Waaaaa, nasty teacher was mean to my PFB!!! :)

[LucasNorthCanSpookMeAnytime]

DD has just started and is terribly nervous - which this particular teacher knows. She arrived at school early this morning but then had a problem with something which was absolutely not her fault and which would cause her to be 5 mins late for her first lesson. A member of staff who helped her said it was fine and to explain to her teacher what had happened. DD did this but the teacher was really cross with her anyway for being late and said she didn't care what the reason was and threatened her with detention and now DD is really upset. I guess they are just trying to get them used to the idea that they must be on time but the way the teacher dealt with this was just so unneccessary and has gone a long way to spoiling DD's good first few days :(

So what do I say to DD about things like this? (as this sort of thing is obviously going to happen again). I've told her that maybe it's just a lesson in knowing that some things in life are going to be unfair and that you have to learn to let it things go and move on. But then I don't want to teach her to just accept unfairness without querying it or standing up for herself!

Lucas:

I can see that your DD was a bit taken aback by getting in trouble (and not understanding the whole backstory I'm unclear why she was late - but it does sound like another teacher was with your DD & went into the class with her).

As someone suggested - your DD may be over-reacting to what was said.

I also think you need to bear in mind that in these first few weeks of schools - teachers/ deputy Heads are really keen to 'lay down the law' - to nip in the bud any impression that you can drift in late/ alter the uniform/ chat through class/ etc...

So it may be a general feeling on the teacher's part - better to be harsh now - then have problems with all my students later.

---

Now what I don't understand is that you are suggesting your DD is likely to be late for similar reasons again. (I may have misunderstood but you did say: (as this sort of thing is obviously going to happen again).) -

so if there is an issue which means that your child may be a few minutes late for school frequently - sincerely - I think you need to ring the school and talk to the head of year 7 and clear this with him/ her. (if for example she's your carer/ dropping a sibling off at nursery/ primary breakfast club first/ etc... or if she is involved in a sport - for example swimming which often has morning practices) - then these familial/ sporting needs can be taken into account but need to be cleared with the school in advance.

If, however, it's merely a case of you got stuck in traffic or the bus was late (which does happen) - you need to absorb that you can do something about that by simply leaving that bit earlier. Most senior schools open their libraries in the morning - so students arriving early can make their way to the library, sit in the warm, do a bit of homework or read. Some even open their canteen - so you can get cereal/ toast/ tea/ coffee/ hot chocolate.

Being 'on time' or 'early' is very unfashionable - but is a useful life skill. Being late rarely impresses your employers/ prospective clients - even family (she says thinking of certain in-laws...hmm...hmmm).

HTH

I had a couple of Y7s late yest because they'd forgotten their planners and went to Reception to look up what they had. That wasn't acceptable

A couple of days into school, it's not acceptable? Really? Draconian.

Also another took himself off to the toilet, again, they should have come to me and asked first

So, he found the toilet, went there on the way and you told him off? Draconian.

Conversely, had a girl whose shoe buckle had broken. She couldn't walk in her shoe and had to get it sorted (wait while someone called home to bring in other shoes). She was excused for that as it was genuine

Genuine? She could easily have walked without a shoe! She would be the one with the worst excuse if they were in my class!

Having to go to the class first, then ask the teacher if you may go to the toilet is utterly ridiculous. Sure, if in time it's the same student doing it all the time you need to have a chat, see if it's genuine or just a delaying tactic but making year 7's and older ask to go to the toilet is demeaning.

Six years ago I issued a DT to a year 7 who was 10 minutes late to my lesson. She had gone to the loo. Last year she left with 11A* and as Head Girl. I taught her English for all five years. For five years she reminded me of my 'evil' deed! I say it made her the wonderful young woman she is now! Good habits are established early just tell your DD that in future go to the class, explain and it will be fine

Bloody hell.

There are some lovely teachers on this thread, but there are some who really let a little 'power' go right to their heads and seem to forget the students are people too - sad really.

Lucas That wasn't nice of the teacher at all, even if she hadn't been aware of how nervous DD is it would have been unreasonable, but given she does, it's unkind and unnecessary. DD did as another teacher told her and it was school property that was faulty and needed the caretaker to sort out.

I think all you can do it tell DD that some people are just unreasonable and sometimes we have to work alongside of them and that she needs to pick her battles with those people - help her find the line between accepting that person is unreasonable no matter what and that person has acted far too harshly and something needs to be done.

How is DD this morning? I hope it hasn't pushed her back into school phobia/refusal. It has made me really angry that on day three, her teacher knowing her history, has scared her when she had a very good reason for being late (even if her reason was less justified!) - it's just nasty and counter productive.

Latte - we have 1300 students moving around a compact new-build. We learnt quickly from past experience they love to congregate/spray deodorant/apply make up/graffiti/have fights in the toilets literally until they are cleared out by staff at lesson changeover. Often they text each other, 'arranging' meet ups in the toilets.

