It’s not suddenly all the kids, it’s the new teacher.

[jollyoldjo]

DD has just gone into year 4 and has a new teacher.

They had the same teacher for the last 2 years and she was very nice and also had lovely teachers before her.

We are still in the first month of a new year with the new teacher who’s new to the school and quite young so at a guess newly qualified and suddenly all of the children are misbehaving but were fine with other teachers, she keeps them back 15 minutes every day for poor behaviour, this is decided on the day without notice but it’s been every day and that’s the whole class.

A more experienced teacher is taking the class for a week next week to sort out the behaviour.

I regularly help out on school trips and they’re not bad kids and they haven’t all suddenly developed behavioural issues they just have no respect for this particular teacher.
AIBU to think she has no control over the class and it seems because she isn’t coping she’s retaliating against the children by being an absolute jobs worth?

We’ve had multiple letters out explaining they’ve all missed breaks and not done PE etc because of poor behaviour and by keeping them an extra 15 minutes she is making herself very unpopular by leaving parents standing outside in the empty playground while she punishes the children and parents.
I have a child in the same school in year 6 who has walked home and got changed while I’m still waiting in the playground for dd to come out at supposedly the same finish time, we’ve never had this before.
Other children and their siblings have places to be after school.

AIBU to think if as early as September, 30 kids and their parents are hoping they don’t have this teacher again next year then it’s not the kids it’s the teacher?

OP says this is every day. If you had a well behaved DC that lost their place in a club they have been going to and enjoy for years, because they have missed every session since the start of term would you really support this? Would you support a teacher in ruining a well behaved DC's enthusiasm for school? Most people often have places to be outside of agreed times. I'm not sure the teacher would be supportive of a parent that was 15 minutes late to pick up every day.

So there's a full class of children with bad parents? Somehow I think that's highly unlikely.

It's the school who should be supporting and managing this new teacher, it is their fault they now have all these issues with (certain!) children and all the parents. Her way of dealing with things has been wrong, and they've been very late stepping in.

Assuming you're not a parent if you don't care about children missing part of the national curriculum and think just because a a teacher is new, they can do whatever they like, even if it affects a child's education.

I'm all for supporting needed punishments, but it drives me nuts that people seem to think that even though you're getting paid for a job and not doing it properly, everyone should feel sorry for you and not care about their children. You wouldn't see it in any other line of work.

Learn from your mistakes, it's that simple.

I've never even heard of children being kept back after school in primary school!

It sounds like the teacher in inexperienced but the school are offering support.

I don't know if it's worth noting but ive had a few teachers relay to me that year four can be a tricky year behaviour wise.

Yes me too.

After school detentions at primary school are ridiculous, and collective punishments should also be avoided.

When I was in P5 the teacher hated me. Everything I did was wrong. I didn't want to go to school as I didn't know if the teacher would be in a good mood with me or a bad mood, a good mood I still got told I was useless but he wouldn't do it in front of the class, in a bad mood he would say it Infront of other students. He kept a chart of how many times I went to the toilet in a day, only me no one else. I ran away from school twice it was that bad. I was off school for a fortnight as I was having an operation. I went back to school and he threw the work at me and told me to get on with it. I did 2 weeks work in one day, it was all correct so then he said my handwriting was terrible so he took marks off me for that just so I didn't get 100%. When I went up to P6 he had obviously written reports about us all as the teacher was new to our school and after about a week he asked my mum to come up as he had some questions. This report basically said I was a troublemaker, never did my work in class or homework. The P6 teacher asked my mum if there was another Hazel he could be talking about. Nearly 40 yrs on I still have no idea what I did to make him think I was this bad person. It really ruined that year of schooling so much.

Sorry that happened to you. I always remember one of my primary teachers taking against one of the quiet girls in the class, and making her life a misery for no reason at all - she really wasn't one of the "bad" kids or anything, just quiet. Not that her being naughty would have justified it. The teacher was downright sadistic to her at times.

I suppose teachers are just human, and some of them aren't very nice at all.

This seems like an insane approach - OP's child isn't behaving badly but they're getting punished by the teacher because they're using whole class punishments despite only some children causing trouble, and your suggestion is that the parents should also punish the child for not doing anything wrong?

