Called into school for a meeting

[JewelMonkey]

My 16yr old DS seems to mess around in one of his classes. DS doesn’t get on with the teacher who apparently shouts and looses his temper at the drop of a hat. DS is low level disruptive - messing around with his friend, laughing, sat with his coat on as he was cold etc. He has never, ever been higher level disruptive- no getting angry, no violence or aggression etc, it’s all just petty things. I don’t think DS has any respect for the teacher due to how he acts, and presumably the teacher doesn’t respect DS either. I have had numerous e-mails home from the deputy head regarding laughing in this class and being ‘silly’, I’ve now been asked to attend school for a face to face meeting with the deputy head.

I’ve discussed this with DS so many times, I’ve asked him to toe the line in class like he does in all his other classes. I’ve suggested to the depute that he is moved away from his friend in this class, but still the silliness continues. He is great in all other classes - his teachers know him well, he’s charismatic, funny, loyal and hardworking, he also has funny banter with his teachers, but this one new teacher just looses his mind at the slightest little thing. DS is deflated and doesn’t see the point in trying in this class as the teacher will just pull him up on anything and everything.

how do I handle the school face to face meeting? DS absolutely should be toeing the line, but he is 16 and can be immature- but I don’t feel he’s being badly behaved.

I agree. In life one sometimes has to put up with work colleagues or bosses who we don’t get on with. But that’s no excuse for undermining and disrupting.

Do you ever wonder why the teacher acts this way? And how would you know how your child acts you are not in the classroom, you may find out one day when he loses jobs

Really? You find my comparison from my own experience as a survivor of domestic abuse extremely offensive? I feel I am justified, given the hell I endured for years to use it as a comparison. I would understand your comment, had I not experienced it myself.

I was demonstrating how using that commenter's own words in a different scenario would come across - it certainly works in my view.

OP's son doesn't sound abusive from what OP has said, he's playing up in one class, because of clashing with this particular teacher. There's nothing there to suggest he's a victim of poor parenting or likely to abuse someone himself.

You can not be serious!!!

You compared a teacher telling off a misbehaving student with your husband abusing you.

The PP, clumsily and inappropriately, then used the same logic to highlight that your comparison was inappropriate.

There is no evidence that the teacher is abusive. It made no sense to compare it to your experience.

My sons school will switch the classes and teachers if there is a massive personality clash with a particular teacher.
Most teachers like my child, a few do not understand him at all and it escalates.
We spoke to the head of year and he said he wills switch classes. I would see if you can go doen this route.
People do leave workplaces if they hate their manager, or it is a toxic relationship with their employers. Sometimes you just clash and cant just rub along.

And I’m glad you didn’t send her to school either with the horrible attitude you’ve taught her.

You need to open your mind that your ds is not just the loveable rogue you think in school- if he can behave in other classes why not this one? I really struggle to believe that today there weren't enough laptops to go round, the teacher muttered God sake and they have chosen this incident to invite you to a meeting. I'd bet there's more to it than you are hearing

A 16 year old who is being badly behaved in class is not the same as a victim of domestic violence. Kindly, I suggest you seek therapy because you’re seeing it in places it isn’t there. Many victims of domestic violence will find it offensive you’re comparing a badly behaved almost adult man (rude, arrogant, disruptive) to a domestic abuse victim! It’s ludicrous.

He seems to have many traits of those who commit abuse to me. It’s absolutely mental to compare him to a victim because he’s had to face some consequences for his own actions!!

So pissarsing around makes you ‘too good for the school’
what planet are you on ?

Have you tried teaching? Why should we put up with that?

You said many. I said most people aren't those things.

With regards to the peers comment, that was about your angry man comment. Its no different at all.

@UnintentionalArcher is right. Sometimes teachers struggle, they might hold grudges. Often, kids exaggerate what happened or skimp on the contextual detail. In either case, it may need some mediation to repair the relationship.

OTOH, persistent “low-level” disruption is IME the most difficult to deal with as a teacher. It’s awful because any one incident is petty and minor, but the constant interruptions destroy the flow of the lesson, puts other kids off, ruins your concentration and confidence, and when you crack down on something which has been the final straw, you look heavy-handed because “oh I was just laughing, I didn’t do anything and now you’ve given me a detention, that’s not fair, Nathan was laughing too”. It’s like being bullied and then accused of lacking a sense of humour- same energy. And it’s really insidious and pervasive, I found my classes with a couple of characters like this in them were what broke me- they were far more destructive to my mental health than the classes where one kid might throw a chair or even start shoving me around.

