To create a fuss about my son not having access to water today in school

[Icantfeelmyface]

Hello .
My 8 year old son is a bit of a fidgeter, and has difficulty with keeping still . He has a replacement teacher for the past 6 weeks and he has struggled with various issues relating to her " shouting at him all the time " and him feeling picked on everyday no matter what he does .. won't get into the detail but meeting was held and she reassured me that this wasn't the case and she works on praise as well .. .. he told me after the meeting the teacher said in front of the class " why you telling your mum that I'm picking on you "?... Decided to leave things and move on... However today he comes home from school and tells me he had no water the whole day as the teacher said he was fidgeting too much with his bottle and told him to put it away from the table . All the other kids had their bottles on their table . He has said he had a few sips at lunch time and then nothing until after school club at 4 pm 😳
Am I being unreasonable to email the head teacher ?

Wasn’t trying to be binary or controversial, just trying to point out that nothing will have happened to OP’s son (or any other child) if they don’t have a bottle of water on their desk in lessons - a good drink every couple of hours at breaks should be fine. I just think the “drink more” message, while healthy, seems to have caused a lot of parents huge anxiety around their child having a water bottle available at all times.

I don't remember being thirsty in school as a child, and I spent some of my childhood in a hot country. I guess we must just have made sure we had enough to drink in breaks.

But it's equally absurd to think that it's inevitably dreadful and worthy of complaint for children to have to go a couple of hours without water on demand.

Encourage your son to drink more at breaks and lunchtime. He was probably being disruptive with the bottle which was why it was removed.

Edited to add…in answer to thread title, I wouldn’t create a fuss over this. It’ll be hot next week too so I wouldn’t want to make this an ongoing issue.

Dear OP, i voted YANBU. The teacher sounds like a bully and to keep water away from a kid when he can see others have it is awful. You know your son, if you believe what he's telling you, advocate for him. I would be letting the head know and arranging a meeting with a list of things your son has experienced. None of what youve said is OK. I would also be seeking ND referral and talking to the school about this. If he needs to stim with something then the school should be supporting him with this. The school have a legal and ethical obligation to ensure his overall well-being are not negatively impacted by things happening to him. This extends to adequate nutrition, emotional well-being, and his education to name a few.

I'm truly baffled by those who think it's fine for a child to have his bottle of water taken away on the hottest day of the year. Yes we don't know the full story, and possibly the teacher did make it clear to him that if he needed it he could ask her, but that's not the point some of you are making. You're saying it's fine for an 8 year old to go without water for three hours on a hot afternoon in a stuffy classroom, whilst all the other children around him have their water bottles in front of them. No it's not going to kill him (that was a weird argument someone made), but it's still going to make for a very uncomfortable few hours, all because he's a child who needs to fiddle with something. I agree with the poster who said water is not something that should ever be taken away as a disciplinary measure, even if that's just an obvious consequence of taking the bottle away.

Unless he asked for a drink because he was thirsty and the teacher refused, YABVU.

It's 30 degrees in some places. It wasn't that hot when I was at school in the 80s and 90s..
There's a difference between it being mid twenties and over thirty degrees. It's been proven kids work better if they're not dehydrated. Lots of things have changed since the 89s.. Should we also bring back the cane?
Yes he should have had more at break but that's not an excuse for this teacher's behaviour and she sounds horrible anyway.
Is there any point saying anything? Probably not and it's supposed to be a bit cooler next week so less of an issue.
Hopefully he'll get a decent teacher next year.

😂

Yabu

Your son had access to water at breaks.

Sounds like the fidgeting is disruptive and rude. Are you doing anything to improve his behaviour in class?

His teacher should not be talking about matters outside of the class in front of his peers.

Can we be sure that the teacher actually said this? (S)he could have said that (s)he had been talking to his mum and that she was disappointed in his fidgeting and lack of concentration when he should have been working, or words to that effect. Children often misinterpret what has been said and he is feeling singled out and that he has been "picked on" yet again.

Correct. We didn’t die. But I did have massive problems with constipation which my doctor confirmed was because I didn’t drink regularly.

Why are some parents intent on making teaching even harder and contributing to driving more teachers out of the profession?

Surely the bar to contact a headteacher is significantly higher than this?

I was in school in 2007 and they trialled us having water in the classroom. Before that we all coped just fine, usually on a beaker of orange squash or a carton of something at lunchtime.

I agree that in hot weather it's different...

But OH GOD! This awful idea that children need to be sucking on bottles of water all the time - is that still going on? They should not be on the tables but in a safe, cool place and the kids should have a good drink between lessons.

When I was last teaching it was the bane of our lives. I'd have children becoming obsessed about re-filling their bottles during lessons. In the winter months and even under most normal conditions no-one is going to die of thirst from having to wait half an hour for a drink of water. It's such a distraction and children with poor concentration tend to get hung up on it.

Was about to say exactly the same! 'In our day' we only had access to water from a shared jug at lunchtime, I didn't die even once either!!

Sounds like he was messing around with it and had it removed.

I’m not saying it was ideal, but my
primary had no water fountain, so we had 1 small blue cup of water the whole day at lunchtime. We played, we did PE etc. it’s not ideal, but equally I wasn’t dying of thirst! I don’t remember being thirsty. I even remember my mam complaining about the lack of fountain and wondering why she was so bothered.

he has access to water at break and lunch… totally fine.

This level of parental involvement is a key reason why good teachers are leaving In droves in UK schools.

Somebody earlier asked if there had been a campaign to allow children better access to water in schools. My daughter's bowel and bladder consultant did just this 10 years ago, due to the high levels of constipation-related health issues in our area. When I explained to him that daughter's school had moved all the water bottles off the desks again he was really disappointed, and said he was hearing anecdotally that more and more schools had stopped the bottles on desks. He's considering re-starting his campaign. For some kids, a drink at break and lunch is enough. For some it isn't and will cause UTIs, constipation, and incontinence. Our bodies are different.

So how many kids realistically need to be on a drip?

Breaks are pretty regular. You are catastrophising (apart from perhaps 1 in 10,000).

I hope he also campaigned to get them moving at break times not sat around chatting. That's a huge constipation mover too!

I would concentrate on why her is struggling in school and what support can be provided.

It sounds like your son does not like this teacher. Are you 100% certain that he is not making up some of the things that she says and does?

This isnt really about the water. It's about the teacher singling your son out. She should never have made the comment to your son that you'd raised a concern of her being a bully that's very unprofessional and passive aggressive. Protect your child.