What would you do about this teacher

[Samcj02]

Hi,
what would you do in this situation? My daughter has struggled through high school, they think she has adhd but we don’t really have any issues with her at home. They say it’s because she’s a girl and that I and primary school have missed the signs.
anyway today I had a phone call from the school saying she’d had a bad day with a teacher and she needed to be collected right away, this was at 2.50pm her bus gets there at 3.30pm. I explained that I’d had to pick up her younger sibling from school this morning as he’d been sick and couldn’t leave my house with him. Her dad was over an hr away working also, anyway they did allow her to stay in the office and wait for her bus.
she arrived home absolutely distraught and sobbing saying this teacher had been really horrible to her. She accidentally spilt her water on the table and the teacher accused her of throwing it on purpose.
she was struggling with the work and asked for help, the teacher refused and then put her in isolation for not finishing the work which she couldn’t because she didn’t understand. This teacher also taught her brother and tells her all of the time he misbehaved and was horrible to teach, which I don’t know what has to do with DD And feel like she doesn’t like her because of her brother 🤦‍♀️
she then shouted at her that she didn’t want to see her on Monday and tried to suspend her after being in isolation for a while and taking her to the office for myself to be called!
i am worried it’s gcse year and she’s not learning anything 🤦‍♀️

I’ve had no correspondence from the school regarding suspension so I assume she’s not been. But AIBU to think this has been blown out of proportion? And the teacher should’ve helped her? 🙈

thank you for this!

And your professional connection is…?

It is Saturday tomorrow. Buy her a reusable bottle. Use once bottles are a fudging nightmare in the classroom.

You need to go to your gp and get then to start the ball rolling for adhd. School cannot do anything without that.

shipping her off to college

Also known as 'Woking hard and securing a placement in a setting which is more suitable for her needs and to get a qualification in something she's interested in'.

Your negativity towards the school shows.

Objectively your daughter has messed around in one lesson, been sent to isolation, kicked off so badly while in there you've had to be contacted to take her home.

Sounds like the impact she is having on learning is high and not in a good way.

Phone up and find out the facts on Monday but stop backing your daughter. She needs to apologise for her behaviour and at least try during the lesson. If she won't write anything how can the teacher know what she does or doesn't know.

As a parent of multiple children with ADHD, my advice would be to focus on getting that aspect addressed through proper diagnosis and treatment (meds/adhd coaching). It sounds like her older brother has it too, so I’d also be getting him assessed. If possible, I’d pay to go privately (even if I needed to borrow) and expedite the process if she is approaching critical school years. The school may be rightly frustrated that the ball was dropped on this, or it can be a case where puberty exacerbates the symptoms. While the school could be better with accomodations, it’s ultimately going to be addressing the ADHD that helps her with her challenges.

Definitely have that conversation OP. Even if she fucked up on Friday(depending on what the teacher says), fine, take the sanction if warranted, apologise, but how do they plan to support her and her learning further? DD also needs to be part of this. All the methods in the world won't work if they're not tailored to her and she's not on board/willing to try/believes they will help.

Not sure about the college thing, as it's not my area. What are the positives/negatives? What happens if it doesn't work? How will it affect her timetable/academics? Will it be on her record? Under what reason? And so on.. these are all questions you need to ask if you don't already know in order to make a decision. And of course, would DD actually want this?

id recommend not saying “clarifying what happened.” To your daughter. Just believe her. I, and a lot of others have been there” where you get blamed for shit you didn’t do because a teacher has made their mind up about you. Just be on her side. Especially if she does have adhd.

As someone who’s teacher took an absolute dislike to me for genuinely no reason, I say believe her. My mum didn’t until someone in her work mentioned she went through the exact same thing with said teacher!

My daughter can be an absolute handful at times and came to me saying one particular teacher was constantly on at her. She struggles with the subject and explained that the teacher was belittling her, saying if other people get it then why don’t you? Are you that stupid…. She, like me has no issues in any other classes or with teachers, I spoke with her guidance teacher who was going to keep an eye as they’d had a few complaints about this teacher. She was moved class and absolutely thriving with a teacher who has patience.

Ahh, you don't have a dyspraxic child...I don't know how they manage to.do.it either but they do manage!

She shouldn't be going to a college one day a week just a few weeks before her GCSEs!

She is the clumsiest girl! Honestly always covered in bruises, always falling over and bumping herself

Thank you! Yes this teacher has had complaints previously. My daughters friend who was also in the class has told her mum the same thing as my daughter that the teacher was out of line. I will of course call the school for clarification. Her HOY has actually just responded to my email and is going to find out what happened over the weekend.

