Not Happy With Soon To Be Year 2 teacher

[whiterthanwhite]

My DD will be going into year 2 in september. We have been told her teachers for year 2 are job share teachers she had in reception. The school occasionally move teachers between the year groups plus all the children had been moved around too which is why she will have them again.

We are very unhappy about this. She's had a brilliant year 1 teacher. DD really came on in year 1 having such a good teacher who is fantastic with the children and had a real connection with them. DD hardly learnt anything in reception and the teachers were very distant. They also did not appear to communicate with each other.

I am also aware of parents who currently have children in their class and have been very negative about the two teachers. One of the teachers used to job share with another teacher when my older DS was at the school and she the parents did not have a good opinion of her then.

There are four classes in the year group, would it be worth me asking if DD can move to another class? Not sure what to do. DD is very shy and was quite withdrawn but with her current teacher she has really come on.

It's such a shame as she'd looked forward to school this past school year!

Personally I think every parent should be able to choose which teacher they have to teach their child.

And every teacher should be able to choose which child/parent they have to teach

Yes snowball, that's what my sister in law says but then she does teach at an inner city school with loads of problems and no support off the parents!

But what about her friends that she has made in her current class??

If she is very shy and withdrawn moving her might be worse as she might have to try and join in with established frindship groups.

Some teachers just don't "get" reception but do better in older year groups.

What are your reasons for not liking the new teacher? I know you said she doesn't have a great reputation, but you need to think about why that might be. Its easy to get the wrong impressions of teachers.

You might have found your dd seemed to progress more in year 1 than reception because the two year groups are structured completely differently. Reception is all about learning through play but Y1 is when it gets more formal because the National Curriculum begins, and it's natural to see the difference in progress academically. Y2 will be a lot more like Y1 than reception could be.

bizzey

When they mixed the year group end of reception she was split from her friends even though many had been kept in their friendship groups. When I asked the job share teachers at the end of reception who they considered to be her friends they said she didnt have any in particular but when I looked through her work she had mentioned her friends in pieces of work she had done!

She has still played with her old friends at play times. She wasnt too bothered about being split from them as she really liked her new class teacher.

Outraged

The teachers didnt seem to get to know her. They critised her shyness but didnt seem to do anything to draw her out of herself other than moaning to me about . I had to make suggestions to them for example, encourage her to answer questions in class. I got called in once because she had been playing cops & robbers with some boys and she had used a toy car as a pretend gun! Apparently this was classed as misuse of equipment.

Perhaps I'm being too sensitive and precious?

I would try and shift her - though I accept that most people wouldn't.

My thining would be that as there is agnst / concern from you at this early stage your much more likely to pick-up on the negatives throughout the year and to get more stressy than you would if you started off from a happier perspective with the teacher.

If you do decide to try for a shift be careful how you phrase your reasons, personally i'd go for an all-out lie along the lines of some semi-medical stress related condition that the child has.

Most schools will say no-movement once classes have been announced. Once they start moving one child because the parent makes a fuss, they open the floodgates.

There is NO WAY a school would let a parent dictate what class their child will go into just on their wim that they don't like the teacher. As Jeee said this would open the floodgates and you would have irate parents ganging up on the school and might end up with 50 children in one class and 10 in another! Completely un workable to allow parents to choose their child's teacher. I'm afraid you just have to work with who've you've got :(

What if you were able to move her? What if she was moved into a class where the teacher/s were even more distant with a worse reputation?

Sadly there are weak teachers & it may be that these two are poor communicators? But it could also be that these particular teachers are better with older pupils? Try to give your child as much positivity as possible as she'll pick up on you apprehension.

My DD had a nightmare year 1 teacher & when I found out she would be taking the higher level literacy class in year 2 I was very nervous. Actually she was brilliant at teaching literacy so I needn't have worried.

I know someone whose children grew up in Belgium and they had an interesting method of choosing classes for the next year in primary. There were two classes per year, and no restriction on size. So you chose your teacher, and you got it and then couldn't change.

