ds's new teacher is an absolute delight! ....not

[nipersvest]

new teacher, only been at the school for a week, has told ds he is not to use his left handed pen (bit of history, ds's writing was bad, we switched to left handed pens last year and his writing improved vastly in both speed and neatness), when he carried on using it, she tore the page out his book and made him start again with a biro.

he got upset about all this, then 'conveniently' begins to complain of earache (her words, not mine), he's then told to stop it otherwise she will send his to the head of ks2.

i went in to see her the next morning and was informed by her all of the above, she didn't wait to hear what i had actually come in to see her about.

what i was actually coming in to say was that we ended up in hospital in the evening, with ds is considerable discomfort having impacted ear wax removed from his left ear.

have a meeting with her next week, how would you play it?, just leave it and move on or have it out with her?

ps ds is in year 6.

Why would she probably be feeling quite smug?

good luck, she sounds awful. is there only one year 6 class at your school?

meeting went ok, dh dealt with it really well and his second opinion is useful.

hopefully an understanding has been reached, long and short of it is ds can use whatever pen he finds most productive to use. am still a bit puzzled as to why we've had to have an official meeting to establish this, teacher created an issue that did not need creating.

teacher did not appreciate my going in the other morning (fair enough, but the school does operate an open door policy) and there are some parts of it all we will just have to agree to disagree on.

dh made it clear her demeanor towards ds gave us cause for concern, and we will be keeping an eye on how this progresses.

OP, I am glad you got clarification but share your puzzlement about why it became an issue anyway. It is good that you have made it clear you will be monitoring the situation. Hopefully this will be the end of the matter and your DS can get on with school feeling happier.

Well, I'm a primary teacher and, from what you say, this woman acted appallingly. I would say that to deny a left-hander a writing implement that is designed to assist him is bordering on discriminatory and denies him access to the curriculum. It just makes no sense and you're right, you should not have had to have had a bloody meeting about something that ought to have been a non-issue in the first place. Especially if, as you say, the school buys in its own supplies of the bloody things anyway. There is clearly no policy forbidding them.

I would have serious concerns that if she can make such a song and dance about this, what lies ahead this year? I'm no fussy parent, and I don't mollycoddle the kids in my class, but I cannot believe that she would infer to you that he was inventing the earache.

"teacher did not appreciate my going in the other morning" Why not?You had a perfectly valid reason - to inform her he'd been to A&E the evening before. We don't have an open-door policy in the mornings (after school preferred as mornings so hectic) but I'd have been more than happy to talk about this. I've been nabbed by parents for much less.

I would be keeping a very close eye on this one - and don't worry about seeing the Head if you have further concerns. That's his/her job.

...and so it continues. agreement was ds could use any of his left handed pens, however, teacher has been through them with him and done a 'no, not that one, no, not that one either, and no fountain pens' with him.

she has, at school, brought in the head of ks2 to discuss with ds the neatness of his writing, both teachers agreeing that it's neater with the pen she wants him to use. must point out that the head of ks2 was his teacher last year, and had no issue then with whatever pen ds used and in fact used to praise his writing when he used his lamy fountain pen.

odd her opinion seems to have suddenly changed in order to back up the new teacher.

teacher has also sent home photocopies of work written in both pens, in an attempt to prove her point, although it is a matter of personal opinion as both dh and i thought the school pen was messier.

we've not said anything more to the school, just going to see how long the teacher continues in this passive aggressive way. despite this, ds seems happy in general at school, trying not to politicise this whole situation to him, but we're watching very closely.

My year 6 ds uses a stabilo left handed pencil. He finds he gets hand ache/ cramp if using ordinary pencil for extended writing and left handed pencil makes a huge improvement to his grip.
Not using pens yet....
Teachers fine though.
Ds may have slightly 'thicker' writing with this pencil but writes more due to comfort.
Neatness not everything surely!!

Nipersvest The teacher is absolutely determined to prove a point. I can't see this going well. You've challenged her and she doesn't like it. Sadly some teachers are just like this. No advice atm.

I can sort of understsnd the no fountain pen in primary (the cartridges can be messy)

But Lamy do a rollerball (dd was reccomended Lamy pens in secondary as she has fine motor skills problems) & it should have been discussed in a better way than that.

Roller balls and fountain pen ink often seeps through the page and those stupid Berol handwriting pens are the worst offenders.

Fountain pen ink only seeps through the page when paper is poor quality.

Lamy pens + Clairefontaine exercise books = neat

Have you been to the head yet? I'd want all this on their radar too.

They never used to seep through the page but, as with everything else these days apart from me, the paper in exercise books is much thinner than it used to be.

Does this teacher have a reputation for being a pita?

The teacher sounds like she's being ridiculous-keep following it up.

However, this caught my attention

also because at any parents evenings he's been to, he delights in antagonising primary school teachers

Why??

rollonthesummer if you'd read the thread you would see it was a joke.

Hilarious.

Contact the inclusion/sen manager re the left-handed pen thing, and ask them to clarify the school policy on this. Then ask them to clarify it with the teacher.

omg, everything in this thread and that's the only comment to catch your attention!

yes, dh also pours salt round slugs and burns ants with a magnifying glass.

thank you to soupdragon for pointing that out, it was indeed meant as a joke.

I agreed with you that the teacher was unreasonable.

I just thought that's as funny as saying something like, 'DH delights in antagonising A&E nurses' and then when picked up on it, saying it's just a joke.

Good luck-hope you get it sorted.