Year 1. We don’t like our daughter teacher and we aren’t alone

[Nicola1892]

My eldest daughter is in year 1, she’s very sensitive and takes everything literally and this is where the problems have started. Her teacher seems to be taking a lazy approach and punishing all the kids when one causing a problem. I know she’s young but she has had a “Boyfriend” who we met with his parents before they both started reception and they are adorable together, they play, hold hands and draw each other little heart pictures. We are friends with the parents and to us it’s just part of growing up and harmless. BUT..... due to another little girl playing 2 boys against each other and causing them to have A fight her teacher Has said no body is aloud girlfriends or boyfriends. I know they are young but my daughter was absolutely heart broken and straight away she turnt into a nightmare at home for about 2 months. (She’s normally a angel) on Monday she also told me her teachers said she’s not aloud a best friend but instead she should play with everything. Whilst this sounds okay, it’s not. My daughter doesn’t play well in a group as she’s very shy and prefers to play with 1/2 people at a time. Now she has told me a lot recently she has had nobody to play with at lunch/break and has been sitting alone on the buddy bench as she’s not aloud to play with her friends or her BF. It’s all sounds so silly but she is very very upset and it’s causing a lot of issues with her behaviour at home. I’ve tried speaking to her teacher but she’s just doesn’t care about my opinion and how her actions are causing my daughter distress. I just want my little girl to be happy and not feel lonely ☹️ I’ve spoken to the deputy head and head recently about this/bullying but they don’t give a shit! Her teacher just needs to retire already as us parents really are getting fed up with her

@Drabarni No. While it might be nice for some kids to have lots of friends, shy or introverted children sometimes much prefer to have a smaller number of close friends and play one on one. It would also be stupid to say you can't play with your friend anymore instead of actually supporting her to make other friends.

However I don't think it's likely that a teacher actually behaved as OP describes.

OP not coming back then?

This is definitely not standard (unless we're talking about something very minor like a 1 minute while while "we can't go out to play until everyone's lining up nicely").

This is standard in a school one of my kids attended. Ran on a military style punishment basis. It was the best form of behaviour modification for the kids - modification by peers not teachers. Some travesties even involved punishment of whole grade rather than class. You bet the other kids are going to work to let Johnny or Mary know that their behaviour is not on if it means they all get lunchtime detention for a week. They are also quick to dob in a culprit if it means 2 weeks of lunch detention for all if the culprit did not come forward, 1 day if culprit came forward willingly or 3 days if culprit only identified via being dobbed in.

That school had a much higher percentage of SN than school other kids went to (was why they were there - private but much better at SN than the public). Behaviour of kids was MUCH better than the public where everyone was allowed to run riot for fear of parents rampaging the school should any of their precious petals get into trouble for something they had done.

Would love to hear the teacher's take on this.

@HoppingPavlova

No. Group punishments have been shown time and time again to be very bad for children - especially at this age (as common sense should tell you). A lot of bad behaviour amongst five year olds is due to immaturity (they literally haven't yet developed reliable impulse control - statistically it's overwhelming summer born boys - the least mature who have behavioural issues as this age), school anxiety or sometimes as yet undiagnosed neurological differences. The fact that younger kids who struggle in the class room should then be ostracized by their peers too is quite obviously appalling behaviour. It also creates resentment towards the teachers from the other children who are losing out when they are not to blame - why bother behaving or having any respect for someone who will behave so irrationally. No one with any sense would be in favour of such a policy particularly for Y1.

@HoppingPavlova

If the school you sent your kids to was really as terrible as you describe it would be shut down by ofsted. Instead of the adults supporting SN children with modifying their behaviour they relied on peer pressure and fear of losing their free time (often absolutely essential for the mental health of children with SN who are more stressed in the class room)? That would be completely unforgivable and the bullying involved would lead to long term self esteem issues in the kids involved.

I'm not an expert on SN education but that strikes me as an incredibly bad idea.

Worked a treat in this school, only have our experience to go on though. Much preferred it to the school the others went to and one even requested to swap over to this school due to the behaviour they felt went unchecked at their school - they made that request in Grade 4!