I work in the most deprived borough in Britain, our catchment presents lots of challenges, one of the biggest being compliance. Asking to go to the toilet and being told to hang on 5 minutes is no hardship.

Thanks, Latte Your last paragraph is exactly my problem with it. If she had been late for something which was her own fault then she absolutely should be warned or punished for it, no question! I just really don't like the idea that a teacher won't reasonably listen to a child when I've always tried to teach her not to just accept things and be a mouse.

DD was very nervous going in this morning as she had to use the locker again first thing. But DH went in with her, to show her how to use it (why no staff member had shown them how to use the lockers, I don't know ) and she's ok now.

PastSellByDate, sorry if my post was confusing but it's nothing to do with us being late to school :) She was actually there 30 mins before the bell! My 'it's bound to happen again' comment referred to unfairness, not to being late. I wasn't sure whether to go with "you should stand up for yourself" or "just suck it up and move on".

OP if your daughter has a school phobia (and I massively sympathise because I did too) then is it worth speaking to the form tutor and asking that other teachers are aware? Not necessarily in relation to this incident, but just so they can bear it in mind in the future.

Good idea Mrs Miniver but it was the form tutor who told her off :(

Sigh. Does the form tutor know her history? I understand why people wouldn't intervene normally (I wouldn't with my children, but they don't have school phobia) but changing schools when you have a phobia of them is hard enough as it is, without teachers giving you a hard time when you've tried your best!

OK Lucas - well all I can say is yes it may happen again, but it isn't necessarily bound to do so.

1. if you are late because your swipe card won't let you in the building/ locker wouldn't open/ etc.... and you are assisted by a member of staff - there should be a system whereby a note/ pass/ etc... is issued to explain to whatever class teacher the reason for tardiness.

2. It sounds to me like your DD had a valid reason for being late and was in fact accompanied by a member of staff to class - so that being the case this is over-the top behaviour and the question is whether to go to battle now or hold fire, chalk it up to a misunderstanding, and hope nothing similar happens again.

I agree it will colour your DD's attitude toward the school and may make her more insecure about being there - but this is where I think you need to expend your energies at home. I think it's important to help her brush this off and not let it colour her impression of her new school or that teacher.

Monitor the situation - but my advice is to help devise coping mechanisms should this situation occur again (which you clearly expect) - so that it doesn't result in conflict with teachers. Is there a hall pass system - and she should get a pass next time this happens. Is it possible to ask that member of staff to text/ e-mail/ talk to the teacher explaining why you DD was tardy?

HTH

Inadequate teachers like to start in a no nonsense way with Y7s, good ones aren't so stupid.

Your DD will learn the difference without you needing to say anything.

This kind of thing is all part of settling into secondary school and adapting to a different approach.
Everyone needs to learn what is and isn't acceptable. They need to learn that teachers are different and have different expectations. They need to learn that there are often consequences of their actions. And parents and children need to learn not to dwell on the minor set-backs, chalk it up to experience and move on.
If your DD is a school refuser and has a documented history of it, you should be making sure the school know and they will make sure all teachers are aware of her and they will cut her more slack. Have you already made sure they know this information? If not, why not? Or when you say she is school phobic, do you mean that she has days when she doesn't want to go to school, but you haven't had the matter investigated further? If you are genuinely concerned about this, beyond this individual incident, then you should be telling the school about her potential school phobia, so she can be assessed to see how serious it is and receive the help she needs.

I don't know about your daughter....if she has a real school phobia issue or just has days when she isn't keen to go to school. I expect you know OP. But OP, tbh, this all sounds like the concerns about the teacher being ''mean" is actually a much bigger deal to you that to her. She is going to encounter a range of people who might not always treat her with kid gloves. Are you going to be outraged on her behalf every time this happens? Are you going to be able to back off and allow this vital stage of growing up to happen?

If there are genuine reasons why she needs to be treated differently to other people,then fine. The school need to know about them and an action plan drawn up. If not, I really think you might need to come to terms with this different environment and decide to pick your upsets and battles carefully. Otherwise, you could spend the next 7 years feeling outraged and stressed on her behalf and passing these feelings onto her.

PastSellByDate, I agree with what you say.
Unless there is a school phobia issue which requires the school to develop a action plan for DD, the OP would do better expending her energies on helping her daughter to develop resilience in such situations and considering how to avoid these kind of things in future. A forward looking attitude from parents, which doesn't get bogged down in individual incidents or look to blame outside people and events, is probably the best way to secure positive moves forward.

^
Agree with Chocolate.

Threads like this make me so thankful my DC go to a school where teachers treat them with respect and don't shout.

Character building my arse.

Latte have you heard of irony?