Thank you! Yes the college thing im
in two minds about! I have the exact same questions!

I agree about college. I think it would help her. I get that. But there’s been a lot of back and forth with it. I no longer have any idea whats happening with college. At one point. I got told her behaviour and attendance isn’t bad enough to attend.

i have no negativity towards the school though unfortunately it’s has declined since covid, which is a shame as it’s actually a high school I attended myself

The college placement could be wonderful for her - her favourite subject, possibly with a less essay-based qualification than GCSE, so easier for her to reach her full potential with it, a different 'feel' to the teaching; she could absolutely love those days and get a valuable qualification from them, maybe she will decide that it's an environment where she'd want to continue her education post-16 as well. It's difficult sometimes to get through the referral tickboxes and schools are dependent upon the destination college actually processing it, so they might be unable to guarantee when (or if) she gets to go there in the end.

The squishy water bottles are also just too satisfying to squish (and overdo), by the way, so a normal sports bottle and a squishy fidget toy would be far better for school.

It's good that they're still trying to get support and diagnosis in place for her this late - the teacher talking about it being missed before is right, it is very often.

I used to teach.

I’ve this morning had confirmation that my dd is not allowed in school tomorrow. But have had no phone call
with the head teacher or anyone to
discuss why this has happened and what’s happened. Just an email to say it was due to defiance as she didn’t want to
miss the next lesson and stay in isolation. I’ll see what tomorrow brings. Thank you for all of your responses, and If she has done something seriously wrong then I accept the suspension, however to give notice on a Sunday and with no proper communication is poor practice in my opinion. I had read on line that legislation is the head teacher is to suspend children and to notify parents without delay?!

Wow that’s disgusting.
I would say from now on document everything. I’ve seen this before on a slippery downhill slope of yes not angel children but ones who would thrive with the right support that school refuse to give. Write down ever conversation from anyone and keep it together as evidence. It sounds extreme but you’ll be grateful if the situation gets worse.

also I’d be looking into who I could take this further too? SEND unit of the council? Governors? Ofsted?

In my school if a teacher sent a student to a time out area and the student refused to go then this was considered not following instructions and often got a suspension.

Essentially the teacher has asked her to leave the lesson for time out and by saying she wants to go to her next lesson instead she is refusing to obey instructions.

In my school I used to handle this by saying if you don't go I will have to record that you are refusing to obey instructions and we both know what that means. Now, are you going to go to time out and calm down or is this going go escalate and you get in even more trouble?

She will have done something in the lesson to justify the time out, and then it's the refusal to go that is the suspension.

Re the college - my school used to do this usually with students who were making it clear by their behaviour that they didn't want to be there. For some students it really helped them turn around - they could see something they wanted to do and they were less disruptive and worked better for their GCSEs.

I have had students who doodle and use fidget toys in class. I usually have to
Sit them at the back as it is incredibly disruptive for the whole class.

I am a teacher and I am often flabbergasted at the stories some of my pupils tell their parents when I have been perfectly reasonable in calling them out on their behaviour. For example, last week I gave a girl a behaviour point as she had come in eating a cake and when I politely asked her to put it away, she threw it into a box of exercise books smearing cream and dropping crumbs all over them. I called her out on this, and she said sorry with a smirk, to which I replied, « you don’t look very sorry » The next day there was a complaint from her Mum that I’d given her a negative point for « looking at me ».

It might seem reasonable to adults that she just wanted to go to her next lesson but the reality is that if she was that disregulated at that moment in time there would be no way that the next lesson would have been fine. Far more likely she would have taken that heightened state to the next lesson and got involved in more conflict to the detriment of both herself and every other child in that lesson. It’s not fair on anyone.

I suggest you ring the school tomorrow morning and ask to speak to the Head of Year. YABU to expect a phone call over the weekend.

I absolutely do not expect a phone call at the weekend. But on the Friday, yes I do!

said she’d had a bad day but then said it was just the last two periods with this teacher who’d put her in isolation. It was just someone from the office who called. I’ve not spoken to the teacher

Some schools have a policy of students going to an internal isolation if they rack up so many issues in the day.

If your daughter has had a bad day, then had a situation in this lesson then I could see how it might automatically trigger the rest of the day in internal isolation.
In those situations, I could also see how that might mean that she didn't have the choice to go to her final lesson because by that point she's already hit a trigger point for being removed from lessons that day.

It might be worth looking at the school behaviour policy to see if they have a similar approach.