I would also hesitate to call it bullying. It’s kids calling other kids out on bad behaviour and also making clear it’s not acceptable so it’s not just the teacher as Lone Ranger. I’m guessing it’s why they commonly use that approach in the military - one person stuffs up, they ALL scrub toilets, person doesn’t stuff up again because a night of your peers cursing you is much more effective than an hour of your leader yelling at you?

Sorry, should have added something relevant. My observation at that school was also that peers tried to modify problematic behaviour by genuinely helping not harassing/bullying. It was accepted amongst them that a lot of them had ‘issues’ so they tried to be genuinely helpful to one another. They were also heavily assisted by teachers who tried to provide them with meaningful tools and assistance to do so.

An example is the child I referred above. Had no SN issues affecting behaviour but their older sibling did. They proactively offered to move desks to sit next to a very problematic child as they had experience with many of these behaviours due to sibling and how to successfully deal with them to stop them escalating. They then tried to assist the other child on a routine basis which helped a great deal with their behaviour. Teacher monitored to ensure they weren’t becoming burnt out, had breaks from situation whenever needed, situation could stop at any time without penalty if they didn’t want to do it any longer and they would help them work through solutions when needed together.

@FredFlinstoneMadeOfBones Actually DC go to a school with mainly very innocent kids but they all had "boyfriends" and "girlfriends" in reception. The teachers apparently had to tell the kids to stop kissing in the classroom!

Reception kids kissing in the classroom? I must be completely out of touch

They havent said she cant play with a certain someone.

They have told children this, so they have a wider group of friends and they dont rely on one person.

I think this is the least of your problems

The children had time, unsupervised to tie your child up?
If the school isn't doing anything about that, you need to remove her

xela
It's largely encouraged by parents who seem to think mixed sex friendships at a young age need to be cooed over and make a fuss of in boyfriend/girlfriend terms.
I have a couple of acquaintances who think it's cute to call their toddler boys little heartbreakers for playing with the girls. 🙄

Is this a private school, with such small class sizes and thereby restricting friendship possibilities. Why is your dd at risk, is she particularly vulnerable or have additional needs. Fwiw, assuming you are reading still, dd had a close friend who attached himself to her in Reception. At first it seemed sweet but gradually his dependency on her and tactics to exclude others made her unhappy. When classes were shuffled it was a relief they were split up. Yes you should complain about the bullying, to head, governors etc .

Good God. No wonder people don’t want to teach! You’d run a mile from parents like that wouldn’t you?!

I don’t agree at any time with whole class punishment. 5 year olds are not military! They are 5 year olds. The schools behaviour policy should explain about encouraging good behaviour and any sanctions. Doesn’t cover parents though! Shame about that!

The DDin question should be helped to be less shy. It’s not remotely cute to have a boyfriend. In a few years they will not play together. She will need other friends. It’s better for development to branch out and OP should invite more DC round to play.

I find the concept of small children considering themselves to have "boyfriends/girlfriends" and being encouraged so to do, at best faintly loathsome and at worst highly distasteful. Perhaps the teacher feels the same?

@NoGuarantee I think the teacher sounds sensible and it'll probably help your daughter in the long run

Yea, because sitting alone at break is such an awesome and helpful thing to!!

You say your daughter is shy? This is designed to help her and educate her on social skills by forcing her to mix with others Except it ISN'T working!!!

Now I now why this section is called primary, you are all acting like school kids! A child being lonely at school is heartbreaking, and the least the teacher could do is talk to the child and explain what she meant.

I think home schooling sounds perfect for you.

@LolaSmiles Yes some parents are strange creatures

@differentnameforthis Are you the OP? I understand that you don't want your daughter to be lonely at school, but can you not tell her to just continue to play with whoever she has been playing with before? It's not like she will be told off for it. Why can't she just carry on ad before?

I loathed my daughter's year 1 teacher - but I had very solid grounds to do so based upon her disgraceful attitude to SEN and when it ended up being escalated via the official lines of complaint up to the SENCO and Head they both agreed with me that what had been going on was absolutely out of line and supported the complaint. (This year's teacher is incidentally bloody superb, the reception teacher was bloody superb - we knew it was just a shit year in a great school)

Not wanting the boy/girlfriend nonsense taking over is nowhere near in the same league!