Teacher confusing DD with other girls

[redskyatnight]

I suspect this is one of those things that doesn't have an answer but anyway ...

At DD's school they have an extra teacher who covers PPA time and other teacher absences. DD regularly has this teacher for half or a full day every week and has done so since September.

Every time (it seems) DD has this teacher she comes home despondent. According to DD, the teacher confuses DD with 2 other girls in the class - she uses their names interchangeably and (which is the thing that DD is mostly upset about) she will promise DD she can do something (like give out the pencils i.e. v. important to Y1 children) and then later actually give the job to one of the other 2 girls. DD does also get jobs that the other 2 were promised so it's not all one way! Yesterday DD came home saying she should have got a sticker for X, but the teacher had given it to girl A instead.

Now, I realise the teacher is not deliberately trying to mix the girls up and is probably pretty frustrated by it as well as DD tells me that she, A and B are always telling the teacher she has got their names wrong - though not necessarily about mixing them up in other ways as it's not always practical/easy to do so. I'm not even worried about DD missing out on stickers etc - I tell her that adults make mistakes too, it's ok to point them out and that she should just be pleased with what she's done.

I am worried that she may be mixing the girls in terms of their abilities. Perhaps it's not a huge problem as she's not their main teacher - but she's likely to be teaching them again next year for the regular half day/day.

The girls' names are all very disimilar (she's not mixing Emma and Emily for example) and in the words of DD "I don't know why Mrs Z gets us mixed up because A has curly hair and B has glasses and I don't have curly hair or glasses, so we all look different!"

... But is there actually anything I can/should do?

Send your daughter to school with a footlong namebadge on.

I did PPA cover for a year. I had to teach 120 children regularly, and another 120 children occasionally.

That's a lot of names to learn!

Some kids stick in your mind very quickly. Normally not for good reasons. I found that the quiet girls who just got on with things were the ones I struggled to name. It didn't mean I didn't know what they were achieving, because I knew when I marked books who had been where. It just meant I made the occasional name mistake.

As a classteacher this year, I ensure I check through all the work taught and marked by my PPA cover. A child wouldn't be assessed any differently or marked down etc based on a PPA's word. If a supply or PPA teacher told me X had done such and such, and it wasn't like X, I would question it!

Incidentally, the other PPA teachers don't know lots of the children's names, and they've taught them for years!

As juniper says, the teacher will have loads of names to learn. It won't imapct on the marking of your DD's work and therefore won't affect her grades.

Why don't you get your DD to suggest to the teacher that they wear name labels? The teacher might be pleased at the idea!

Name labels sound like the answer.

The fact she is handing out rewards etc to the wrong child is a bit odd - surely you know who did something even if you dont know their name?

But with the name thing, its not always time or the number of children, I've found there are just some kids that you just get confused! I dont seem to have any this year but last year I had two boys and the year before two girls where I constantly got them the wrong way round for about a term. Then it suddenly just stopped happening, I didnt even notice until someone else got them wrong and I realised I'd stopped doing it.

To still be doing it in the final term is rather odd but I dont think there is much you can do.

I know it must be frustrating, but as a (secondary school) teacher who teaches over 200 pupils, it is difficult! Also if you get a wrong name attached to a child it is really difficult to "undo" the link! I would just get your DD to tell her every time she gets her name wrong! She (the teacher) probably feels bad about it, but constant nagging might work!

I find names really hard to remember although generally my memory is good, so I sympathise with the teacher. Name labels might be a great way forward. My DD would be just like yours OP and would hate to be mixed up with anyone else, as for a reward being given to the wrong person, I shudder to think the upset and tears that would result....it would be mulled over for days.