PE teacher not behaving well

[onceamai]

DD started new school september. No PE for 1st 1/2 term due to break. Wrote to head explained probs, esp with carry bags, longer journey etc., included advice given by consultant. A few weeks into term PE teacher encourages dd to join in. Next week told to remove stud earrings (not doing PE). The next week to bring in PE kit to change (not doing PE). This teacher has also been very loud and over bearing with teh class and dd was scared of her after the first week. Did what parents were advised to do at induction and called the head of KS3 to discuss concerns. Did this very rationally and head of KS3 did not sound amused at what had been going on. DD comes home and tells me that PE teacher took her aside and told her she was disappointed in her for discussing the fact that she couldn't do PE with her rather than complaining to her mother. Advice about this please - I don't want to upset the school which we were very lucky to get a place at BUT I am not amused and very very disappointed.

I think to talk about your child being terrified is extreme, what is the PE teacher going to do?

I think you are right to say this has been badly handled however I think you are unfairly casting the PE teacher as a grand villain. I would consider it odd if a child went straight to the head rather than a head of year or even me tbh.

The child didn't go to the head, she talked to her mum fgs

and her mum did exactly as she had been advised to do and had a word with the head of KS3

and as for "terrified" being OTT - were you never frightened of a teacher? Most people have been, at some point, especially in a new school.

i think we have to say "welcome to secondary school"

never ever assume that what you have said/written to one will ever be communicated to anybody else who will need to know. always contact the teacher that needs to know directly- especially something so important.

i think tbh i would leave it now. your daughter is intimidated by this PE teacher who clearly did not have a full grasp of the facts and there has been poor communication. the fact that your dd is intimidated does not mean that this teacher is picking on her or undermining you. dd has never come across this type of person before and it is a life lesson. reassure dd that if the teacher really meant not to tell you of any problems, then she is wrong- you want and need to know these issues. in other situations though, you might give her advice on how to sort it out.

But the child had not spoken to the teacher or even to her form tutor. If a complaint had been made about me I would ask a child why they just did not speak to me or ask their form tutor to talk to me if I was terrifying.

I have never been terrified of a teacher, and I was regularly beaten by my convent school teachers.

It could be, and I hesitate to say it, just that the PE teacher (who possibly does not see her behaviour as intimidating) is trying to make positive contact with your child. Just trying to say, you can talk to me.

It is difficult - I once had a child's grandmother take me aside during a school event and say that her grand-daughter was too shy to give me a poem that she had written because she felt too shy to talk to me. The first thing I did was take the child to one side and say 'I would be disappointed if you always felt that you had to speak to your family to talk to me - come and speak to me first.' Then I took a look at the poem - it was really rather good, but the child was so shy in class I would never have known how much she loved the subject.

The teacher might have learned a lot from this too.

As a secondary teacher I think

Your daughter was right to talk to you
You were right to talk to Head of KS3
The teacher was wrong to speak to your daughter in this negative way re the concern expressed
A little bit of EI on the part of the teacher and she would have been ringing you to ask how she could move forward with your daughter so that, once the break is healed, your daughter could feel part of the class

I think she should bring back the whole team

Whoops sorry wrong thread. I abjectly apologise.

i empathise op but i tend to agree with scottish mummy

At this point in the schoolyear with any of my children i pretty much 'hang fire' and see how things pan out though

reminds me of when i went to DD's parents evening in year 7 and the next day the teacher told DD she found me 'intimidating' I should have kicked off but didn't

In my DC school (some of) the PE teachers don't accept any excuses or even a letter from the parent to excuse the child from PE. The attitude seems to be that if you're in school you should do PE, no exceptions. If you have only just started in Y7 and are only 11 then it can be quite difficult to stand up for yourself against a quite forceful PE teacher.

For you teachers on the thread I am usually very supportive of you, but in this instance you are being very harsh about the OP and her daughter. If you have broken a collarbone you cannot carry the extra kit into school and you certainly cannot get changed on your own. Also, those of you saying that she should get a friend to help her, she's only just started at secondary and might not have made a good enough friend to feel she could ask anyone to her her.

OP I sympathise with you and your DD. I can only say that you chalk this up to experience and tell your DD that she will have to get a bit of backbone or some forceful teachers will walk all over her.

I was frequently terrified of teachers my school career usually either games or home economics funnily enough.Frankly if I was shy and was told off (because as a child I would have perceived its that) and that someone was "disappointed " in me for not talking to them first I would never have approached that teacher again or allowed any member of my family to do so on my behalf.
I usually stick up for teachers but some of the attitudes on here beggar belief .

Thank you talker 2010. I shall remain measured about this and keep my powder dry. I have a copy of the original letter, I have a note of the telecon with the Head of KS3 and also took a note of the advice given at induction. If there is any more nonsense I shall raise it formally in writing and request a meeting. Hopefully the matter has been resolved behind the scenes. Shall monitor carefully after 1/2 term when dd is back on games.

