Teachers - a question. How do you deal with clashing personalities in the classroom?

[MotleyCroupe]

I'm a regular but have namechanged.

Ds is in Y2 and over a period of time has clashed with another boy in the classroom. They are extremely similar with regards to ability and it's as if they are constantly trying to compete with eachother. It's got to a stage now where ds and the other boy have been told that they can no longer play with eachother at playtime as they bring in their 'spats' into the classroom and the teacher has to settle them down for a period of time.

It seems it's neither one or the other, they're both at fault and I'm finding the whole situation increasingly frustrating. I've tried talking to ds about it but I can't obviously when he's at school.

So my question is, how do you deal with this kind of situation in your classroom?

Keeping them apart in class. Encouraging them to be apart at playtime. I've had decent success in defusing very intense relationships by setting up 'buddies' from older classes for each child, to give them someone to go to at playtime rather than being drawn back to their 'frenemy'.