Teacher treating children too young

[Someonehelpmeagain]

My child is in a year 3 class, the teacher now sings a song to get them to sit on the carpet and has organised a book advent for this week. The children are 7 and 8, I feel they are far too old to be sung to sit on the carpet. Aibu to talk to the headteacher?

You know what you’re right. I said the head and Ofsted but I don’t think that’s strong enough. 999 maybe too?

@Someonehelpmeagain Our teacher when we were 10 yrs old, on a Friday afternoon {If we were lucky!} would read to us in last lesson we absolutely LOVED it.

We were allowed to put our heads in our arms on the table- it was great.

I love it.

I used to get boys complaining when we reached the penultimate chapter: "That's not possible! Tyke can't be..."

Behave yourself singing a song to children never done any harm!!! And if it gets the children onto the carpet in an easy Manor with as little messing about as possible then keep singing is what I say!

Singing will not stop your child's age development.

Agreed.
It's abusive to get children to settle down and be read to.
What IS the teaching profession coming to.
Just shocking. 📚

7/8 year olds will be singing at Brownies and Cubs. This will include songs to indicate a change in "sections" of the meetings.

Songs are a great way to remember and take in information. It's part of why Horrible Histories was so popular as a teaching aid, there are adults who know history facts due to those songs

You haven't explained how a book advent is too young. It sounds perfect.

"Are you, now? You misspelt ‘presumptuous’, seem to think ‘of’ and ‘have’ are interchangeable, and used ‘moreover’ incorrectly. On what do you lecture?"

That's what I thought too.

If it works and creates a calming environment, then I want to know what the song is!

Aside from anything else I'm baffled by the idea that they're too old.

7 and 8 is still really young and as a teacher hearing year 3s be sang to wouldn't have seemed out of place to me.

All the way up to year 6 teachers were using the call and response attention grabbers like "1 2 3 eyes on me" and singing doesn't feel much different to that?

The children sing in music class and in assemblies and school plays. They sing recycling songs when learning about the environment.

I taught year 5 and 6 and while some children preferred not to sing themselves, singing really wasn't anything any of them ever indicated feeling too old for, even in inner city classes with high levels of deprivation where children often were a lot more grown up.

Adults sing too. Why is singing childish?

I don't even know where to start with book advent. Are 8 year olds too old for books or advent calendars?

How about you do your job & leave the teacher to do theirs

I wish I could sing about stuff at work…

So far I have…. (To the Skye Boat song tune)

Going to dial into a dull meeting
It will last for hours
can I read BBC news online
Without anyone noticing
Oh yes I can!
I really can!

And now I’m stuck!

I'm glad others noticed that!

If this isn’t a wind up then I feel sorry for your DC’s teacher and for your DC…

The glaring grammatical error in here makes me fairly confident you're not actually a university lecturer.

That sounds amazing! I remember doing the Krebs cycle and the Electron transfer chain - would have loved a song to remember it.

I had to google...It's hilarious! It's bringing back memories..

Yes.

But surely you realise that “complaining” about kids being sung to, to sit on the carpet, is absolutely fucking ridiculous?

Yabu. I cannot believe you are seriously thinking about complaining on what grounds? No wonder teachers are leaving in droves.

A colleague and I used to use a video of a clean up song at the end of practical lessons.
The Teenagers at KS3 used to love it and the yr10 pupils often requested it.

As long as it works there is no problem.

I find the carpet sitting in the UK weird and would hate my kids to do that, but teachers have to do whatever they need to to get through the day. I think the carpet sitting in the UK is because desks are put in “tables” so the poor kids can’t actually see the board without cricking their necks. Putting desks in rows would solve the problem (would probably reduce the headlice issue as well) but this is seen as taboo in UK primary schools, so carpets it is.

As a university head of department I would strongly advise you not to complain about what seems a lovely way to manage children.

Would you seriously entertain parental complaints about your assessment weightings? Or your NSS strategies?

On another thread people are complaining about secondary schools assuming the pupils don’t believe in Santa.
It is impossible to be a teacher and please anyone everyone.
So politely, unless you have a teaching qualification (and even then); wind your neck in

I think you have used moreover incorrectly here. As a university lecturer I would expect higher standards. Should someone contact your head of department?

You don't have a problem with them sitting on the carpet. You do have a problem with how they are asked. You are not adding supporting information to your first point, but stating a counterpoint. So 'moreover' cannot be used in this context.

May be you would benefit from carpet time.

This is a ridiculously dumb reason to be pissed at a teacher.

The teacher is doing nothing detrimental to their education in the slightest.

You sound judgemental AF.