Is "dealing with friendships" part of a primary teacher's job?

[rubyhorse]

DD (8) took a liking to pickle in her sandwiches over the summer holidays, so once or twice a week it goes into her school sandwiches. She came home today with none eaten. When I asked if she wasn't hungry, she filled up and said that nobody would sit with her if she had pickle in her sandwiches.

Hmm. When I asked who can't be near her pickle sandwiches, she reeled off a list of about 8 names. Now I don't think there can be that many pickle-smell-haters in a class, so it would appear to me to be a pretext for causing a kerfuffle and generally making one person feel left out. As can happen in the normal course of things. I put this to DD and said that it might be something to mention to the teacher (or I would - not a huge deal now, but not a pattern you'd want to harden, IYSWIM). DD said that it's not the kind of thing her teacher will listen to - apparently she'd say that it's not her problem and that the girls need to sort out these friendship things themselves.

I think this is the teacher's job - it's not a difference of opinion between two kids who are otherwise friends - it's the start of one person getting picked on for an arbitrary reason, and I don't think that it's something one 8 year old girl should have to sort out for herself, when her teacher could nip it in the bud with a two minute chat just before lunch.

Would you agree? Just before I get too involved :).

Yes I'd class this as bullying and therefore the teacher's job to intervene.

Yes, I agree. But it needs to be framed as dd being regularly, and deliberately left out. And you need to be sure that it is happening more than once.

Yes. IMHO primary schools should assist parents in teaching good social skills.

I both agree and disagree. I would not say this is 'bullying' as it's only happened once and you can't know that it's 'the start of something'. As a teacher I often tell children that I wont get involved in friendship issues (I teach year 5/6) because if I did it would be ALL I DID. All day, every day. Kids fall out, they make friends. I only get involved if it is ongoing, a child is very upset about it or its causing major issues.
However, when your child is not eating her lunch due to this I would deem this a bigger issue and would have a quick word before lunch as you say. I'd mention it to the teacher but don't blow it up to look huge, it's happened once and should be easily remedied.

I'd agree that teacher should get involved if one child is being ostracised by a large group of others.

But (as an ex primary teacher I can tell you) it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish between trivial short term moans and more serious symptoms of hidden bullying. If a child came to me when I was frantically trying to cope with 95 different issues at once and said 'Miss, they are being mean to me because I've got pickle in my sandwich' I might well be guilty of saying '' well, tell them not to be so silly' or some such meaningless platitude.

Believe me, if every Year 4 teacher took every complaint made by every 8 year old girl seriously, investigated thoroughly and followed up with rigorous re-education on bullying then nowt else would happen at school all day.

Nevertheless, I'd say if this continues it is serious enough to merit a parental word in the teacher's ear and make darn sure it is followed up.

Can your daughter talk to the dinner staff, seeing as it is happening then?

Thanks, everyone. It hasn't just happened once - today was the first time she'd mentioned it, but it's been happening for a week or two now, apparently. So four or five times.

The kids don't seem to have the rapport I remember having with the dinner staff - in fact from what I can make out it's largely the teaching staff who are in the dining hall with the kids at lunchtime (lucky them!).

I can well imagine that dealing with friendship issues would be a full time job, which is why I wanted the sense check. But if you tell your class that you aren't going to be getting involved with trivial short term moans (understandably), how do the kids know that they can flag up more serious stuff?

I suppose this is where the parents act as the filter (hopefully sensibly). My instinct is that it's happened a few times, DD has had enough, it has the potential to get really silly and the teacher could easily nip this in the bud before it does...

Could it be TAs doubling up as lunchtime supervisors ? Unlikely to be teachers.

The TAs double up in the playground and perhaps the hall too, but the infant teachers are always in the hall as the little ones eat and the head teacher is there throughout doing battle with Muller yoghurts.