She made a mess of something last week, which I did mention (politely!) in an email in which I was covering a couple of other unrelated things.
I then found out that lots of parents were 'up in arms' about the problem and there'd been multiple complaints, from individual parents and group complaints. Plus an angry exchange on Monday morning in the play ground, when a parent went in full throttle, and the teacher reacted in kind. All of which was inflamed by the teacher making it clear she hadn't got a clue what the issue was, or even what the parent was talking about at all.
Anyway, big furore and much concern that the teacher isn't up to the job (I'm glad I wasn't at the school gates this week!).
The wider context is that this teacher is coming into a challenging situation and is under the microscope, as she was parachuted in two days before the start of term after another teacher left the school in a fix when they pulled out with no notice. So, ht did a lot of classroom/ teacher shuffling and DS year ended up with this completely new teacher, who is very newly qualified, and has never taught in the uk before (or lived here actually). The school is really demanding and I have often mused that the poor teachers must have to be excellent, every single day, just to keep up - utterly exhausting to think about! Also the parents are err, well, they are much more involved than alot of schools, I think, and they expect to be listened to more as well.
So, anyway, it was all a bit heated and some of the parents were gearing up to a vote of no confidence in this teacher.
All made worse by the teacher responding ineptly showing her inexperience at handling parents... being confrontational, refusing to back down on things that she really shouldn't have chosen to make a stand about, being patently untrue and embarrassing to watch unfold (like the time when she decided to be firm and immovable that there was no one of x name in her class when grandparents did the pick up, and of course everyone watching was aware that x was been in that class for the last 3yrs and was in fact clearly there! Utter cringe my awful moment!), etc etc.
So basically, situation going nuclear fast argh!
So, I was completely shocked to get a sensible, well thought out response to my email, explaining her rationale at some points, and openly taking on my thoughts at others. Admitted she'd got the particular thing X wrong, and why, and how she was moving on from it... and according to other parents who are more tapped into this stuff than me, the teacher has responded in that same way to all the other complaints too, written and also verbal, meeting parents etc.
Basically, I'm really impressed.
Takes a big person to come back from this. And tbh, I wasn't expecting it!
So really, I wanted to share it on here and do a little private cheer for her :)