Playing on my mind...

[Squiglettsmummy2bx]

Probably completely silly but Tgis is playing on my mind & I'm interested in other peoples opinions on it.
DD is in year 5. Before the summer holidays her class were told they were getting a particular teacher but over the summer she decided she wanted to spend more time with her young family on on the first day back in September they had a new teacher, Miss B, who they had as a supply teacher previously. Miss B is young, newly qualified, fun, energetic. DDs class is good on the while but has 4 particularly challenging boys, all have been excluded at some point & during the first term each were excluding after several warnings. After a week with the flu DD returned to school the week before last to her friends saying Miss B is leaving. Miss B confirmed this & said she was sad & didn't want to go but school wanted a permanent teacher for the class. She was permanent. Over the last 2 weeks it has been clear from comments Miss B has made, 'I must be stricter with you all' & the introduction of the new teacher Miss F, who walked straight in on Thursday & announced 'this behaviour might be ok with her but in January I won't be accepting any nonsense' that the teacher change is due to discipline. I feel really sad, my daughter had bonded with this teacher as had almost the whole class, she went out of her way for them in many ways & made enormous efforts with the class. The problem is a small group of children & if the school had supported this NQT properly this wouldn't have become an issue. Yesterday my DD brought home a lovely booklet made by Miss B for all the kids thanking them for being her first official class, with photos of lovely stuff they did this term & saying 'don't cry because it's over but smile because it happened' & it just keeps playing on my mind & making me feel so sad that it all went down this way. I know I can't change it but I feel like I would like to write to the HT but really what can I say.
I am sleep deprived at the moment so know my thoughts may just be me being over emotional :-(

How sad for this poor teacher, and it is lovely of you to be feeling for her. Sadly, IME, which is admittedly only 3 years in teaching, but with the benefit of having worked in lots of other fields I can compare it with, education is pretty brutal. HTs want results, they want them now and they have a limited range of things they can actually control. They also have quite fixed ideas about how to do things, and it is their way or the highway. But if you see it from their point of view, they will be out of a job if their school doesn't 'pass' Ofsted, and Ofsted expect all children to make progress that would have been considered above average when the system of levels came in. And they want to see evidence of progress in every single lesson (actually, in every single 25 minute segment they might observe). It sounds to me like the HT did not have faith that this teacher could get her class up 2 sublevels this year, would let the school down on its behaviour score and it was better to get rid of her with still 2 terms to go, rather than support her to improve. Desperately sad for her and most of the class.

Maybe a teacher will confirm this but I read on a forum that a useful thing that you can do for a great teacher is to write a reference for her and send it to the head so that it can stay in her employment file.

Just because a new teacher is strict, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be a negative thing.

My oldest son had 6 months of supply teachers in Y5 after his teacher became ill but wasn't replaced as the head and doctors thought that the illness was a short term thing but it dragged on. The children's behaviour nosedived really badly and the Head was forced to find a permanent teacher for the Summer Term as the children were sick of teachers coming for a week here and there.

The teacher who came (Miss R) did not take nonsense but was really warm and fun too. The boys really respected her for not taking nonsense (the supply teachers were just trying to get to the end of the week) and the children became really happy.

Aw how upsetting for your dd :( it sounds very harsh that it's year five and the same problems r still happening. Surely support for these more challenging children should have been in place years ago rather than being pinned on one teacher. Doesn't sound like she had much time to implement anythin. If they are still acting up then clearly she's not the only one who's had trouble. :(

When dd1 was in year four they had a teacher who sounds very similar she was on a one year contract, the children loved her. At the end of the year she her contract wasn't renewed, it was a very small school in a small village so there was lots of talk about why she hadn't been kept on. A few weeks into year five it was delicately explained the both children and parents that fifty percent of the maths curriculum for year four hadn't been taught and they'd be doing lots of extra work to catch up. As parents we d had no idea, so there may be more to it.

Thank you for your responses. I think I will write a reference letter for her. The children are split for maths by ability & she was teaching the middle group of all the juniors mixed up & they covered all the topic work that was due this term as we get a sheet at the beginning of each term telling us what's happening. I am certain it's the discipline thing as she kept implementing new charts, reward schemes etc but these particular kids need a kick up the backside not a bingo prize & I do think they needed to be dealt with higher up than the class teacher. The new teacher being strict is not a problem as DD is very well behaved but I thought saying what she said to the children with Miss B there was disrespectful, like she might take your bs but I'm not kind of thing. DD picked up on that as did a couple of other girls & this kind of thing had been happening a bit these last couple of weeks which I think undermines Miss Bs authority anyway rather than backing her up. I thin the school needs a shake up over discipline generally as my DS 7 was repeatedly being hit my 1 boy, S, as were many other children in the class. DS loves school but didn't want to go so I spoke to his teacher who told me 'oh yes S is always in detention, sent out, being punished as he keeps hitting people, DS should keep out of his way'. I went higher up & explained that DS can not keep out of the way of a bully in his class & shouldn't have to either. Deal with the problem! Obviously the punishments school have in place don't work on particular children so that needs to be looked at as a whole.
Oh well I hope Miss B has a fab Christmas & gets a fresh start in January as she was good with DD & her class

I think there might be more behind this issue than you think - just as notmost people said.
All 3 of my DS are in classes where there are hard core groups of children that constantly disrupt the class learning with their behaviour. In fairness, there are a lot of classes like this in inner city areas, so it's not as simple as switching schools.
1 of my DS is with a teacher that doesn't stand for BS - but is totally adored.
The other 2 are not quite so lucky. Y5 teacher has had to move children around constantly to avoid conflicts. Y1 teacher has actively encouraged me to complain that DS is not able to access a day of learning due to disruption. She has repeatedly asked for support. The school are aware that there are very challenging children, but as she already has a TA, there is no more £ available. TA is used for 1-1 where the parent refuses to accept that there are any issues with her pfb.
IMO, schools are run today like businesses. There is no sentimentality allowed in running a business.