Disagreement with teacher, what should I do next?

[Mama81]

Hi mumsnet,
My youngest is age 7, in year 3. He is academically bright. We have never had behaviour issues, either at home, clubs or previous school years. In his current class we are constantly being phoned/called in because my son doesnt listen/ignores teacher/will not co operate. This went on from September until Christmas.
As parents we work full time but we took him out of breakfast club and after school club to see if this helped (it did not)
Over the last 2 weeks things have got worse- he has hit another child (my son said this child pushed him) 'laughs' at the teacher when asked to do something, has spent 2 whole afternoons in the head teachers office and has not been allowed to play football.
I suspect he is copying other children's behaviours, but I'm obviously not in the class room, so I'm never going to know for certain.
We have both had many discussions with the teacher but are not getting anywhere, in fact it's getting worse. The teacher is insisting there are no triggers, patterns or copying other children.
What should I do next?

You say he's a bright child so I think you need to try to get him on-side to work with you to solve the problem, rather than punishing him.
"The problem is that when you do x,y,z it's annoying for the teacher and the other children - they want to go to school and get on with their learning and the teacher's job is to help them with that. So we need to work with the teacher to get you out of this habit so everyone can learn without disruption"

Try to encourage him to talk about why he finds he can't behave, help him with suggestions of things he can do to change etc. Basically let him know that you are on his side (not against him) but that it must change and you won't make excuses for his behaviour.

I feel as though there must be something specific going on at school and I agree with others about eyesight/hearing check, is he being over or under challenged, what are his peer group like, is he being bullied? All questions to discuss with school staff and chat to him about. He may be able to tell you something about why he is misbehaving.
Normally i would say he shouldn’t need consequences at home if school have dealt with it. But whatever they are doing clearly isn’t working. Perhaps being kept in in the heads office isn’t enough of a negative consequence for him. So
in this situation I would impose a consequence at home.
‘You hit Billy today so you aren’t going out to play/ no PlayStation tonight I’m afraid’. But equally he could have little rewards each time he has a good day, like a sticker chart or something?

Home school punishments reward system
if he’s had a good day at school = gets reward at home

work with the teacher

What is his teacher like?
Is her style very different from last year.
My ds had a very abrupt teacher who just didn’t like him.
Had a tricky year and then all was good again when he moved up.

The fact your DS has not had previous behavioral issues doesn't really mean anything. It's actually quite common for behavioral issues to present as children move up the school. It's also pretty bad if he is spending afternoons in the heads office.

First of all have you actually asked him why he is acting this way?

I would consider:
getting hearing, eyesight test
Ask about level of work, is he finishing tasks quickly
Ask him and teachers about friendships, if they have changed, or he is being left out
Look at his screen time content, games he is playing

I would not assume teacher has got it wrong and he is mimicking others.

DS went through a phase aged 6-8 of behaving quite badly at school, but there were reasons to do with a medical thing (and after 8 he started behaving well and is now one of the best behaved) and I recognised everything the school said as things I'd seen myself and vice versa and we had a strategy which we agreed on and which worked

On the other hand, in year 7 I was told by a teacher that DS couldn't concentrate which i did not recognise at all, and in fact I checked with another teacher who said they wouldn't have said that about DS at all, and a couple of times DS came home saying things staff had said to him which sounded like they were talking to different children - DS was upset about them - and after a couple of meetings with teachers and the head, my distrust grew about other things and I ended up moving DS and it was the right thing to do.

So if your intuition is that there is something "off" I would follow your intuition.

