Does this teacher sound mean?

[Stoptheworldiwanttogetoffit]

Dc in Year 1, she came out of school crying today, very upset. She said the teacher had taken a stamper thing off her and will give it back to her tomorrow afternoon. It was one I got her from a recent holiday, which made her more upset. She said a new boy in the class had asked to use it so she wanted to be kind and gave it him. He apparently was messing about with it and the teacher asked whose it was and took it away. Dd also said today another girl brought a book in to school and was showing Dd, then Dd got told to put it away, in a harsh tone.
She was also doing her homework and got quiet and said she didn’t think the teacher was impressed with her work, I asked why/what made her think that and she said she didn’t know, just a feeling she had.
Does all this sound like usual classroom goings on and Dd just had a bad day?

If the teacher keeps it overnight your child will remember and be less likely to do it again. Job done, your child has learnt something. Give it back straight away your child is more than likely going to do it again leading to a habit and problems later on

But it doesn't matter if she was showing someone to be kind. Her intent isn't the issue. Come back after you've taught 25-30 little people and tell us if you think bringing items in from home is disracting or not...

I’ve taught 20 to 30 little ones. I think it’s a massive skill compared to my safety net of ks2!

Id have told your dd I would look after it till the end of the day. She doesn’t deserve a consequence. Just a learning journey. She wasn’t hitting others or destroying their work with it. That would have needed a consequence.

Christ we have kids absolutely destroying classrooms and scaring children. Give me your dd’s “behaviour” any day!

The stamp must have been out for the new boy to see it. Lets call the new boy Bob.

Bob has the stamp and stamps his exercise book, then gets board so stamps the hand of Jo who is sitting on his other side, Jo gets the giggles grabs the stamp and stamps the forehead of Tia who burst in to tears.

OK I wasn't there and I didn't see it but stamps / pens /pencils paints can be really distracting.

You have passed it off as stationery thinking it is better than a toy . They don't need any of their own stationery in Year 1 All pencils pens and other equipment are provided so there is little difference in bringing a stamper than a toy. It is just a distraction and could get easily lost.
I doubt very much that your Dd cried when the teacher told her off, but just felt a bit sad and realised she had done wrong. She knew she would get sympathy from you at the end of the day which was why she put on the floods of tears. I really don't think this is worth pursuing apart from reminding her only to take something in if it is for a specific reason such as show and tell. Try to see it from the teacher's perspective of managing a class of 30 and maybe possibly she wasn't having her best day, they are all human.

Please, please don’t encourage people like this to homeschool their children. Homeschooling is only appropriate in a very small number of situations, and requires a lot of intelligence, and I don’t think I need to point out the obvious problem with that here!

I feel so sorry for teachers when they have to deal with parents like this. If a child has something like this out in the classroom then of course it should be confiscated. The child is in Year 1 not a playgroup.

Honestly, just don’t let her take stuff in. It will get lost! I allowed my daughter to take in something sentimental that related to a topic they were doing. Irreplaceable item. What was I thinking?! Of course my daughter lost it, was in tears. Teacher looked for it, gone forever. I imagine many parents would have created a huge fuss about this too. I didn’t although I was quite sad.

Lesson definitely learnt.

Children are told from nursery not to take their own toys, etc in.

I would just encourage her to be resilient and see that it's not the end of the world.

You haven't heard the teacher's side. Just have a chat at the end of the day, say that your DD was upset and see what the teacher says. You might get a better perspective then and at least the teacher will be aware of how your DD is reacting.

Don’t let your child take home toys into school. Simple.

They're not meant to bring in a bunch of stuff from home to pass round the class. It's disruptive. They're too little to have restraint and only get things out at playtime, so the teacher is having to take things off them. They need to do their work.

I'm quite surprised a child of 5 would use words like 'my teacher isn't impressed with my work.' It sounds pretty advanced. So she's obviously clever!

She may mean she made a couple of mistakes and teacher pointed them out. But that's part of learning. Just be supportive and tell her not to bring toys from home to school.

