Humiliation for Yr3 children on a list of shame… should I complain?

[loomer]

DD told me tonight that she had to read more at bedtime because she needs to get "off the list". Apparently her teacher told her today that she is on a 'List of shame' for not doing enough reading at home. Now, quite apart from the hypocrisy in this statement (DD was also given a raffle ticket today to go into a prize draw to reward kids who have done lots of reading at home), I am absolutely appalled at the idea that her teacher felt it appropriate to make all the kids in her class who had 'disappointed' her (there were about a ten of them according to DD) stand up and humiliate them in front of their peers, by telling them off in front of the whole class…
DH and I are primed to request a meeting with teacher tomorrow after school to question whether DD gave us an accurate run down of what took place. Of course I am now stewing it over and feel that regardless of the 'crime' that these children committed, this is a totally inappropriate way to deal with it. The school has up until now appeared to be very consistent in its use of positive actions to reinforce good behaviour - isn't the teacher just being a bully?

I think I would go in and be very calm and collective and ask the teacher what this is about as you don't understand what your daughter is saying. Keep it neutral and find out what the teacher's take on this is. It could be an over-reaction by your daughter or it could be something that you will need to take further with the head teacher. Just get the facts as the teachers sees it first.

Cripes, that makes me feel so cross if it's an accurate reflection of what happened. My DD was ''told off' last week because she struggled with a concept in maths, and I felt the same about that.

Sound advice from admission though. It will take some strength on your part, but try and approach from an objective and neutral position if possible. Hopefully dc has the wrong end of the stick?

List of shame seems extreme.
It's quite common to have names on boards for a things - our y3 have 3 such boards 2 of them are positive things and one is negative.
But at the end of the week, all names come off the boards and start afresh. You don't earn your way off the negative board, you're just there for a short time.
Oh and to get in the negative board, you would have done something like wasted time or talked through the lesson or whatever. Not punished for academic "failings" if you have tried.

Yes Idespair, it does seem pretty extreme - and I don't think it is fair to humiliate kids who haven't read 'enough' books. That isn't fair (there may be all kinds of reasons why they haven't read lots of books), and it certainly isn't going install a love of reading or literature… I'm interested to hear the teacher's comments because it doesn't sound like something that the school would condone - that's what we must keep in mind, I feel sure that DD must have got something confused. Not reading enough is hardly bad behaviour.

Did your dd actually use the words 'list of shame'? Is that what she's saying the list was called by the teacher?

If do then yes, find out more. It seems very odd if she was also rewarded with a raffle ticket for the same thing?