would you ask the school about this?

[madambutterbean]

DD5 is in reception. They use the traffic light system for behaviour.

Yesterday she told me that she was put onto red for "messing around in the toilets". Her version of events is that she'd finished in a cubicle and asked another girl if she wanted to go in, girl didn't as she'd already been, girl then went and told teacher DD was messing around. (this sounds odd I know.)

When DD came out, a TA said she was going onto amber. DD started protesting that she'd done nothing wrong and as a result of arguing with the TA, was put straight onto red.

Now if this is how it genuinely happened - DD being sanctioned for something on the basis of what another 5yo said as opposed to being witnessed by an adult - I'm not particularly happy. I wouldn't blame her for protesting her innocence. Obviously I think that DCs should respect authority but I also think they should be able to state their case.

On the other hand, maybe she was messing around in some way, and perhaps she's not telling me the truth and something was witnessed by an adult. She's pretty adamant though. Because she's been on red she won't get her green slip at the end of the week which I know she'll be upset about.

So...I know it's all quite insignificant in the scheme of things but would be interested to know whether other people would have a word with the teacher. I certainly wouldn't go in all guns blazing but would like clarification on what happened. However I run the risk of looking a bit silly if there's more to it. I wouldn't normally challenge a traffic light decision but don't like the idea that nothing was seen by an adult.

If it was me, I would ask teacher/ta casually what happened , stating dd is upset after put onto red. But I would expect there maybe more to it then what my child told me.

Technically, I would count meddling about asking other people if they wanted to go to the toilet as messing around in the toilets.

So I would say 'well dd, next time you go to the toilet, just go to the toilet. You don't need to ask why other people are in the toilets. Just crack on with what you are doing and then you can get back to playing with the things'

The TA probably was too harsh but you don't know what else was going on. She won't have time to investigate all misdemeanour allegations as nursery are very demanding generally and they all have a looooonnngg story to tell. She made a quick decision. It's very hard to know what exactly happened so I wouldn't bring it up.

Please don't go in. You don't know the build up to this, perhaps your daughter had been doing other minor misdemeanours, and it had built up over the course of the day.
A sanction of some sort will be given if children argue back and disrespect adults within the school, even at 5! Can you imagine a class of eleven yr olds with that attitude?
I am a TA by the way.

Nope I wouldn't be giving it any further thought. Teaching staff felt it appropriate to give her a warning it was given and now it's history. I would never "seek clarification" or challenge a teachers decision on something so minor. Let the teaching staff get oN with it. That was yesterday today is a new day. Don't sweat the small stuff.

Ok, thank you. I'll leave it. Like I said I would never normally dream of challenging these things, I just hate the thought of DD being treated unfairly. But yes there probably is more to it!

You have made the right decision. There will be many occasions when your dd feels something was unfair, she was given a warning or not picked for the team or never getting a turn at show and tell(my dds current 'it's not fair'😂), or not at the front of the dinner queue or lots of them were messing around and only she got told off, or she didn't get whatever merit was being given put or someone wouldn't play with her or teacher didn't notice how fabulous her drawing was etc etc the list goes on. You have to accept that with 30 kids in the class, no it won't always be fair, teachers will make the best decisions th can on the spot based on available information. You have to trust them to get in with it. Life isn't fair is actually a reasonable lesson to learn. Pick your battles you are right in concluding that this shouldn't be one of them.💐

Totally agree with picking our battles, thank you. There have been a few things this year that DH and I have felt tempted to talk to the school about (god we sound like those kind of parents don't we) but we've always concluded to pick our battles until we really need to raise something.

When we have checked into things once or twice the school version was radically different from DS's. I believe the school. I don't think DS meant to deceive us, I think he got confused and felt aggrieved and re-cast the sequence of events into something more comfortable for his mind. If that sense.

In our school if a child goes onto red the parents get informed by the school (But we're in Germany so it's probably different). Three reds in a term and parents are asked to come into school to discuss things so that plans can be made to correct the underlying issues.

I don't think it's wrong to ask the school for their version of the story. Not because you are trying to disagree with the school, but to work out what happened. Especially as we all know the version that a 5 year old gives, especially if it's of events a few hours ago, can be confused.

I am a TA and children messing around in toilets seems to be quite a problem in all schools. Obviously there is not a permanent adult prescence in the toilets but I sometimes feel I spend half my day in the toilets sorting out problems! I guess parents often don't know the back story to any sanctions.

My dd was once told off for messing about in the toilets and made to apologise to another girl. She was inordinately upset about the whole thing so I gently asked the teacher the next day to check what had actually gone on. Needless to say it had all been a big misunderstanding and the teacher had told dd off on hearsay. To her credit she apologised to dd in class for telling her off for no reason.