Dd1 (aged 10, Y6) has a somewhat chequered history at her primary school. Essentially she is bored rigid by the classwork, and has a tendency to chat, fidget and read books of her own on the quiet. She also can't resist correcting the teacher's mistakes, which has got her into trouble in the past. But that is pretty much as far as it goes -- don't think anyone could describe her as seriously disruptive, though she can be a bit lippy. But nothing that a competent teacher shouldn't be able to handle with a few humourous putdowns.
She was excited last week that the school were going to allocate positions of responsibility for Y6 head boy/girl, deputy, prefects, etc. She knew she wasn't headgirl material, but was hoping for a job of some kind, eg. infant playground duty. Instead she has come home today and is one of only 12 children in the class without any post at all. The other 11 are all hardcore disruptive children. It is very obvious that she is the only one of her group of friends who has been left out the other children are all talking about it. I think she is actually very upset, but is covering it up with the whole teenage routine: "Don't care, don't want to be a prefect anyway, it's all pathetic, they just use it to control you" etc, which is precisely the attitude I've been trying to discourage in her.
I was really hoping this year was going to be better (last year a disaster with an inexperienced teacher totally out of her depth). Someone please say something to make me feel better -- I just want to go and bang my head against a wall.