As the vast majority have said, it’s not mean to take away the toy your child shouldn’t have had in school in the first place, especially as she had caused a distraction with it. Keeping it until the next day is the teacher’s judgement call to make. You might disagree with it but let’s face it you weren’t there and don’t know the circumstances. If the stamper issue happened towards the end of the day, that may be why she decided not to give it back at the end of the day…anyway that’s not really the issue. The issue is that you have characterised as ‘mean’ a teacher who reinforced the school rules when they were broken by giving a reasonable consequence. Yes your child was upset, but that doesn’t mean that the teacher has done anything wrong. Your child is upset because she’s had to leave her toy behind not because she was hurt or someone has said unkind things to her. In the years to come a lot of things are going to happen that your DD would prefer to happen another way - you need to prepare her for this. Also rules are rules and they apply to everyone. That’s another good lesson to learn!

As a reception teacher this sort of thing was an absolute pain. Did you know she’d brought it in to school? If so you need to bear some responsibility for the upset. I would make it clear to parents at the start of the school year that personal items like that were not allowed in school, as they cause a distraction and it’s very upsetting when they get lost (or in the case of someone’s muslin that was sneaked in and dropped, picked up by someone else, cut up and stuck on their collage 🤦‍♀️!) Still some parents would want special licence for their child to bring in something they bought at Disney or whatever. I always said no. To be honest I would have come and spoken to you about why your daughter was crying, would have explained what happened and asked you to make sure she didn’t bring anything in again. You need to learn to work with the school on things like this.

She only has to wait a day. She'll be fine. This is extremely minor.

Stuff from home just causes problems… you should not have let her bring it to school. Are you not aware of this?
not just the distraction reason but I bet as soon as it’s lost or taken by another child you’ll be up there asking the teacher to look for it or discipline the child who took it.
you’re THAT mum.

It's like every thing else it depends in the mood thd teacher was in or if would be maybe the teacher is not keen on your child, just keep listening to your child and see his things develop.

Exactly! 🤗

You've chosen to reply to the one person who agrees with you

I'd take the opportunity to help your DD to cope with the minor setbacks and unfairnesses that are part of everyday life, OP, and also to understand why it happened. Everyone gets told off at school sometimes, that's part of growing up and learning. The teacher did this to make them understand that they're not supposed to bring toys in or play with them in class. The teacher has told that she can have it back and when so she doesn't need to worry about that. The teacher has 28 children to look after and has to be quick and firm about the rules, she's not like Mummy who can sit and talk this through. And most importantly, the teacher didn't do this because she doesn't like your daughter and probably won't even remember it happened once she's given back the toy.

What your daughter needs from you is help putting this all into perspective. You can say to her that you understand she didn't mean to break the rules and you know she feels very sad. But don't teach her that she's been unfairly singled out or victimised, ok? She hasn't been. This is all just a really normal part of school life.

Your child was in the wrong and got told off and she isn't used to it so she's cried. It's a good thing that she's being taught that rules must be followed not a bad thing. You should be thanking and supporting the teacher for giving your child life skills that will set her up for positive learning.

Your only message to your DD here should be that she must do as the teacher says and that messing about with objects when she is supposed to be working is not allowed. She will have to manage without the stamp for one evening.

Stuff from home is not allowed in our school unless specified eg a book on World Book Day or a toy on the last day of term, but children have to be responsible for them.

Anything other than that would be taken away, given back at the end of the day and the child told not to bring it again.

It's not the teacher being mean - imagine if a whole class of little ones were messing about with toys etc the teacher would never get anything done.

Perfectly reasonable consequence for having items from home out during class time, the teacher probably deals with this daily and constantly has to repeat herself whereas this just nips it in the bud for 2 days... I wouldn't consider the teacher mean just for this.

Indeed. The OP obviously has no desire to reflect and acknowledge that she was actually unreasonable and clearly just wanted an echo chamber response. Sometimes I wonder why people bother posting at all.

Yeah it's not so much about whether this child should have been punished but it should be about how to help her get to grips with the changing expectations of school. A mass slagging off of the teacher won't help with this.

To me an echo chamber is about 4 pages of people saying the same thing to the op…

Plus all these posters getting all uptight over a year 1 and her stamper. Trust me, if her mum came and asked about what happened it would not be an issue. It would be a quick chat and forgotten about. I doubt it would even hit the staff room. Unless it was a really slow day for behaviour!