Choosing your child's teacher

[Alligatorpie]

i am in the fortunate position that as a teacher in the private school I work in, I have a certain amount of say where my year one dd will be next year.

I want her go be with "A" as she is gentle, kind and respectful, but three of her friends including one SN girl and her support teacher will be with "B" who is really fun, but allows her home ( party) life and mood swings to affect her day.

"A" is also getting a SN child who is very challenging and disruptive and an ineffective support teacher ( currently they are in my class so I know how having her in the room changes the dynamics of the classroom and I have a background in SN so have some experience.) there are also a lot of behavior issues in this school, students are very wealthy and indulged - they do not take responsibility for anything.

We live overseas and dd already doesn't speak the local language, so I hesitant to break her away from her friends especially the SN girl who is lovely, as is the support teacher ( who helps her in her daily Arabic classes) I know at age six she will have friends in any of the classes but I wondered what I should do.

Would really appreciate any thoughts. Cheers!

You need to separate your role as a teacher from your role as a parent both for you and your child.

If all parents get the choice as to the class ytheir chld goes into, then choose away. If not (as I presume is the case), then let the school decide.

It's pretty intense to work in the same school as your child attends, but you almost need to pretend she's not there, and vice versa, so you can have the normal chats about school, learning, friends etc.

I agree with claresf that it is probably better if you take a step back at this point and try to act as if you were one of the other, non-teaching mums at this school.

It is an important part of growing into a bigger child that increasingly there are areas of your life which are not micro-managed by your parents, which you have to learn to manage yourself: you should let your dd have this experience, which includes potentially ending up with the less ideal teacher or having to make some new friends.

I agree with the others. But if I were choosing in the situation you describe I would go with B.

I agree, and I think it would be bad practice of a school to let their staff choose their dc's teachers but not other parents. It can only cause bad feelings among the teachers and the parents. "Why didn't you want your dc to have me?"

Only time I think it would be reasonable is if one of the teachers is you and then I'd always advise the child goes into the other form, but some people would want to teach their own.

Thanks the feedback. I didn't think of it that way. I teach the same grade my dd is in now,( we are separated by two classrooms) so will be making class lists for her year anyway. Maybe I will step back a bit and let the other teachers decide. Cheers!

My mum had the opposite problem! One of the infant teachers wanted to teach me and my siblings (I think she wanted to collect the whole set ) but we didn't like her, and my mum wasn't keen either.

My mum wasn't keen about all of the teachers we got, but she didn't step in because she knew it would be unfair.

On the plus side, I loved having my mum in school! She used to give me cuddles as I passed her in the corridor :) if other kids complained, she'd cuddle them too.