One thing I'd strongly advise is to do with getting into the habit of getting a blow by blow every day by DC and if something has happened and it is coming out piecemeal, probing to get the full picture like asking what happened before something and (actually this is most important thing) how your DC felt in the moment - eg scared, humiliated, bored, nothing - getting into the habit of getting the full picture will ensure you can be confident in your assessments of things which crop up and you will be able to deal quickly and give DC support. Things do crop up - we have had some amazing teachers but a few not so good (putting it mildly) and I do think everything has been easier because of the habit we got into of talking a lot and getting a relay of info. And DS has become a pretty reliable witness, both about himself (he is not perfect and is also honest about the not so good things he does) and about others. You hear a lot "how do you know your dc is telling the whole story" - well, yes, I have a pretty good idea because of the habit we got into when dc was around 6 years old and which we have stuck to.

I am sorry if the above sounds obvious or teaching grandmother to suck eggs. One of his teachers at primary used to take the mickey out of the fact that DS told me everything. She didn't ever disagree with DS though!

Hi @Mama81 - such a tricky situation for you. It sounds like it’s specifically classroom related?
If you love the school and everything is generally good or has been until now - then I think you need to work with them to uncover a reason in a really calm reasonable way.

Kids often misbehave and lash out when they’re stressed. If you genuinely feel, he is behaving well and obeying instructions at home and in other parts of the school - then something in the classroom is agitating him.
Could be eyesight, hearing, dyslexia, people he’s sitting with, stories he’s hearing (maybe they’ve discovered porn or stuff on the internet and he’s dealing with this); he may genuinely not like his teacher.
If it’s purely the latter, then you will need to manage that differently to if it’s other more health based or stress reasons caused by people or what he’s learning from peers.

i hope you can do some good digging around and also try and do some games or walks with your boy, and see if he can tell you anything in more detail that’s going on especially if you stay really calm.

Find out more… then make your plan…
good luck x

I was pretty much going to write what 6yomum and schoolstruggle did.

With DS it was struggling - which was also attributed to being summer born despite string family background of SEN and ND. Glue ear - which did sort itself out and being bullied by a child who been friendly year.

He was essentially being teased all day on areas he was weak and worried about having enough and lashing out - that what they were telling us but still only telling DS off. Plan made with school was he'd go and tell an adult - he did got sent away every time tried every adult and then still had enough lashed out and they suggest the same plan.

Had to go in and get them separated in next year and then put in a lot of home support as school denied problems till end of year report.

Found out later wasn't only one who child was struggling with said teacher - and previous year said she was very poor when there were SEN problems. He went on to have more experienced teachers - caught up with home help. He did carry a trouble labelled with school and other parents for a while but other child pulled same stunt next few years and DS was well behaved and doing well.

That's exactly what I thought. In the end it doesn't matter if he is copying the bad behaviour of others. It's a conscious choice he makes and by doing so, it becomes his bad behaviour. If he was behaving like a model pupil and was getting praised for it do you think the OP would be saying 'well he's only like that because he's copying other well behaved children.'

I doubt it.

Slightly off topic but when my son was about the same age, he became inattentive & struggled a bit at school- It did take us a while to realise he had problems hearing the teacher due to glue ear. May not be an issue but worth checking out.

I’m not sure that you don’t have problems with him at home are relevant our eldest (autistic high functioning) was an absolute angel at school and was a complete nightmare very often at home . I figured he could only keep it all together for so many hours in a day and it was definitely the better way round to have it .

Im a Y2 teacher but in a private school abroad (assuming you are in the UK, apologies if I'm wrong). My class are all Y3 age apart from 1 due to local Ministry of Education rules regarding starting age in Y1. Behaviour generally is quite poor, and getting worse every year. Please try to work with the school. Speak openly with your son and try to get to the root cause, but don't ask leading or emotionally charged questions. Ask for the facts, and why he thinks he may be reacting in the ways the teacher describes. I had an incident recently when child A did something fairly serious to child B. A thorough investigation was made immediately by SLT, all witnesses to the event were spoken to, all reported the same sequence of events and child A was given an appropriate consequence as per the schools behaviour policy. However Child B's parents continued to grill them and basically put words in their mouth, and Child B blatantly lied and made up further scenarios which were completely false to please their parents. This is one of the first rules of safeguarding, never ask leading questions because children naturally want to please and will agree with what an adult has suggested. I hope this makes sense 😁😊