Definitely complain, OP. Whole class punishments should be completely banned. My DD, who is an obsessive rule follower (autistic) and gets anxious even seeing other people breaking rules, had her school experience utterly destroyed by a teacher who kept doing this. In fact it was worse, because the teacher kept putting her on a table with the badly behaved kids as a "good influence" and then punished the whole table for any bad behaviour from those kids. It made her so distressed she started to make herself ill to avoid going, and she was delighted when COVID happened and she got to stay at home. Unfortunately then moving to secondary in the COVID rules era made her even more anxious, and started a spiral of school refusal that affects her to this day.

And that teacher was the deputy head, so it's not necessarily to do with experience.

I would knock on the door and say sorry we have an appointment after school!

For those suggesting OP somehow fetches their child after school, it's worth bearing in mind this probably isn't possible. Schools can use after-school detention as a punishment, and do not have to give notice as long as the child can get home safely afterwards. This does apply at primary school and presumably the school are backing the teacher on this. In most primary schools it is not possible to get inside the building in this way and by the time you speak to the office, the children will probably be out anyway. If this is school policy by sending your child to the school you do consent and you can't withdraw consent from specific parts of the behaviour policy. However as others have said PE is part of the curriculum and should be taught. Possibly if an individual student can't safely participate they should sit out.

That said as a teacher in general I don't agree with collective punishment unless it really is the whole class (and usually it isn't) - it's usually possible to pick out the individuals or at least the ringleaders who should be held back and to let the other students go - unless the school policy at home time makes this not possible in which case another teacher should really be assisting. As I am a secondary teacher if I want to assign an after-school detention, then it always has to be to specific students for a specific reason. Occasionally if the whole room is a mess after a practical then the whole class may be slightly late to break - tidying up is a collective responsibility and the students know this and I allow reasonable time as long as they don't faff or mess about. But I wouldn't do this at the end of the day.

It is worth bearing in mind that different teachers have different expectations - so it can be both teacher and students. If they've had the same teacher for 2 years it's possible the students are struggling to adapt to new routines.

I would query the situation with the class teacher initially in writing and ask what the reason for the late release of the students is. I would then take it to the head if I felt the response wasn't satisfactory. But it is worth making sure you understand the behaviour policy and what you can/can't insist on before doing so.

Not where I live they don’t, no. They are usually employed on a temporary contract for a year which isn’t extended if there are issues. With the increase in academies in England I am not sure if teachers there have probationary periods now though. Even if they did then failing that is not the same as being sacked. What usually happens is that support is offered to the teacher to help them improve. In this situation it seems as if the teacher has the backing of the school so I’m struggling to believe the ‘class of little angels’ story we are being told here. Bear in mind that other staff such as teaching assistants will witness the poor behaviour.

I’m sorry you had that experience but this simply does not happen in this day and age with all of the scrutiny teachers are subjected to.Things have changed massively in 40 years! Parents negative experiences of school often cause issues with them having a chip on their shoulder about teachers and this gets passed on to their kids. If little Johnny is going home saying that his teacher is picking on him and the parent’s response is to say ‘Oh I know, I had a teacher like that, don’t you put up with that!’ It’s more likely than not little Johnny is actually being a little shit and this now gives him the justification to behave exactly as he likes because he’s had validation from his parents. If my DC ever came home with similar stories and they did, my response was always ‘Well what did you do?’ There’s no way I’d have supported them being rude and disrespectful to an adult! This is why there is a huge issue with behaviour in schools. I really think some of the parents on here should volunteer in a school for a week because they are obviously completely clueless about how poor behaviour is and the challenges that teachers face. Has it not occurred to you that there are reasons why so many are leaving the profession? It’s not because they are shit and not cut out for teaching, I’m talking about teachers with careers of 10 years plus taking much lower paid jobs just to get out of the profession. If you look at the survey results, parental behaviour and attitude rank highly as reasons for leaving.

Exactly this!

I've always said there should be cameras in classrooms, which could be shown to parents who think their children have done nothing wrong. Some parents (not all, obviously, because not all children are little shits) would be mortified at what they get up to in their classrooms.

And some of them.wete.nit cut out for it. Sounds like this teacher isn't managing well. Which is then impacting on the children.

