to take my complaint to the headmaster? Genuine opinions wanted

[namechangenamechange]

DD is in year 2. Her "PPA" teacher who she has once a week as cover for her normal form tutor was reading to the children from the minipins book. When they left for the day, she picked out 12 children in the class who were "slim" "beautiful" "lovely and "skinny" and said they cold get their coats on first and said "the other 15 of you are too fat and big you'll have to go second, you're not as lovely and sknny as the others.

In what planet is it ok to classify children according to their weight?????

I should clarify here, that DD, despite being in the second group, is actually officially underweight at the doctors, as she is quite tall for her age - but she was in the fat group! That however is irrelevant, my argument is that children should never be criticised for baing fat by a teacher, or made to feel like the less good group simply by weight, which at age of 6 is nothing to do with them anyway.

I went back in to school immediately after my daughter told me this and spoke to this temp teacher. She said it was due to the book and the story of the book, but said anyone who would get upset about it was stilly, then she said to me DD, "don't be upset by this, a lot of other children in the class are much fatter and uglier than you are but don't tell them that".

On the grounds that she:-

1. classified children by weight and made the skinny group the good children and the fat group the bad group
2. Used the word fat in a deroggatory manner
3. Failed to accept that this was a problem when questioned and
4. Further repeated to DD in front of me that other children were fat and ugly

I think I should take the following points to the headmaster.

What are people's thoughts of this? I know the teacher has been complained about before for mnay different reasons and that is why she, close to retirement, is on PPA cover rather than having her own class.

I got the part of Mary in the Junior nativity - it was between two of us, the other girl my neighbour and friend. Apparently I got the part because I had the longest hair

Obviously I was chuffed then but in hindsight it caused resentment between us.

Not as bad as the OP obviously, which was just vicious. Why can't some teachers see that certain comments, however jokey or throwaway they are meant to be, can have effects of kids' self esteem and body image that last a life time?

i agree, my beautiful dark haired/ dark eyed dd is now 16, but she had the blond = angelic nonsense from the age of 6...like i said, she still remembers it....my ds is still at primary school, and i still see all the pretty blond girls as the angels.

You say that the teacher put your underweight dd in the 'fat' group so I assume she didn't actually divide the children by size?

As she made no judgement on the children themselves I wouldn't say splitting them into two groups and describing them as the book does is a problem?

See your point but without making that clear to the children (which she obviously didn't), some kids could be left thinking there's someting wrong with them when it isn't.

Pus when given a chance to explain, she still said to the OP's daughter there were others "uglier" than her.

Don't get why some people are finding this so hard to believe? I had some teachers with very weird outspoken views when I was younger, this lady is close to retirement so could definately be one of the old school "treat em mean" lot...

She was obviously saying "don't be upset by this, a lot of other children in the class are much fatter and uglier than you are but don't tell them that".
as a joke to stop DD being upset.

She didn't label children as anything, she divided them into groups that were NOT split based on weight or looks, to show what was happening in a story. I don't see the problem.

Did she split them according to actual weight and size or purely random and just name the groups according to the story. If the latter then it's fine and you are overreacting big time if the former then of course you need to complain.

VS - I suppose it's because you wouldn't make that joke to an adult you didn't know extremely well, so why a child?

And the point I;m still trying to make is that even though she divided the group as you say, she obviously didn't make it clear that's what she was doing. So if a pretty little girl who's actually skinny but is already being affected by media images etc, and secretly wondering if she is fat was put in the "fat and ugly" group, could be quite affected by it. Plus, because if it is random, any overweight children alongside her would feel personally attacked..

Don't mean to sound OTT, but I think it's sometimes easy to forget just how much comments are taken to heart by some kids. Perhaps OP, you could ask her to re-assure the children that it was an excercise to be sure they got that, and not meant personally?

I do not think it matters wether she actually divided them according to weight or not. What matters is that some of the children will just take her words for it. They are 6 years old, they are hardly going to question the teacher if not given an explanation.

From earlier by the OP as I don't think some of you have read it all - "The teacher in DD's class maintains it was to correlate with the book - The children who were small enough to ride on the swans were allowed to go early today with positive comments on their "lovely and slim" figures or tiny heights and the "fat and big" children had to wait a while to leave."

Why wouldn't you make that joke to an adult?
I would

I agree maybe the teacher should clarify that she doesn't think the children are fat or ugly, or that it has any bearing on RL but what use would that have been if she was trying to show how it divides the class?

In that case VS you'd probably be able to take it as a joke if it was said back to you.
I spose I wouldn't say it because I'm probably quite oversensitive and would feel paranoid if someone made a joke at me about being ugly or something. Unless it was my best friend in which case we will regularly say things like "that outfit, reeeaallly?" as a joke and others think we're being nasty but we know it's affection, and we know each other well, and are adults.

