Annoyed by unfair teacher

[loopydoo]

My son (yr3) came out of school really upset this afternoon. A child, who he is friends with, had taken his hat at playtime and refused to give it back so my Ds took his shoe and said he would return the shoe once he had his hat back.

To which the other child (yr2) ran off to the teacher on duty and said my Ds had taken his shoe (forgetting to say how he had taken the hat first).

The teacher decided not to listen to my son and told him off in front of lots of other children and went on to make him stand in front of the boiling hot playground wall for the rest of playtime....about ten minutes in full sun (32 degrees) without his hat on!

The other child got no punishment!!

Now, because the teacher didnt see any of it happening, surly she should have simply told them to give back both items and forget it or make them both miss play (in the shade). Surely only making my son miss his break was totally unfair!

I know this perhaps sounds petty but Ds was really upset....especially as lots of the yr two girls snatch his hat on a daily basis and soak it with water and he tells nobody!
Rant over.

Not great but it wouldn't have been a teacher that he spoke to but a lunchtime supervisor. Teachers are not allowed to do lunch duties.

Have a word with your son about how to react to things and if something like this happens again he tells an adult rather than do something wrong which got him in trouble. OK it's unfair that the other kid didn't get in trouble, but your kid did something wrong and must accept the punishment.

But I don't think you should accept THAT punishment. I had a student become ill today because he was dehydrated from running around in the sun at break time.

I really do not understand, if you were picking up your son, why did not you ask him which teacher or lunch supervisor was it and which child was it? Then why did not you go to the receptionist to ask to find this person for you to have a word with him or her? If she or he is not in leave a message that you would like to speak with him or her first thing next morning or after school, so he or she should be aware of it and wait for you. Instead of leaving this thing for days, then do something, but no one will remember what happened and it will happen again.

I would also mention that no one in the school is allowed to let your son to stand in the sun without any hat for 10 minutes.

I think you should write to the head using the phrases "best practice", "due diligence" and "duty of care". What you have described is very bad and should not have happened.

Yes that isn't good. However it is the end of term. The children are likely to be high as kites, particularly in this weather. The mid day supervisor is most likely stressed out with the bad behaviour and did the wrong thing. Not condoning her not listening but what your child did was wrong too. He should have been 'punished'. Then again so should the other child.

The person on duty should have minimised it as children over-reacting - that's not down to you, OP, now that she's blown it up into a big thing by behaving like a child and losing her self control. She should be made to stand in the sun without a hat on during her coffee break. Ridiculous and unkind woman.

I wouldnt be fussed about the unfairness of it-you win some you lose some.

However,I would be livid r.e being made to stand in the sun. Go into the school and speak to them.

The first question should always be 'and what did you do to them?' when a child tattles on another.

Don't know the background here obviously but maybe there had been a series of incidents? Even so the supervisor should have been aware making a child stand in full sun for that length of time isn't on.

All sounds rather badly handled. I'd be talking to the school simply for the health and safety aspect.

sounds like the punishment was not reasonable but being punished wasn't , sorry. As you weren't there either I'm not sure you are in the best position to judge what was said/not said. Why does your yr3 play with yr2's anyway if they tease him ?

I'd be furious that my child had been made to stand in the sun - particularly without his hat. if it is school policy to wear a hat in this weather I'd be cross that the supervisor hadn't asked him where his hat was - and then they would have discovered that the other child had his hat and could have done something about it.

I would also be cross that a supervisor did not bother to get both sides of a story but is happy to punish one child just on the say so of another child.

Unfortunately the only thing that is going to come out of this is that you are going to have to tell school that you have told your son to go straight to the supervisor whenever anybody takes his hat - and that you expect them to deal with it. properly.

how is your son - did he suffer any sun burn, hat stroke or dehydration etc as a result of being in the sun? and did he get his hat back?

Petty? Sort of. But enough wrong doing by the school that I would be ringing up/going in to complain and sort it out!

Oh deary me.....well, after a night worrying about what to say to teacher in question (I had said playtime, not lunch time), I went in and asked her what had happened....

Quite a different story!!
Apparently, my son had said he took the shoe first (blush) and then, after the teacher gave him multiple chances to say it was the other boy who took his hat first, she made him stand against the wall for a minute of his playtime (not the Japanese sand torture scenario I had previously thought!!)

10 de-merits for me.....for trusting my ds 100% - little monkey!!!

Well done you on coming back and clarifying what really happened. A good lesson to all of us in not jumping to conclusions

It's nice to see you come back and say you'd been wrong. As the poster above said it is a lesson about not jumping to conclusions.

I also went back to the playground and found ds and gently explained what the teacher had said.....he sheepishly said he had taken the shoe first but because he was fed up of everyone constantly taking his hat....mummy lesson learnt

Good on you for coming back. Roll on summer hols hey :)

Is he going to be 'punished' for telling a lie to you? I Presume the minute stood at the fence was for taking the shoe not the lie.

He will be talked to about fibbing but to be hoenst, he has been bullied and teased since arriving at the school earlier this year and nothing has been done about it. He usually doesn't tell the teacher when a child in his class (supposed friends) kicks him in the privates/strangles his with skipping rope/Chinese burns his tiny wrists etc or if I then tell the teacher, she 'has a word' with the said child. They are never punished for hurting ds.

So in this instance, following a day on Monday of having his snatched by the other child (shoe boy) and wet by the girls, I don't actually blame him for taking the shoe because he was fed up with it all and was too shy to tell anyone.

I'm not condoning the fib he told me but I will speak to him about it and say we must always tell the truth or someone could wrongly get into trouble etc. If I had been the teacher I'd have just told them both to give back each other's things and not to do it again.