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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

dispute over which class my ds will be in next week

63 replies

rightrevauntiemackerel · 02/09/2011 08:51

hello this is my first post, and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice about how to get my boy into the best class for him. He's 9 and been allocated to a class with two teachers, one of whom is leaving at Xmas to start a headship elsewhere, the other returning from maternity leave. After Xmas there'll be another teacher. Ds is not good at adapting to different teachers and the other class for his year is a single teacher who seems very good. In addition, all his friends, including his best friend are in the other class. School is not listening to my requests to have him in that class. Anyone with experience of negotiating with school for what you want? I feel my ds is being hung out to dry and he's getting v upset about the whole business....

OP posts:

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MigratingCoconuts · 03/09/2011 18:35

Why don't you wait and see?

you never know, you might find out that it works out really well and the school knew what they were doing all along......

Boobicca · 03/09/2011 18:52

Op, your suggestion that the teacher returning from maternity leave won't have her mind on the job is insulting to working mothers everywhere. Don't judge others by your own inabities.

Feenie · 03/09/2011 18:57

So - you ask for help for the first time on a parenting forum, have the stupidity to suggest that a working mother returning from maternity leave will not be concentrating well enough on her job, then return and insult posters who, quite rightly, pulled you up on this?

That's some thick skin you have there.

t0lk13n · 03/09/2011 19:02

Good Lord...get a grip....no wonder children can`t cope/behave in school if this is what some parents are like!

clam · 03/09/2011 20:00

I still don't understand why, if he's "a very bright boy," he "finds it difficult to understand new teachers" and has needed a TA to help him.

limetrees · 03/09/2011 20:15

I think that since the school have denied your request, the only option you have is to wait and see how it goes.

Since you are in this position, you will have to try and be really positive for your DS and try to tell him it will be fine etc and chivvy him along somehow.

In general, school nearly always refuse these requests. If he changed class, it would open the flood gates.

In our school, the only child than managed to change class at the reqest of a parent was actually the daughter of the deputy head!

Try also to see the positives from your own perspective, since you can do no more. The teacher moving to a head position will be very experienced and she will have taught all sorts of children, some of whom will have been similar to your DS. She will have good control, she will know the curriculum well etc. The teacher returning from maternity may be very keen to get back to teaching and she may also be very maternal/kind, having just had a baby. A generalisation and an assumption - but just to illustrate the bright side. My DS is going into a jobshare class this year and the parents from that class last year said it was great.

paddyclamp · 03/09/2011 21:15

He'll be absolutely fine with 2 teachers, kids that age are so adaptable...i really don't think the OP means anything offensive about working mums / teachers who've just had babies..she's prob just let her worries blow out of all proportion!

I really wish schools wouldn't tamper with classes..mixing kids up is so unsettling when they're young..sure they do it at high school but kids are older then and better able to cope..my kids school mix classes in the infants but fortunately DS got through it without being split from his best friends (they do it on age so just pot luck that it worked out well)...

I will say though that friends of my DS who were separated from their friends did cope as they all play together on the yard...i'm not gonna lie and say that everything was great for them but they got through it...they're all going in to the juniors this week so they're all back together again now

exoticfruits · 03/09/2011 22:37

Criticising a mother?s ability to do a good job because she has just returned from maternity leave, and someone who has worked hard to receive a promotion, hits nerves with many of us here. Add to that the fact that many of us are also teacher mums makes it even more hurtful

I agree, had you not made that remark people would have been much kinder. Job share teachers are just as dedicated as full time teachers. There are going to be more and more job shares in the future-it isn't just mums with young DCs who like them-they are getting very popular with older teachers-or any teacher who wants a work/life balance and can afford to be part time.

LatteLady · 03/09/2011 23:13

You may not like the arrangements but the final decision lies with the HT - each year I will get at least one parent who complains to me that they do not like the teacher, Support Assistants, the classroom and so on. As the Chair of Governors I have to go back and explain that the allocation of classes is down to the HT as this is day to day school management. Sorry but that is the way it is... it is a lesson that we all learn, sometimes the cookie does not crumble the way we wish it to fall.

Erebus · 04/09/2011 20:26

The OP is correct in one 'fear'- the possibility that a DC will lose contact with a friendship group as a result of a certain class split. It happened to my DS2. The old 'they can play together at break' only holds water if a DC has a strong personality and/or long standing, close friendship with another in a different class. If, like my DS2, that isn't the case, they can find themselves increasingly isolated in the playground. DS2 was fine with 'the gang' of mates when he was with them all day but once he was inexplicably split from them, he wasn't party to the 'in jokes' or discussions about what just happened in class as he hadn't been there! He did make friends with boys in the new class but it was a slog as most of them had been together for years but sadly, in 'fitting in', he became rowdier and his progress suffered!

We moved him at the end of Y3 into a different school (other reasons not involving him) but interestingly, there has been a mass exodus from that old school, end of Y5 as parents are voting with their feet as yet another year (6!) of NQTs, part timers, odd class mixes loomed.

123caughtaflea · 04/09/2011 21:19

I will buck the trend here and say that when I went back to teaching after maternity, my mind was not on the job as much as beforehand. Speaking solely for myself, I'm afraid it couldn't be as my DS has additional needs and if I'd had the choice I wouldn't have gone back.

But . . . and this has been confirmed through all assessments of my teaching ever since . . . my teaching has gained immeasurably in maturity, understanding, insight etc. I may not spend as many many hours on planning and prep as before (still do a good few: I was a bit obsessed before!) but I am a broader, richer, more compassionate person and my classes gain from that.

So I too agree, a teacher returning from maternity leave is a professional and will work professionally. And if not, the school has procedures in place to pick up and address ANY teacher's weaknesses.

For the rest: sorry, have to agree. School decides where a child is placed, child will do better if parent supports the placement, but it is school's decision. If there is a real problem, take the head up on the review at half-term.

Mum2be79 · 04/09/2011 21:24

Hormonal so sorry if my post was rather blunt but I meant everything I said in it. I am offended that someone thinks that my returning to work status will impact on my ability to do my job. A very generalised comment about working mums and very unfair.

PLINKPLONK No! I'm not fed up with parents. I'm fed up with people who think that schools and teachers have to bend over backwards to give them what they want and act like spoilt children themselves. Not all parents act in such as way as OP has - even the ones who do have concerns. They listen to the advice of the teacher (they may not be happy with it) but they go with the flow and are patient to see how things turn out. Never in 11 years has my school seen such a situation not work.

If any school gives in to a parent's or child's demands because 'they're not happy' then they have to give the same concessions to everyone. OP needs to understand this. Her child is the world to her but so is everyone else's and giving in to every parents' whim, fantasy and demands will make things totally unmanageable and impossible!

Also what does that teach a child later in life? I'm not happy with the person I'm sitting next to so I'll whinge about it until I get my own way? Life is 'unfair' at times. The majority get on with it.

RandomMess · 04/09/2011 21:25

Being positive about this, it will help him when he goes to secondary school, he will know other boys in the school better and will have had experience of different teachers on different days.

I wonder if there is some reason that the school think he will be better off away from the rest of the gang.

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