Ideal Reception teacher... What do you want/ not want?!

[PenguinBear]

If you could design your own ideal Reception teacher, what qualities would he/she have?

Anything you wouldn't want?

Caring nature but not 'soppy' - firm but fair
Excellent communication skills with parents
Excellent knowledge and belief in principles of good early years education - play, outdoor learning, etc
Good team worker with TAs
Enthusiastic
Supportive
Good understanding of Sen - recognising, working with other professionals, supporting.

I'm sure there are more!

I second everything above, can I add sympathetic and helpful with getting reluctant children in and occupied in the mornings? DD really struggled with the "come in and sit down quietly not doing anything" approach and would just cling to my leg and cry while I tried to get the teacher's attention

Oh yeah, my dcs school have an excellent approach to settling in newcomers with the youngest in first then middle ones then oldest. It means that they were really able to focus on the ones that really needed it. Home school partnership is crucial!

DS had the ideal Reception teacher, IMO. I'll try to sum up why -

• when we talked it was clear that she really knew him and 'got' him - the areas that needed work and the things that were brilliant about him - and she was enthusiastic about the good things and gave clear targets for what needed work.
• she was always smiley and enthusiastic - she always looked like there was nowhere else she'd rather be on a freezing cold rainy Monday morning than saying hello to her class in the line. Her face lit up when she saw them.
• she was kind - to the kids, and to the parents when we were stressed
• when DS had some problems with kids picking on him, she listened carefully to me when I set up a meeting with her, took it seriously without over-reacting, explained what steps she was going to take, and followed up with me a week later to check things were better and then again a month later. The problem was sorted - it never happened again after I spoke to her
• she was clear about what she wanted us to do at home to support our child
• she didn't take any nonsense and had clear discipline so the kids always knew where they were.

to all the hard working teachers on these boards - you make such a difference to our kids.

A teacher who speaks properly.

A teacher who has a good attendance record.

(you can perhaps tell we had the opposite.....)