So if you had a good and a poor teacher for next year then you could chose between having 45 in a form and the good teacher or the poor teacher and 15 in the form. Personally I quite like the idea, although would probably hate to have the responsibility of having to choose, and maybe getting it wrong.

The school do say that they wont move children between classes however when the year group was mixed, one parent threatened to move her child schools so they moved her child to another class. The head told the parents not to advertise the fact they'd moved the child but the mother herself couldnt help passing on the details.

Another child was moved mid year as the teacher could not cope with the child who misbehaved all the time. He got moved to a sticter teacher.

I do accept there are good and bad teachers though and it would be ridiculous to move her each time she had a poor teacher.

In my DCs school they might move her if you requested it.

Sorry just had to say it, as there are so many who say it can't happen. It does have a problem this year as one year group has a certain teacher who a lot of people have requested not having next year (but then some people would HE their kids rather than have her, and all parents who are listened to have personal experience of her, unfortunately she is not bad enough to be sacked just not at all "kind" to some children).

But DCs school does move students but only if a parent has had personal experience of the teacher they want moved from (I have had 2 children with her, and the DC I requested not have her already has behavioural issues and has had a run in with her). Personally with the right child (my middle one) she can be a great teacher, she is very good at "teaching" just not necessarily the other stuff.

It really only is an issue in primary usually because at secondary you don't get the same teacher all the time. But then again I got one child moved MFL groups because there is one teacher who is hopeless, and I requested it.

This is a school where there is obviously different classes and children are mixed/moved around from one year to the next.
I would be curious to know how many children had these 2 teachers in reception and will have them again in Y2.

As a general rule, it isn't good to have the same teacher too often as children do better when confronted with different methods of teaching (And I would personally say that even with a 'good' teacher).

I would go and see the school and explain you would prefer your dd to have another teacher as she already had them in reception. Emphasize how good it would be for her to experience other style of teaching. And how good it did to her to get that between reception and Y1.

Re allocation. There is a difference between 'Oh I prefer that teacher' with 'There is no way my child will do another year with X'.

In the first case, there is no need to 'allow' children moving around.
In the second, there might be some history and some good reasons why it is not suitable for that child to be with that specific teacher again (which actually might have anything to do with how good or bad the teacher is. It's more about getting the 'right mix' iyswim).

I have being in the second case. I have moved the dcs because it was not possible to move the dcs. But the mix'dc2/teacher' was really not good!

I'd be figuring out how to make the best of a bad situation if I were you. What exactly is wrong with the woman? And how do you know this? Is it all hearsay, or have you experienced problems with her?

learnandsay her dd already has had both teachers (who were job sharing already) when she was in reception.

DCs school is a school which shuffles the classes every year, so its not obvious why my child is not with yours.

Under a previous head at the Infants, there was one child who was swapped classes in year 2 (when the classes were kept constant from year R to 2). We all knew why that child was swapped, and they were only swapped under that head because a) Mum had job shared with the teacher b) Dad was a governor.

At seniors it is unfair as if you complain about MFL teacher your child gets moved, those who don't complain end up in her class.

Lady, I understand that. But what I picked up from that was that they were distant and didn't appear to speak to each other. I can imagine the latter situation is a natural hazard in a job share, by definition. And it seems that other mothers didn't have a high opinion of them. But I'm not after other mothers' opinions. I would really like to know what's wrong, if anything, with the teacher.

Hi, learnandsay

DD is very shy and lacks confidence. In pre school, her teacher was good with her. DD originally refused to go to school and would scream and cry and was/is clingy. However she settled in and really enjoyed going.

In reception, DD was happy at first but then started to revert back as she did not like the teachers. I think they were quote shouty and DD was scared of them. She learnt hardly anything and had no interest in learning. Communication between the teachers was poor as was the communication with the parents.

Year 1 - DD has made good progress and loves the teacher. DD wants to do her best for the teacher and puts in a lot of effort. Teacher also praises the children. When they did a year group assembly DD really got involved and I was amazed at her confidence. This is down to her teacher.

My other children have been through the school and luckily they were outgoing so had no problems. They also excelled in their work but this was in spite of the school not because of.