They've been at it less than a month. Bit soon to know if they're cut out for it or not I would have thought

I've never heard of primary schools keeping a whole class back regularly at the end of the day, as much as anything, it's a really bad time of day for them to be learning anything from it as they will all be tired and it's very frustrating for parents who might need to rush home for meetings, clubs, other kids etc.
I would have a quiet word with the head if they're easily available, and explain that a) these late finishes are difficult to manage and b) whole class punishments really aren't effective and teach the wrong lesson. I'm all for discipline, and if certain kids are pushing boundaries with a new teacher then she needs to be authoritative, but if she openly acknowledges that it's not every child she shouldn't punish every child. I'm massively against missing breaktimes anyway, kids need to burn off energy, rest their brains and have a break. I understand if there are social issues and it's being done to protect other kids on the playground, but for talking in class etc, she'd be better off letting them rub around, talk to their mates and then putting in some structured systems like reward points, consequences and class rules for when they're actually learning. She's going to make the discipline issue worse if she goes along these lines....

Absolutely.

I've just left with no job to go to after 19 years teaching. The majority of poor behaviour is down to parents poor attitude, justifying their child's poor behaviour by arguing, "burping is a natural bodily function, you cannot punish him for that." - have you ever met a 10yo performance burping to make his friends laugh? You can absolutely tell the difference.
"She was singing! How can you punish a child for singing!!!!!" - Because it's interrupted 30 other children's learning and they answered back when asked to stop FFS!
"I don't agree with xyz" - tough shit. You signed the home school agreement to agree to the school rules. Like it or lump it.

Even 5 years ago, similar behaviour would result in child and parent separately apologising off their own back. Which makes moving on sooooo much easier. Just have a fresh start next lesson/day. Now with the parents incessant moaning even over completely minor infractions where the teacher has simply said, "don't do that" drag on for days/weeks.

it may be they've had teachers who've taken low demand approaches and there are bad habit that need to be tackled now they are getting older.

Ds had this in y3. He had had 3 very soft, gently gently teachers, who basically allowed the kids to make less progress and not imposing much by way of consequences for poor behaviour. It got to the stage they needed taking in hand! They all had a bit of a tough adjustment with a firmer teacher in y3, but then swiftly stopped playing up and their work improved much quicker.

Don't be so quick to assume the teacher is at fault. By y4 the kids should have learned to do as the teacher says!!

Don't be so quick to assume the teacher is at fault.

Nobody's complaining about the teacher trying to be strict. If some people are mucking around, the teacher should be strict with them. Where the teacher is at fault is in not following the school behaviour policy to do so. Which almost certainly doesn't include unplanned detentions, whole class punishments and skipping parts of the curriculum (PE).

This. I am sure this is not part of the school behaviour policy. I taught in primary schools for 30 years and this never happened.

I have been that teacher. It's soul destroying. Now I am a good teacher and parents request that I am their child's teacher again or next year, and children like being in my class. The teacher will either get better or leave teaching. Both are possible. As others have said, encourage your child to do the right thing, and I have never heard of after school detention for a whole class. Missing PE is counter-productive, and I am surprised any SLT would allow that- it's statutory.

Am I alone in being shocked that the children are stopped from attending PE lessons? Why not Maths or English?
I genuinely dont understand this as a strategy to improve behaviour. With the prevalence of obesity, and also the need for 8 year olds to burn off energy, this makes absolutely no sense at all.
Am I missing something, or just terribly out of touch now (my youngest is 26), and this is common practice?

Is the missing PE actually a punishment or is the behaviour so challenging that it isn’t safe to do PE? The latter is far more believable as I can’t see any SLT backing losing PE as a punishment. Also it’s ridiculous that anyone is even suggesting that an hour of PE is going to have much of an impact on obesity levels. You’d be lucky to get a 40 minute lesson with changing time. If you think all kids are participating enthusiastically then you need to go and observe a PE lesson to see the number not getting involved. 40 minutes a week is not going to counteract a bad diet and bad parenting. None of this is a teacher’s job either. Yet another example of lazy parenting where teachers are expected to step in.

This teacher will not be acting off her own bat, she will be following advice of her mentors and school policy. It doesn't sound as though you have even read the school's behaviour policy? Your admitted lack of respect for this teacher is a main part of the problem. Even if you are not verbalising this to your kids , they will sure as heck pick up on it.

There’s a reason so many new teachers leave the job… It isn’t a nice job and I have absolutely no idea how people stick it out. I teach adults so it’s different, they’re paying 9k minimum a year to listen to me go on. I couldn’t teach other people’s kids, it would destroy me.

She’s new and clearly struggling. Kids are like vultures, they sense weakness and prey on it. We used to do it at school too, we instantly knew when a teacher was weak so would play up. Also had the pack mentality which is the worst thing- at least 20 kids playing up against one adult. Nightmare.