Dh has removed dd from school today

[purpleturtle]

Dh helps in dd's class on a Thursday morning - just for the first hour or so. Already this week we have spoken to the class teacher (also deputy head and SENCo) about dd's unhappiness at school. TEacher has been pretty dismissive, and tbh there is probably a large degree to which dd is just going to have to lump it. She struggles in the large group environment, and is academically ahead of most of the class.

So anyway, dh was so unimpressed with the bad behaviour of the class, and the supply teacher's powerlessness in the face of the bad behaviour that he told her he would bring dd home today, and the teacher said she totally understood his reasons.

We await contact from the class teacher, when she's out of a meeting, and the headteacher, when she's actually back in the school. And this is supposedly one of the very best primary schools in the city.

Hope the shopping therapy did the trick! And soo pleased the Headteacher eventually managed to get intouch!

If you have no joy with them, you could always put your case forward to your Governing school body, after all their main role of responsiblity is to ensure your child gets the best standard and quality of education and care. This is clearly not happening in Y1.

Good luck on Monday.

Actually, by the time ds2 had gone to sleep, and ds1 had objected to going out at all, we didn't bother.

The more I think about the situation, the more certain I am that the issue is an overworked, stressed teacher approaching the end of her tether. This morning a friend has spoken to another parent helper who agrees that there is a tendency to come down very hard on trivial things, but this admission was prefaced by "I wasn't going to say anything, but since you've actually asked...".

So now I feel less like I'm completely over-reacting. But I still don't know that I'm especially hopeful of being listened to.

Meant to sat, although dd cried great sobs at bedtime about the prospect of going to school, she got the best night's sleep of all of us and actually went off fairly happy and chirpy this morning.

Meant to say

Oh no PT; didn't realise things were like this How is DD?

Is this the school I think it is? With a very good reputation?

Hope the meeting on Monday goes well and things can be sorted out.

I have totaly sympathy for you, for your child and also for the poor supply teacher.

It can be exceptionally difficult to comtol a class in a supply lesson. With teenagers, they see the lesson as a chance to 'muck about', and little ones are 'thrown' by a change in routine.

THe school needs to look at its sanctions policy.

But in addition i Think that this highlights just how hard it can be to control children in a classroom setting, particuarly those children who have poor, inconsistant dicipline at home. It also explain why school do things like have a happy board and a sad board. I well remember MNetters foaming at the mouth over the 'cruelty' of such things. You have to have some form of sanctioning children if their behaviour is undesirable.

Found out today that one of my colleges was asked , by a teenage student, to give the boy a blow job!!!!

And this is in a good school too. I don't think that parents know the half of what we have to deal with sometimes

Dd's okay, hula, thanks. The thing is, I didn't think things were too bad even a week ago. All of a sudden events have escalated somewhat - one day we're having a second conversation with the class teacher in a week; the next we're taking dd out of the classroom!

The 'poor supply teacher' (as you rightly put it mb) wasn't in the classroom this morning, as dd had expected, so I don't know whether dd had made a mistake, or whether in the light of yesterday plans had been changed!

My mum did a lot of supply teaching during the years when I was at school. I am very aware what a thankless and difficult task it can be. I honestly don't think this particular supply teacher is anything other than incidental in this particular story.

I think that your dh may well have seen them 'at their worst' because the teacher was supply. I think that most kids can play up, either out of deliberate naughtiness (secondary school age) or simply because they get thrown by a change in routine. In addition she wouldn't 'know' the potental flash points of the different kids.

Sympathy to you all. It is a crap situation. It sounds like the school needs to look at its dicipline policy

You may be right, mb. Dh helps most Thursdays, and has seen a few different teachers. If this is the difficult class we're told it is, do you think it's reasonable to ask that the school look for a more consistent staffing option than currently seems to apply to this class?

Quote: "very difficult class" - "all the staff say so"

I heard this label said to me everytime I spoke about my DD's class from reception to year 6 and quite frankly its disgusting.

In our experience the teachers simply couldnt stimulate the class and each lesson was dull. In my DD's class it was blamed on "the boys" ! trouble was that there was a high number of high acheivers and they got bored quickly.
So where was the "more able" co-orinator..???.... relocated to develop another area, new co-ordinator ????? no-one wanted the post because "very difficult class" - "all the staff say so"

Now that you have taken your DC home perhaps someone will take a serious look at what the class needs.

No PE was one of the punishments for a child I look after . And so was getting dressed and undressed for PE. Once they did it so much that there was no time for the PE lesson. Luckily they have a new teacher now. The other one has retired.

I don't think that it is 'disgusting' to say that a class is 'difficult'. It may not be what you'd like to be told, but some classes are harder to teach than others. That is a simple fact of life.

And while classes have a 'right' to interesting lessons, they also have the 'responsibility' of behaving in an appropriate way.

Mb, I agree. And this class may well be difficult, but I don't think it's fair to write them off in the way that the teacher sometimes seems to be doing. I would just like to hear something a little bit more constructive than that.