We saw this behavior in a child in my son's class at the same age. He was basically a genius kid and thought the teacher was a bit of an idiot (she was, to be fair). She would say "you need to write in pencil, not pen, so I can correct your work" and he'd ignore her, writing beautifully in pen. She'd say it again and he'd say "fuck off". I was there as a parent volunteer this day and it horrified and astonished me. None of the teachers could handle him at all, so it was far worse than your child, but possibly there's something about the root cause that is overlapping. He was excluded from school in the end for kicking the teacher in her legs and swearing at her (again). And he then was home schooled.

Talk to him. There maybe something going on, as hes bright he may just be bored, it could be the teacher. One of my grandchildren had terrible behaviour last school year. The teacher just did not like her. Said some questionable things to her. September with the new teacher shes like a different child. Gets star of the week. Really enjoys school again, so talk to your son

Do you think your son is behaving badly or do you think the teacher is making it up?

That's the first thing to clarify. If you agree with the teacher that his behaviour is inappropriate, have you asked him why he is doing it?

That's the second thing to clarify. You should learn to work with the school or you will have a lot more problems throughout his education.

He needs consequences at home.

I have a friend whose son was like that. He wouldn't have told a teach to fuck off or kicked them, not his style. But if he thought he knew better than them on any given topic he'd say so and continue to do as he wanted while explaining why.

He was exceptionally bright but quite difficult to handle and didn't respond well to authority unless he respected it. If he respected you he was an absolute dream to teach.

His parents were constantly being called into school to talk about his 'attitude'. One of his teachers once told his parents that they found him intimidating. He was never physically intimidating or threatening, just cocky and very clever with words, so he'd tie them up in knots. If the teachers were young or inexperienced they couldn't cope with him. He had an answer for everything, and infuriatingly it usually made perfect sense which just made the teachers even madder.

He's a lawyer now.

@TwigletsAndRadishes that was my ds1.
And the teachers who struggled were the ones who were somehow intimidated by his knowledge and made it a battle rather than use his knowledge/abilities.

A teacher intimidated by primary school pupil? I don’t think so. Mostly when a child refuses to do the work or is silly or is rude instead of doing the work it’s because they find the work too hard.

It is of course possible a child might misbehave because the work is too easy but having taught Y3 for around a decade, I've only ever taught one child for whom the curriculum was just far too simple (and they were a delight, not badly behaved). The National Curriculum 2014 is hard. What used to be Y4 and Y5 concepts are taught in Y3. Very, very few children find the whole thing ridiculously easy.

Most likely explanation is that he is bored. He has suddenly started to misbehave because he is not being stretched enough.

Don't blame other kids/the teacher/everyone else for his bad behaviour. He may previously have been your little angel but he isn't now.
Make it clear to him such behaviour is not acceptable and work WITH the teacher not against them. Ask whether there is any extension work available to keep him occupied.

You could start coming down on this behaviour and nip it in the bud. Being bored or disliking something is not an excuse to behave badly. Any child when offered an 'excuse' will agree with it.
E.g. why are you getting into trouble? Is it too easy for you? Answer will be yes. This gives the child an excuse.
Are other people messing about? Answer will be yes. This again lets the child off the hook.

Instead ask the teacher for examples so you can challenge the behaviour yourself. E g. Mrs x said that today you were out of your seat and disturbing others and you only did 3 out of ten problems. This isn't acceptable. You won't have your tablet tonight.

Show him that you value politeness and hard work over achievement.

It's not always because they are bored, sometimes it's because they don't have clear boundaries at home and so struggle to respond to them at school.

You need to believe what you are being told by the adult who is trained to be with your child each day, all day. They will have huge insight into what is going on. Listen and ask what you can do to support your child. Back the teacher in reinforcing that this behaviour is not acceptable

You think teachers were intimidated by your child??