Shocked at DS's teacher this week!

[WellThisIsShit]

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 :)

Certainly hadn’t thought about shouting. Thinking about supplementing lessons with time and work at home.

Are we supposed to just accept this or complain to the HT that some children are afraid of the teacher?

As someone mentioned in another thread, on MN teachers are above criticism hmm

Of course teachers are not above criticism they face it all the time anyway but the right way to go about doing something is not to gang up vigilante-style together as parents, to bombard the teacher but to sensibly stick to the issues of your own child and raise any queries in the right manner.

mylittledragon reading your comments again it sounds as if you are excusing a mob mentality because the teacher may have not been up to scratch (as the parents deemed it). Although I concede that you said the level of parental response was not acceptable in this case. As many ppl have pointed out, there are many other avenues to address issues in a much less aggressive way.
Teachers are not the only professionals who learn on the job to some extent, under a mentor. Surgeons, for example. Few ppl know everything before starting a new job!

Oops. Forgot to add, sorry if that is not how you intended it to sound and I am the only one reading it wrong!

You blame the teacher for being inept , making a mess , foreign and and an nqt and now you're pretending you're on her side . You sound barking.

OP I think your title "shocked at ds' teacher this week" misled people into thinking you were shocked alongside the other parents of children in the class. As a PP had said if your title had read "impressed with" or something similar this thread would probably have gone very differently for you. People were primed to expect a particular stance from you so the final paragraph did not appear sincere or consistent as a result.

Horrific behaviour from parents. And we wonder why there’s a teacher shortage.

The HT is doing the best he/she can.

A vote of no confidence. Oh fuck off. As if they can just pluck an outstanding and experienced teacher out of the air like that mid-term.

They will drive her out and then the class will have a series of short term day supply teachers. Good luck to them.

Primary

One school I worked at the HT basically spent about 50% of her time dealing with 3 (frankly crazy) parents.

This kind of thing really annoys me. And it happens everywhere. Imagine if they were charged for the meeting after the 3rd one.

Did I miss somewhere where the OP said this is a private school that costs the parents £££££s? Otherwise why do they feel so entitled and that they should have so much influence?
The teacher did make a mistake by reacting to the parent going at her 'full throttle'; she should have gone straight to the head to complain about the parent speaking to her like that.

Does anyone else find it ironic how posters are complaining about parents bullying a teacher by bullying the OP?

Can you hear yourselves?

Ultimately teachers are the professionals and it is in their interest for our kids to do well.

A lot of people forget this! They want to do well... they need their clssses to do well and are under constant scrutiny.

Does anyone else find it ironic how posters are complaining about parents bullying a teacher by bullying the OP?
Er, no. As far as I'm aware we (the 'mob' commenting on the thread and disagreeing with OP) haven't all sent her emails about her mistakes, gossiped about her ability to do a job she has been thrown in at the deep end of, gathered in groups to discuss her outside her place of work, slandered her ability to do her job all over social media, nor started thinking about a vote of no confidence to get her removed from the forum.

Exactly fritz.

People are quite rightly pointing out that the behaviour of parents towards the teacher is awful.

There is a difference between pointing out someone on a forum is iut of order and an organised nasty campaign by a bitchy clique of nasty, entitled know it alls who are targeting someone purely to bully them ouy of a job.

I don't know, Maisy.

I totally agree what those parents did was unacceptable and horrible.
And I didn't like OP's response either. But I am not 100% sure what OP's intention for this thread was meant to be. She sounded genuinely upset that she was misunderstood by the posters.
I have some experience of being misunderstood because of my lack of English ability and knowledge of British culture. So I feel slightly sympathetic.

It's a shame some participants in this thread can't see it for what it is. A "roasting" is bullying in any other form.

Ds1 has an nqt and just to say she is a breath of fresh air compared to last year's teacher who has been teaching the same year at the same school for 25+ years. Hurrah for the nqt! She is great with the kids, strict with the pita kids and even wrote all parents a lovely letter introducing herself at the start of the year. Communication with the previous fossil was intermittent at best (2 posts on the school website all year and 2 very terse parents evenings). We all make mistakes. Cut the nqt some slack. How would you like it if you had 30 customers / bosses? Impossible.