Must say attitude of some of the teachers on here has shocked me. This issue has revolved around an 11 year old child who has coped remarkably well with a new school and a painful injury at the same time.

Onceamai - as a teacher I'm only standing in defence of the PE teacher being called a bitch etc - obviously your daughter should not be doing PE, it's your attitude to the conversation the teacher had with your DD after the incident that bothers me.

If school communication is poor, yes bring it up with senior staff, but IMHO the teacher most likely spoke to your daughter in good faith to ask her in future to communicate any issues with her, and not 'having a go at her' for talking to her mother - a frankly ridiculous notion that any teacher would do that

Sports teachers are notoriously old fashioned and are often much louder than other teachers.

In some respects they have to be - sport is noisy, can be dangerous if the pupils don't follow instructions. Also, it is the one subject where parents feel it's okay to tell their kids not to bother ( I know that's not the case here), consequently you get a lot of resistance in a way you never would in maths.

So sports teachers tend to be no nonsense, and loud.

In my experience, you need to be no nonsense back.
Send an email to the sports office - striaght to the horses mouth. Say DD has a broken collar bone. Can't change independently. Can't take part whatsoever - doctor's orders. End of. Not up for negotiation.

Ooozathon your loyalty to you profession is admirable however without wishing to sound patronising ;when you have your own 11 year old you may have a different view of what they perceive to be intimidating ,and how easy it is to feel vulnerable and also how helpless you can feel as a parent amid the massed ranks of a huge secondary school.
On the one hand teachers complain about children answering back but then they complain that they don't correct them if they have something wrong.My children have been brought up to do as the teacher tells them and not to argue ,even if privately they disagree ,in my experience games teachers in particular have little or no compassion,of course there are exceptions but in my 3 have had more of these issues with sports teachers than any other subject.
In addition the OP followed instructions for communication given by the school.As a new parent how is she to know that in reality she should do something diffent to this

Ona health and safety note as well, had the child been injured whilst being made to do games despite the school have been fully informed they could have been on thee d of a nasty legal claim and the teacher would not have hD a leg to stand on.On being informedcby the child that she had an injury she should have backed off until she could check

And people wonder why so many teenage girls give up sport... Clearly this PE teacher has no commonsense whatsoever, and for a new student to be confronted in this way about that student's mother communicating in exactly the way the school had told her to, is not good. Not good at all.

My DD started her new school last year with a broken arm - because it was in a cast no one questioned it. The year before she had a broken collarbone which is less obvious but much more serious. Straining, let alone landing on, an already broken collarbone is potentially extremely dangerous and risks permanent damage to the joint.

OP, you handled this in precisely the way the school asked you to, can't understand why you're getting any criticism for that. Stick to your guns, and I hope your DD gets better soon.

oncemai: communications in school are notoriously bad, you can't rely on one department to pass a message to another (despite what the handbook says). Speak directly to the teacher concerned: I'll bet that once she is informed of circumstances she will understand.

Communication is the key. There is no need to worry about 'upsetting' people, you are merely letting the relevant people know the full extent of the situation (because the school are incapable of doing it themselves again)

I'm only responding to the point of the OP: her annoyance is
entirely targeted at the fact that the PE teacher had the temerity to have a conversation with her DD after the issue was cleared up to ask her to communicate with her directly to prevent misunderstandings. This seems entirely sensible - I would imagine if OP met with the teacher in question, she
would be vastly reassured that her DD is fine in her care, and that the teacher might just have a manner which your DD doesn't like - an opinion to which she is perfectly justified. I am not a fan of mothers calling a teacher a bitch based on what someone's DD says they said I don't think that makes me naive.

Oozathon - I've dropped it. Please do too! But dd is very, very shy and very quiet and would never ever say, especially to a very shouty teacher, something like "actually Miss, I can't do that because - she will just do it". Also and as had already crossed my mind, if the joint had been damaged further as a result of being encouraged to join in against written instructions - then yes potentially we would have had a very strong claim against the school.

Anyway up dd is OK about it, have had another chat this evening, and if anything similar happens again, I shall copy the Head of KS3 and the PE teacher into correspondence.

Best wishes to you all. You have all been very helpful. Had I known how much emotion this would have engendered I don't know if I would have posted. Have chanced my arm on much more emotive issues on AIBU before now and have not seen quite as much passion!

I'll be damned if I cannot talk to the school if I had any concerns about any aspect of my child's education. Don't forget this principle, you are the boss, the school staff are there at your service. As a matter of fact, in the last 36 hours I've spoken to, not 1, not 2 but 3 different teachers who have responsibilities for my child regarding a certain aspect of my child's education.