Go to the meeting and be open minded. There may be truth in what your son says, but he may also be going light on his part in the breakdown of his relationship with the teacher. It may require some work on his part to mend fences (and perhaps on the teacher’s part as well.)
As pp have said, at the end of the day he’s going to encounter people socially and at work who he dislikes and who rub him up the wrong way, and he’s going to have to work out how to deal with those situations appropriately.

Why would you apologise for the school not having enough computers?

The boy is not responsible for an adult shouting at him, anymore than I am responsible for my husband punching me in the face if I am rude to him. The teacher has lost his moral high ground

You think he should be separated from his friend so he behaves! He is 16! He is old enough to get a job and you still think that the school should be responsible for making him sit elsewhere so he is not disruptive? Being "silly" at 16 is absolutely ridiculous.

i don’t know why some people on this thread are so adamant that the teacher hasn’t screamed at OP’s son. It happens, believe me

i have been the child in this situation. One teacher at secondary school singled me out for months. It got so bad that the minute anything happened in that class it was my name that she shouted no matter if I was anywhere near the incident or not. I got to the point of thinking why bother? I can’t do anything right. If me and 3 others laughed, I got bollocked, they didn’t. If five people hadn’t done homework, it was me that was singled out and made an example of. If half the class were talking, it was only me that was sent out to the corridor. It’s so demoralising and does absolutely nothing to make you want to do well in that class

Thank god for my head of year who picked up on the fact that all the de-merits and behaviour reports were coming from this one teacher and no others. She got me moved out of that class.

i still truly believe that teacher had a problem with me because she absolutely hated my cousin who was a year above me. She changed towards me the minute she found out we were related

OP, take your examples to the meeting with you. Be open minded and listen to what the deputy head has to say. But please stand up for your son if this teacher truly is singling him out. My mum got to the point that she stopped answering the phone to the school and just rolled her eyes at letters that were sent home (schools didn’t email back then) because it was always about this one teacher so I ended up dealing with it on my own

The problem you potentially have is that there is a permanent exclusion code 'persistent and generally disruptive behaviour' if this is your first face to face meeting expect school to suggest a Pastoral Support Plan (PSP) which is first stage intervention for this type of behaviour. If it's not the first face to face meeting , they may move him onto a Final Pastoral Support Plan (FPSP) which will escalate their interventions. The sort of things you can expect are behaviour reports, reporting to deputy head etc and most of all your son realising he can't disrupt a whole class because he doesn't like a staff member or the subject. You may have a bit of a personality clash as well (been there, my ds was forever being told off in History so he just stopped saying anything) Is he year 11 or year 12? Can he drop the subject? If he only started the option this year then I think that needs to be looked at as a possibility.

Calling getting told off abuse now is it? OK then. Call social services. The kid is fucking around and chucking pens. He wasn't at the back of the laptop queue because he was politely holding the door for others. He was clearly buggering about.

FFS. No wonder teachers are haemorrhaging out of the profession.

Reassure the school that you'll back them up, the teacher might be a knob but DS needs to be respectful in the class, he is aware of this teacher's boundary and pushes them.
I can barely handle one 16 year old.

OP hasn’t posted since 17.38.
I hope she didn’t walk when @Tontostitis commented as she dismissed the response.

Some teachers actually aren’t great. He should still be polite, obviously, but it’s not necessarily entirely his fault. He’s still a child and it’s not easy being in a room where you’ll be told off whether you behave or not. I don’t think most adults would think that’s fine in a workplace. Perhaps there’s another class he could join for the subject.
There's a ridiculous attitude to young lads in some schools/by some teachers (and posters!) They’re children ffs. They aren’t all about to beat people up
and force them to take drugs, or whatever.

So why didn’t they go and tell the teacher there weren’t enough, rather than sitting and waiting for a laptop to fall from the sky? I imagine that everyone else has got sorted with the task and some kids have sat and done nothing until the teacher has pointed it out, for them to come back with an arsey excuse that there weren’t enough, which could have been resolved if the teacher knew.

I’ve taught in a comp for over 25 years. The vast majority of kids do what they are told when they are told. They are polite and listen well. I’m sure sometimes they are bored and would rather be elsewhere but they have the maturity and good manners to do the right thing.
Stop making excuses for your son. We have enough to do without giving up precious time on emails and meetings. They wouldn’t call you in unless it had got to a pretty bad point.

This.

In the working world your son will meet people who he gets on with and people he doesn't. Occasionally there will be a real prick who just doesn't like him and makes his life difficult. We all have to learn to deal with it.

I would have been more pointed than the above poster ... "I'm sorry sir, me and three other names couldn't find any laptops, do you think you could help us please". All delivered VERY politely (cultivate a "butter wouldn't melt" look 🙂).