Primary child sat only with non-English speaking children

[evilharpy]

I don't know if IABU so grateful for any opinions.

Daughter is in second to last year of primary and has just gone back to school (we are in Ireland, before anyone says it's too early) and they've been allocated to their table groups. The class is maybe 1/4 ESL children, 3/4 native speakers. She is on one long table with only children who have fairly recently moved here and don't speak much English sitting beside or really anywhere near her, certainly not close enough to talk to or pair up with for activities. Several of them are from the same country so speak each other's language.

Now I have no problem at all with ESL children being sat with or paired up with native speakers, how else are they supposed to learn, and I know the purpose of lessons is not to sit chatting to your friends, but she is worried she will be isolated and that she will end up spending more time helping them than doing her own work. She is very academic, if that's relevant, but is not at all prone to drama or moaning so the fact that she has told me she's worried about it has made me concerned.

WIBU to raise this with the teacher and ask if the tables could be mixed up a bit? Has anyone had a similar experience and it's worked out ok for the child?

I think the same.

Irish poster here too and a teacher. I agree. Give it a few weeks and just see. There's usually a reshuffle.

Perhaps the ESL children would feel more comfortable having someone near them who can speak their own language. It’s very scary starting school when you don’t understand the language and classmates aren’t friendly and welcoming.

I wouldn't say anything yet it may never be an issue. The schools only went back wed/ Thurs so it's only been a couple of days. If as you said they are very new to the state and not yet fluent in English they will likely be taken out for resource hours and also likely exempt from Irish so not present all the time in the classroom. If on the otherhand their English is good she'll be well able to chat with them. Keep an eye on it but give it a few weeks, at this stage teachers often move kids around anyway as they get to know the class group.

You have a concern. Raise it politely with the teacher.

I honestly do not understand people telling you to wait, or speculating on the teacher's reasoning. Just ask.

I'm a teacher and I never mind a parent asking a perfectly reasonable question or expressing a concern. It's okay to talk to the teacher about this.

This. Also, how frequently do they move? I have a shift around of talk partners every three weeks to ensure no one has to endure certain characters for too long. Might be worth asking how long the arrangement will be in place.

There's no harm in calmly raising your concerns. Your daughter's feelings are valid and deserve to be heard. At least then her teacher will be aware that it's a potential problem and can monitor the situation.

Putting the children who can understand one together another isn't necessarily a bad idea, but that goes for the English-speaking students as well. And while it does no harm to have students help one another during lulls in the day (not least because teaching something helps you understand it better yourself), no student should be taking on too much responsibility for another's education.

Their jobs don’t directly impact your child. You sound very approachable though, not at all domineering.

@mathanxiety has already mentioned the "TA by default" scenario; I have seen an example of this with a child with health support needs.
One of my colleagues was unaware of what was happening at first, as her DD , a pupil at another school, was a cheery soul, not worried by the situation, but it came out in conversation at home that one of her classmates needed regular help with trips to the toilet, and she happily agreed to help. She had to point out to her DD's teacher that her offspring was there for the benefit of her education, not to act as a 1:1 TA. The class teacher, realising that she was dealing with another class teacher, with a working knowledge of the provision which the other child was entitled to, eventually admitted that she had let a one-off incident slide into a regular set-up, which just happened to save the expense of paying a trained adult.

My daughter had this problem too in primary .She was v v upset - as usual the nice quiet shy kid gets moved to help the teacher out. Everyone has to take their turn fine I understand that. But she had 2 sets of non English speaking kids, with their 2 buddy's talking to them in that same language, and then just her in silence. She became very lonely very quickly. Meanwhile across the classroom she watched all her other friends happy at their tables uneffected.
After 2 weeks I asked the teacher if she was aware that my daughter was very sad and now not wanting to go to school anymore all of a sudden?
Answer was no....she hadn't noticed.
She did get changed fairly quickly after that.
Be your child's voice..... credit to the teacher for moving, but if they don't know they can't help.
Agree, it might annoy the teachers table planning but your child isn't there to problem solve that - school is tough enough in London schools as it is.
Be that parent....wish my mother had.

Oh WOW

Expected to help manage crappy male behavior as a primary schooler. I hope you told the teacher exactly what you thought of that!!

The misogyny is astounding

This.
Out of all the other noise on this thread THIS is what matters.

Your child has raised it with you.
Your job is to raise it with teaching staff.

OP one of the things I've learnt now being a mum of teens, is that too much concern about being 'that parent' can lead to you not advocating enough for your child when your child needs you.

Obviously there is a balance, and going in guns blazing isn't the way forwards, but your daughter has raised a concern with you, it makes sense she'd be worried (a lot of adults would be in the same situation!) and one of your roles as a parent is to help ease her through these types of things. She's too young yet to do it herself (over time your role will change to supporting her in how to approach issues herself). Don't wait it out until after Halloween because it might change - would you do that yourself if you were really unhappy with where you were being made to sit in the office for some reason? Of course not, you'd talk to your boss.

