Can I just say some teachers are fantastic!

[roisin]

DSs go to a superb school with fab teachers, but even in that setting ds1 had a particularly amazing teacher for yr2 (2 years ago). She did loads of stuff specially for him, and always went "above and beyond" what anyone could have expected her to do!

He is now in yr4, but 2 weeks ago she sought him out in the playground to tell him about the Blue Peter writing competition and to encourage him to enter. Partly due to her encouragement he spent half an hour writing every night for ten days. He took a copy of his story in to school for her to read on Friday, and she made some time to speak to him about it one-to-one today! And he hasn't even been in her class for over a year.

That's sounds really great Roisin. The teachers I know mostly do follow the progress of the children they have previously had. I always find it amazing to see what a positive impact one teacher can have on a child - as you've just proved.
Suprisingly quite thread (tongue in cheek emoticon).

i remember one teacher who told me my youngest son wasn't a failure and with the right input he could achieve as much as anyone else. she made me cry. she left and all the teachers now just plod along. there are some shining stars though i quite agree

That's lovely to hear, Roisin. It sounds as if your son has a real talent and it's wonderful that he's met such an encouraging teacher.

And assistants!
Dd's assistant just radiates kindness and gentleness,very important to me as she is such a shy little thing.

Last year she called by at Christmas to drop in stuff from Father Christmas and a little letter from her to dd (as we had spent a lot of the year abroad and dd missed the school festivities.
Meant soooooooo much to me.

Amen! My sister is a primary school teacher. I got her a sticker for her car: 'If you can read this, thank a teacher'.

aww that's lovely.

I agree there are some fantastic teachers out there. I know it's not strictly a 'teacher' as it was in nursery last year.

But the difference that I saw in DS1 while at nursery was staggering, and I put this squarely down to the amazing staff they had their. A wonderful "hands on" headmistress (who also attends our church and is just as wonderful in day to day life as she is at work), and an incredible key worker that spotted very early on what DS1's strengths and weaknesses were and went all out to make sure he was encouraged as possible.

For example, they discovered he's a bit of a computer whizz (can't imagine where he got that from LOL), but not very 'active' or 'arty'. They got him climbing over the climbing frame in the 2nd week, and he came home glowing with pride as he'd got across on his own. And instead of doing 'messy' art - he used to 'draw' pictures on the computer and print them out.

Then in the 2nd term the nursery bought a brand new digial camera and photo printer. On the first day they got it he, out of 40 children in his session, was picked to 'help' take photos of people, and help to print them out. I still remember him coming home and telling me, in staggering detail, how to use the camera and connect it to the printer to get the pictures out.