Teaching style in Year 3

[Hermit]

Looking for the wisdom of Mumsnet here. Dd in year 3, new teachers to her and the school. In 7 years with various children I have always been impressed by the school's attitude of encouraging and praising children, and making lessons enjoyable. These two (one the classs teacher, the other who has Dd for numeracy and literacy) set lines for the slightest misdemeanour, threaten lines if classwork not finished by break, set ambiguous homework which causes stress and anxiety - and so on. My gut feeling is that children will not learn if they are frightened of being punished even when they try their best. Have made a couple of tentative comments by letter, expressing concern at break times missed etc. DD becoming reluctant to go to school. I know I need to say more now befoee it gets worse - I guess I'm just looking for confirmation that this is NOT good practice at Year 3 (or any other year)! Or am I over-reacting?
thanks for reading this far!

[emkana]

I agree with you 100 % BUT I would say that the teachers might start a bit heavy-handed for 2 reasons:

1. They have heard of the widely known saying "no smile until Xmas", in order to gain maximum respect from a class
   
2. Because they are new to the school, they might want to build up a reputation that they are not to be messed with, in order to be able to relax a bit in the future.