You may well not have the full story, the teacher could be planning a shift around next week or maybe this is the only option for some reason and your DD will need to suck it up. Whatever it is, a (gentle) conversation with the teacher is a good thing - if she disagrees with you that this is a problem then you can work to understand her reasoning, and ask her for suggestions on how to support your DD's anxiety about this.

Nope, not acceptable. It's always the nice quiet compliant girls that are used for these things. Your daughter has told you she's worried, she needs you to advocate for her. Support her and go and see the teacher. Tell her you are doing this otherwise in future she may not come to you for support.

As regards letting teachers just do their job - perhaps that poster should look around at what some teachers (in the uk) are doing to break trust. For starters they tell children that they can change gender, use a different name and then tell the children they don't have to tell their parents. Things like this have broken parent / teacher trust. My job as a parent is to stand up for my child, I appreciate children get the facts wrong and it's important to tread carefully however 'just seeing how it works out' never ends well and is not an option.

My DD has this too. She got so upset that I spoke to the teacher. She ended up sitting by herself for a while and was so happy!

Good that the teacher responded but very alarming that she hadn’t even noticed how sad your child was.

Don't worry in the slightest. Your child is going to be ok. She is not being attacked or bullied and if she loves learning, nothing will stop her

It might work out fine. I'd give it 2 or3 weeks before wait with the teacher.

I wasn't attacked or bullied per se and I came out with the best results in my year. However I was sad and isolated and struggled to make friends all through Primary, something that continued to affect me for a long time afterwards.

School is not just about academic results!

I think adults forget how differently time passes for children. This child has only lived for one quarter of the lifetime of a 40 year old. For all the adults saying 'Leave it a few weeks' please bear in mind that 3 weeks to a child feels like two or three months.
Much better to raise the question now with the teacher.

If she's worried you have to bring it up with them, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a deliberate strategy on the teachers' part.

My DD is very bright, amenable and good at helping people learn. This meant she was used as a free TA by her Y3 teachers, which meant she was always partnered up with the naughty and/or less able children to be a steadying influence and do the teachers job for them - totally deliberate strategy as I found out when I asked them about it because DD was unhappy.

It meant she was never paired up with her friends, so was always watching her friends working together whilst she was stuck either with a disruptive kid who didn't want to be there or a child severely struggling with their academic progress who really could have done with a one on one support. It also hindered her progress because she was expected to help her "learning partner" when she'd finished her work rather than do the stretch tasks other higher ability kids were given.

I made damn sure it didn't happen for the rest of her time at that school and that she had the same opportunity to work with her friends as everyone else did.

My DS has been in both situations. He began school at 5 in another country where he didn’t speak the language and in a class where no one spoke English. The other kids were so kind, patient and friendly to him and he learned to speak the language (imperfectly) very quickly. I was forever grateful to them and their families for how much they welcomed, supported and embraced him. He was quickly invited to birthday parties and to play with classmates. Other parents were friendly to me. It really helped us integrate.

When we returned to UK, at 7 DS was one of only a handful of kids in his class who had a British parent and he was asked to be a class buddy to a boy who didn’t speak any English. Other kids at his table also spoke very little English. In only a few months, they spoke (imperfect) English. My DS’s buddy was really good at Maths and helped DS with this. Remembering how much I’d valued the friendliness shown to us in a new country, I befriended the parents and invited their children to play. I could see how it set their minds at rest, even though, like I’d been, they were initially a little shy to speak English.

I understand your DD feels a little uncomfortable with children she can’t initially talk to much. But it might help to ask her to think how she’d like to be treated if it was her in a new country and unfamiliar school. Would she want the local kids to be moved away from her because they can’t talk to her? Or would she like them to befriend her and keep chatting to her to help her feel welcome and learn?

It shouldn’t hold her back. There’s lots of evidence mixed ability classes/sets are best even for the most able kids because explaining things to less able kids consolidates their own knowledge. And, once her classmates’ English is proficient, which shouldn’t take long, they may end up helping her with certain things.

No, not acceptable. Speak up for her, don't wait. Coming to think of it, the only advantage of a minor private school for my dc I can name is that there was not one ESL pupil there, everyone was on the same page linguistically.

And actually, it is a crying shame that primary school native speakers are supposed 'to help' ESL pupils - I say so because watch these ESL pupils in senior years taking advantage over native speakers in written exams by requesting up to 1 hour (or is it 30 minutes) extra because 'English is not my native language'.

What do you think was the reason you felt lonely and isolated?
No one stops the kids forming friendships in school
and yes, many schools do not put friends to sit together so they don't chat too much

A parents job is to advocate for their child, do what’s best for their child.

If OP feels that her child is not in best situation, then she should be expected to try to improve the situation.

OP child doesn’t have a “ job” , she is not supposed to spend her education hours educating someone else.

She can be at her table, doing her work. Doesn’t need to be chatting with anyone. Any group projects … based on table, would be shambles if no common language. She shouldn’t feel obligated to do more.

ESL … the school should be running parallel lessons during literacy, with educators who know what they’re doing.

Maybe parents who are interested can organize reading or language based activities within the school. If this kind of volunteerism would be helpful.