No, I agree, they shouldn't be written off.

However I feel that if this have got to the state they have it is probably unrealistic to expect the classroom teacher to turn it all round on His/her own. Which is why I sugested that the schools sanctions/ dicipline policy needs to be looked at.

If teachers are honest they will all admit to have had a class like this at some time. It isn't that we are not interested in the kids, or dislike them, or think they are beyond help. But if the support isn't there for the teacher, by the rest of the school and crucially the parents , there is alimit to what the teacher can do is sorting out the behaviour.

I have had classes (and I'm in secondary BTW) where you could have split the atom, invented a cure for every know disease and encorporated alton towers into the lesson and they kids would still have told you that they were 'bored' and unstimulated.

And after a few weeks of this sort of thing you'd have to be a saint not to think, 'Oh bugger it, why knock myself out!'

And often you can't do the most intersting stuff with a highly disruptive class, because you can't trust them to behave or work. Paradoxically these kids see a 'fun' lesson as a 'bugger about and do nothing lesson' and so make having fun with them a near impossibility

I would make an appointment to discuss the issue and raise the schools sanctions policy. Is it being followed? Do the children (and parents) have a clear picture of what is expected of them in the classroom. Do they have a clear picture of what will happen to them if they don't behave. Crucially, does the school follow through on sanctions and do the parents support the school? If there are specific SEN in the classroom, is the teacher supported, are IEPs being used properly?

I am that this is a class of Y1s. I have taught Year 6s who might behave this way, but Yr 1s? I am sorry, I know this is going to be jumped on by someone, but what on earth are people doing in the teaching profession if they cannot maintain discipline of 29 6 year olds?

I understand the gut reaction, but then I talk to mt SIL. Some kids come into school now with little or no idea of how to behave in a group. You on;y have to look at the 'Super nanny' type programmes to see that some parents don't feel confident enought to practice consistant, loving positive dicipline. Have a few kids like that in a class, link it to poor seniour managment support and you have a dreadful situation waiting to happen.

As you know classroom dymanics are odd things. I've had classes where one child's presence can tip the class over into poor behaviour. Take that child out of the room, and the class it utterly different.

Granted you should have, as a teacher, the ability to demand the respect of a class, but this is a supply teacher, who may well not have known the kids well enough to be effective

I accept what you sat MB but even so... most 6 year olds are actually fairly biddable still. Those horrors on the Supernanny programmes (sorry, I don't mince my words, but then I don't have discipline problems either) are, as far as I have seen (don't watch much because it winds me up too much) usually as they are because no boundaries have been set. When met by an adult who does set boundaries, don't they usually conform?

I know the teacher in question here is a supply teacher, but the class are usually taught by the deputy as far as understand it and should be accustomed to some discipline.

I just despair of some of the teaching profession, I really do.

Primary schools here are having to issue warnings not to send their children to school wearing makeup.

It's in the 'Edinburgh Evening News'.

What a burbly post that was!

What I really mean to say is, purpleturtle, I respect your dh's actions here and hope you get a positive outcome with the school. Your child's education is too precious to be wasted.

Totaly agree DD.

DD agree that most kids will conform eventually. Which is why I think there has been a systematic break down of the dicipline in the school, so the kids are not gettign consistant dicipline.

I think there's a little confusion growing. Although the specific incident yesterday involved a supply teacher, the underlying issue is that the main class teacher, also deputy head, is having great difficulty with this class. Over the course of the year so far a culture has developed within the class/teacher relationship whereby the main class teacher stamps down really really hard on any little thing she sees, often without giving anyone a hearing (fair or otherwise). As a result, when the class is left in the hands of a TA, or cover teacher, or supply teacher, or whoever, they go wild. Yesterday's supply teacher did not stand a chance, because of the way the usual teacher handles the class.

As I said earlier today, I believe the problem is fundamentally one of the teacher's happiness. The children are responding to her impatience and stress levels, which in turn makes her impatient and stressed.

I hope that when we meet on Monday, we are able to communicate that we want to help in this situation (somehow) and there are plenty of parents who feel the same way. We are all concerned about the main class teacher, not just the happiness of own child.

So there has to be a consiatnt policy of sanctions/ rewards put in place, so that the kids know what to expect. without that they will act as they have been.

Not an expert on this but can't help feeling the problem is less the quality of teaching staff these days, more the lack of respect dc bring to school/education/teachers. I don't why this is though, in particular with very small primary school dc.

Thing is, if you go to countries where teachers have high status and are treated with considerable respect (from my experience, African countries or also Russia), you can't help noticing the difference. In African countries, a teacher can have absolutely huge classes to cope with but they can manage to teach even 60 or more dc because they generally don't have these disciplinary issues.

I couldn't imagine being a schoolteacher precisely because of the disciplinary problems. It would just wear you out.

Remember too the awful things we put supply teachers through sometimes...