But that's my point, I know not all of those kids would be offended/not get it, or even give it a second thought. But if being a bit more sensitive meant that stand-in teacher stopped one little girl or boy sticking their fingers down their throat in future I think it's worth it.

I totally get the point of the excercise. We did something similar with blue eyes / brown eyes at school one day. But weight and looks are far too sensitive a subject for kids in this day and age. They seem to judge themselves earlier and earlier which is sad.

She didn;'t say to anyone that they were ugly.
She put them into two groups, and then later said solely to the daughter of the OP that there were people in the class uglier.
I think your last line shows exactly why this kind of exercise is A Good Thing. It shows children at an early age just how bad it can feelk to be superficially judged, even if it;s not real.

VS, the teacher told the first group they were "slim" "beautiful" "lovely and "skinny" and told the rest they were "too fat and big". Just as bad as calling people ugly IMO.

If she was trying to relate this to the book, she did it very badly indeed. And needs to explain to the children what on earth this is all about. AND be a little more helpful to parents who have justifiable concerns.

Even though the 'ugly' comment was made to the OP and her dd, it was still stupid and wrong.

I am with VS on this one. I wouldnt be fussed if this happened to dd.

Namechangen

I know exactly how you feel about the constant suspicion and challengin of your honesty etc.. I have had the same member posting on all my posts and I have repeated the same thing at least 3 or 4 times now its soo frustrating as it puts people off replying sometimes.

Cheers JZ7

Thank you JZ7. I have clarified myself well enough in my replies, but they haven't taken the care to read them and have said the same things again. If I was a newbie, I wonder whether I'd ever post on MN, it is not quite the supportive place it once was.

Yea I am a Newbie and my prob is that some people think that you have to have kids to be worthy of posting on mumsnet and be an accepted member! Lol

Yet this is not in keeping with the mumsnet policy nor with what mumsnet admin have told me.

Its defo the least welcome place for newbies
compared to other networking sites.

If only people just stuck to replying to the queston itself and if they don't have anything to say about the Question then theres no point? !

JZ7

I believe this, because when I was helping out in my DS's classroom at school the teacher said to the children that those with brothers could go out to the playground first, those with sisters could go second, and those with out any brothers or sisters would go last! I know a few of the children who were sitting there, who have no brothers or sisters, and some of them have some really sad stories in their families (divorce, miscarriage etc) so it felt really wrong!

Well, welcome JZ7, I hope you find a friendly place to be on here - it's been invaluable for me for the past 7 years, with a few exceptions! and thank you, to you and everyone who has offered an opinion for your perception and help. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks namechange, just ad another post from same member and is doing my head in, saying I should not be asking questions on my friends behalf re:kids etc.. but that is where I get my ideas from Lol!

Yea there should be more people like you on here!

Yea I mean for me its interesting as I do want kids but cos of being a Christian I want to get married first - but thats my decision for me. I don't expect other people do to do that obviously.

And I turn 31 in a week and always! broody Lol!

But I also would not want to get married to any random person or rush into a relationship just to have kids, plus unless the guy wanted to have kids straight away I would want to allow some time for the relationship to grow even after getting married.

I am so excited and please but jealous at the same as my best friend from uni has just got engaged over Christmas in Cyprus, thats were her beau lives! but may be there is hope for me yet!

I love my Faith massive! but the prob is that many people and blokes today are not sure about the commitment thing if you know what I mean.

I would love to do speed dating for fun but not had a change yet lol!

JZ

She wasn't saying that the children were lovely/skinny/beautiful etc, not really. She was doing what they did in the book they are studying.

As I said, maybe she needs to clarify that to the class, but maybe, just maybe she did? This is from the mouth of a six year old remember.

OP, I wouldn't let it bother you if people think you're a troll, but I'm sure that as a namechanger you know just how many threads we've had that seem unbelievable at the start only to continue on and on and then find out lots later that it was in fact a troll.

If the OP is actually real, I'd find it appalling that that happened. I can't agree with you VS, if a child is labelled as being fat or slim I don't think any good can come of it.
If the teacher was randomly including fatter kids in the slim group and vice versa that would make it slightly better.

Yes, surely if it was just using the story it wouldn't have needed the teacher to distinguish between different sizes of children, in order to do that? iyswim.

Have not read whole thread but IMHO this woman has no business to be near young children anywhere let alone in a classroom! I can only presume she resembles Kate Moss or some other super model if she believes she has the right to pass her illplaced and totally idiotic judgement on these poor Year 2s , (not that Kate Moss et al or anyone else actually has that right either!). Poor children.