Childs hair cut at school

[shatteredL]

Not sure what to do with this one!

Picked up by child from school early for an appointment, noticed some areas of her hair are shorter than another's. It's been cut at school 🤦🏻‍♀️she has been asking for shorter hair so I'm pretty sure she's either a). Cut it at school herself
Or b). Asked one of her friends too.

It's definitely not happened at home as scissors are out of reach for her.

I've asked her teacher to give me a call but not sure what to say on this one. Surely this is something they would notice if they were being supervised?

Can't keep an eye on children 100% of the time. Just ask the teacher to remind children not to cut anything other than paper.

I assume your DD is in Reception, as you don't specify her age? But either way, these things can happen pretty quickly, so it doesn't necessarily indicate a prolonged period of lack of supervision.

As a y1 teacher, this happens at least once pretty much every year. Either children cutting their own hair or each others’.

Of course they are supervised but 1 or 2 adults to 30 children does mean you can’t have eyes on everyone all the time. It takes a second to cut some hair unfortunately.

This happened a few times when I was a reception TA. We haven’t got eyes in the back of our heads.
I would be eyerolling if I was the teacher. Could it not have waited until next drop off/pick up?

Schools don’t have enough staff to provide 1-1 for every child! Things like this happen

Btw if my child had cut their own hair or asked a friend to do it then what I would mainly be doing is telling them off for using scissors unsafely. Assuming 5 years + they really should know by now not to cut their own hair (or anyone else’s).

I would not be blaming the teacher unless they were the ones who had done the cutting!

I did this at school. My friend cut my fringe off and i cut one of her bunches off then we painted each other from head to foot in pink paint. We both got smacked by the teacher ( yes t was a long time ago) I think we were about 5. They obviously left us alone for too long.

Perhaps you should get your daughter's hair cut seeing as she's repeatedly asked you to?

Right because that's obviously the issue here.

They should know if the pupils are wielding sharp objects at themselves or each other. That's a kind of minimum supervision standard.

They can eye roll all the want. I don't expect them to have eyes in the back of their hairs but as another poster has said, it's potentially dangerous for her or potentially another child to have scissors close to their heads/faces whether she or somebody else has done it. Of course I will be speaking to her as she's gone radio silent and sheepish and won't say who's done it

Sorry when have I blamed the teacher? 🤣 I would just want to bring it to their attention given the fact either she or a peer has had a pair of scissors right next to her head. There may be more than one people who have been affected or done it to eachother? Think we'd all soon moan if a pair of scissors took somebody's eye out.

They should know if the pupils are wielding sharp objects at themselves or each other. That's a kind of minimum supervision standard

You expect teacher to stare continuously at a child when the child is using scissors? How do they do that when they have 20+ other children to watch?

Have you seen the scissors in primary school? They're not likely to have someone's eye out 

And actually @JeandeServiette I do think that's the issue. The kid wants her hair cut and her mum hasn't cut it. So she's taken matters into her own hands.

My ds and his best mate cut each other's fringes with paper scissors at age 5. It was hilarious. You can imagine the relief on the poor teacher's face when both mothers rolled around laughing. These things happen, which is why paper scissors only cut hair, not fingers!

I expect staff not to turn their backs on a class once scissors have been handed out, to count scissors back in, to (sooner or later) notice if chunks of hair show up on the classroom floor...Yes.

They aren’t the kind of scissors that you can stab someone with! And it’s unlikely the teacher is going to start naming names, your dd might not have told the teacher who did it, or may not want to tell the truth 🤷‍♀️ it may remain a mystery!

Right. Because if children can't have what they want, when they want it, anything that then results is the parents' fault?

have you seen a pair of school scissors before? They aren’t sharp. Hence, safe to use as part of a class activity

How do you propose the teacher stares at all of the children during a cut and stick activity with your daughter.

can’t believe you’ve bothered the teacher via phone with such a non issue. Could have been a breezy email so the t could have spoken to your dd tomorrow and worked out what happened

Sorry for not allowing my 5 year old to have her hair cut when she's asked for it once about 2 days ago 🤣 my fault!

I expect staff not to turn their backs on a class once scissors have been handed out, to count scissors back in, to (sooner or later) notice if chunks of hair show up on the classroom floor...Yes.

This isn't how it works in a classroom. You would have to send them to a school where they all sat in rows for this to work.

How would it make a difference if they counted scissors back in like a prison?

Most reception classroom floors are swept by the children using dustpans during the tidying up time.

In the reception classroom I was in last week the children made cupcakes completely unsupervised. Apart from the oven part. But they got and then weighed the ingredients, whisked the mix and put them in bun cases.

Apologies for misunderstanding you @shatteredL - 'she has been asking for shorter hair' does imply she's asked more than once.

Absolutely fine to let the teacher know so she can remind the kids that scissors are for cutting paper not each other's hair. But please don't have a go for lack of supervision. In a class of 30 kids you can't see everything all of the time

You have very little understanding of a primary classroom @JeandeServiette

Access to (very blunt, paper cutting safety scissors) is completely free to all children. There is no handing out or counting how many there are.

She's doing the typical 5 year old thing of asking the other day and then repeated it 14 times within 30 mins but it's not an on-going thing that she's been requested for week/months

Well your comment about supervision along with ‘Not sure what to do here’ and feeling it merited a phone call vs a quick chat on drop off implied that you were placing some (quite a lot of) the responsibility on the teacher.

Because my reaction would be to tell my child not to do something so daft again and remind them why it’s unsafe.

But it’s great to hear that you understand why the level of supervision you initially seemed to expect is infeasible in a primary classroom and you’ll simply be letting the teacher know so they can remind all of the children to keep scissors for paper only.