strict teachers we had in 5 and 6 were the most reasonable and lovely I guess its not easy to manage a class of 30+ kids.

My son had a terrible teacher. She was rude , shouted a lot. (I volunteer in school and I'm on the board of governors so yes I do know) among other things she re distributed my sons 1:1 which is stated in his ehcp he needs and receives external funding for. At least five parents complained including myself. She received a promotion to deputy head the following year.

Make an appointment to see her , the head of year and head of school and if you don't get satisfaction tell them you are contacting governors and council

Teachers should not be untouchable. The responses on this thread are bonkers. The implicit threat of "ooh they will get a cover supervisor in if this teacher leaves how'd you like THEM apples" and all the passive aggressive "no wonder there's a recruitment crisis". Yes, but some people are just shit teachers - because of their own temperament or lack of training or temporarily due to stress jn their lives at that moment.

Children don't need to be traumatised every day. They get one shot at childhood. I am sure this teacher is exhausted, ground down and dealing with some poor behaviour, but you need to write down facts - just what your own child experiences down and make a complaint.

I had a friend who pissed themselves in Year 5, that teacher's behaviour did escalate and she began locking children in cupboards and making us clean the floor of the school hall with toothbrushes as a punishment. I can believe it happens.

If parents have a complaint about a teacher the correct thing to do is to approach the head directly with concerns about their own child.

I’m not saying this teacher is perfect - I teach myself and know that they’re are unsuitable/inadequate teachers thanks to the govt driving a lot of good teachers out.

However, you simply cannot complain about anyone based on something you’ve read in a whatsapp group about someone else’s child/children.

Agree.

I always remember there was a teacher like this in my primary school. Long before the WhatsApp days there was no witch hunt she was truely awful. Parents definitely complained but she stayed.
She took pleasure in humiliating children.
I'll alway remember at lunch time she would blow her whistle to make everyone stop playing. She would call someone's name out and make them come to her in front of everyone and scream in their face. It happened to me once as I hadn't heard her whistle for the first telling off. Me and my friend had carried on playing probably for an extra 10 seconds until we noticed. She screamed our names and screamed in our faces I was remember shaking and being mortified. In class later my own teacher took me to the side and gave me a hug.

I think the quality of some teachers going into primary teaching in particular is a concern. It's no longer essential to have Maths or English at A level or degree. You can simply do a teacher training degree following on from a vocational A level equivalent course. Sorry if that sounds snobby but I'm glad my children have already completed primary school. This teacher may just be terrible and well educated. That's more than possible but in years gone by they would have been removed from their post pretty quickly - now we're desperate for anyone. People need to wake up to the fact that teaching is being deliberately downgraded as a profession and this is one of the consequences.

This is just not true. For many years most primary teachers didn’t have proper degrees at all and qualified from teacher training colleges. The only change is that now teachers in primary seem to be able to be fully qualified in 3 years rather than 4 but when that is the case they have done a lot of in school practice.

@cansu i completely agree with you - little johnny is a sainted angel how dare you tell him off. Scrote in real life

You need to review the schools complaints policy and make sure complaints are made through that process and increasingly escalated.

I had a teacher like this in y5 in primary. I was a really well behaved child but after constantly being shouted at when I hadn't done anything I started answering back and telling the teacher I hadn't done anything. Other somilarly victimised children were constantly in tears. When the teacher told my mum at parents evening how awful I was my mum stood up for me which the teacher hated and thereafter she was even worse. She once sent me to the headmaster for being so naughty but as he knew what she was like, and that I was a good child, he was really nice to me. He told my mum it was a 'personality clash' between me and the teacher - how that could be the case when so many children were struggling I don't know. Luckily the teacher left soon after that.

I'd definitely complain if you have evidence of this victimisation.

Do you have specific concerns for YOUR child?

I have a better idea. How's about the system stops putting 30 kids in a class. Expect them all to be sit and behave, follow orders like sheep from the age 4, and behave and learn in exactly the same way, then the UK wouldn't need your idea. Finland lead the way! And much better teaching style to suit individuals needs.

@duvetdayy you sound awesome- again I blame the parents little johnny sees his dad act like a dick souting and carrying on so thinks to himself yeah I can do that aswell ...... hence disrespect

Overall it’s impossible to say whether the OP is unreasonable. The teacher might be awful and scary and the class sweet and innocent or it might be like my child last year where lots of parents complained about the teacher saying she was mean and picked on their kids. My husband volunteered on a few trips (not to spy just because he wanted to) and all of the kids whose parents were complaining were rude and disruptive.

You raise concerns about your own child with the school and that's it.

This sounds perfectly reasonable - but it’s a rule that’s very much designed in schools’ favour. Because it’s always easy to dismiss any issue as “oh, kids”. For example - my DD had a bloody awful class teacher one year. Everyone knew it; the school obviously knew it. DD reported someone having been in tears every day. And, according to my DD, he was particularly unpleasant to a little girl called Lucy. “I don’t think Mr Brian likes Lucy”, DD would say. And then another day, “I mean - Lucy can be annoying, but Mr Brian was really shouting at her and she hadn’t done anything that bad”. And so on and so forth. And I demurred from telling the other mother because not my business etc. I subsequently got to know her a bit better and the subject came up and the mother said that I was the fifth person to say it after the event. And I felt bad about that - because maybe if five people had told her at the time, it would have empowered her to speak to the school about it rather than just thinking that Lucy was maybe being a pain. And the school couldn’t dismiss so many reports as being down to one hysterical parent. And poor Lucy might have had a better school experience….

I don’t think you understand. Bad teachers do not exist. Teaching is a unique profession in this regard. When multiple parents and multiple children raise similar concerns about a teacher, it is because they are all lying or crazy.

Or some shit like that.

The rest of you who are dismissing her concerns out of hand keep saying that she wasn’t there and so can’t know the truth. Obviously it would be inconvenient for you if she were to visit the class and witness the teacher’s behavior directly.

My son had quite a few teachers who blatantly favoured girls over boys, even the girls noticed it (especially as they got older). It was so refreshing when he did get teachers who didn't view boys in relation to girls, and just saw the boys for who they were, even if a couple of them were a bit shouty! There are bad teachers, there are good teachers, there are stressed and overworked teachers, but sometimes what a child tells you might not represent the true picture at all. Instead of fostering a general dislike, you need to focus on specific things which you think this teacher isn't doing well, and then see if this is in fact the case in the classroom.

Teachers don't always behave the same when there are other 'visitors' present - not because they are hiding anything, just because it alters the dynamic.

That’s true, but that applies to all forms of of external observation. The observer tends to affect the behavior of the observed. It was certainly true when I taught. The children behaved differently (ie better) if the head teacher or deputy was in the classroom.

On the other hand, if the teacher is shouty and terrifying even when she knows a parent is there to see, that would imply there’s a pretty serious problem.