Elephant, as an outstanding teacher,in an outstanding school, I feel it is part of our responsibility to teach the pupils that punctuality is important in school and in life. If children just drift in 10 minutes late they miss the start of the lesson where objectives are set out and the lesson should have developed pace. Late arrivals inhibit the progress of all. How long should we allow pupils to drift around? It is not a matter of being power mad it is a matter of responsibility. During the lesson I am responsible for that child and I need to know where they are and the child needs to realise that they have responsibilities too not to disrupt the learning of others.

Being late because you need the loo is not acceptable unless you have a medical condition but the OP's daughter should have been treated with more sympathy given her past history.

Lynette I find it hard to believe staff have never shouted at the pupils. I only shouted once last year and thar was to tell a pupil cpacross the playground to stop dragging their friend along the ground by the feet. However I do reprimand pupils who disrupt lessons, are unkind to others and fail to obey the school rules, as do all my colleagues. That is why we are one of the best state schools in the country and OFSTED commented in March that the pupils are "exceptionly happy". Despite being in one of the poorest, inner city areas of the country.

I didn't say staff have never shouted, I said don't as in generally don't.

disidealist.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/im-not-an-outstanding-teacher-nor-is-anyone/

agggghhast I have heard of both irony and up-your-own-arse-itis... I know which I see in your posts. HTH

If you work in a 'sink' school then maybe your 'rules' need to be different, but then you also need to accept that the majority of children attending our secondary schools are not the sort of kids who congregate/spray deodorant/apply make up/graffiti/have fights in the toilets and are actually nice young people who in year 7 shouldn't have to ask to go to the toilet between classes and deserve to be treated as individuals - and listened to, not shouted at.

Anyway, back to the important bit... how did DD get on today Lucas?

In no way did I suggest it is a 'sink' school.
I do not shout at any pupil individually - what on earth would it achieve? I may occasionally raise my voice to get a class's attention.
Indeed, the reason our rules are applied so stringently is because of the very nature of those we teach - it was a personal example.
You'll probably find that toilets are out of bounds during lesson changeover in many, if not most high schools.

But where did being shouted come from? I don't recall the OP referring to any shouting, but the child being told off, and even then it is not clear exactly what manner the 'telling off' occurred in. The points could have been made in a perfectly pleasant, matter of fact way, just stating facts that she should have been in class, not been at her locker and that the consequences of this can be detention. None of this has to be aggressive or shouty. Clearly, the child didn't like the message they receive and it upset her. However,this doesn't mean at all, that the message was wrong or the way it was delivered was wrong. It just means that like many 11 year olds, she is sensitive to criticism. It seems many people have jumped to conclusions that there was shouting and unpleasantness.

As has been said upthread, a key job of teachers is to make sure pupils understand expectations and to correct them. Sometimes they need telling off, but again this does not have to be done in an unpleasant or aggressive manner. However, being told off is never pleasant, however it is done and it is easy for sensitive children to decide they have been treated unkindly or unfairly or unpleasantly.

We don't know exactly what happened with the teacher. Neither does the OP know exactly because she wasn't there.

We need to expect that our children will be corrected by their teachers. It is a crucial part of their job. We cannot and should not be trying to prevent this occurring, but need to teach our children how to react to it, which includes being resilient, not dwelling on individual incidents or developing grudges against teachers,and how to avoid such things in future. Developing a sense of outrage is usually unhelpful. Yes of course there are times when parents should be stepping in and feeling outraged is the correct response....but these should be few and far between, and tbh the situation described, does not seem to be one warranting that parental reaction.

My point of the anecdote was that the pupil bore no ill effect from a 10 minute DT for being late at the start of Year 7 neither did it mean we could not have a positive relationship.

Secondary school is a huge change for pupils and all teachers are aware of it but eventually they have to fit into the routines of the school. One of the key signs of a poor school is pupils wandering about during lesson time.

Our Year 7's have been in school 7 days and the vast majority have settled extremely well, we know this because the Year 11 girls have gone from gushing over how sweet they are to moaning about them. The few who are struggling have been highlighted to all staff and are being steered towards clubs and activities.

In many ways the transition is as difficult for parents, whereas once any issues could be sorted at the end of school pick up now it is a matter of email and phone calls, which can take days to get a response.

OP I hope your DD is settling now despite the way this, as so many MN threads do, has degenerated into a cat fight( and I don't exonerate myself) please believe me that the teachers at your DD's school want your child to be happy and settled. Very few teachers do the job for the purpose of making children unhappy most of us are well aware that children need to be happy and secure in order to thrive both emotionally and academically.

"Threads like this make me so thankful my DC go to a school where teachers treat them with respect and don't shout. "

I find the post above about being thankful the children go to a school where teachers show respect and don't shout rather ridiculous and naieve (sp?) to be honest.
Schools have an ethos, but every teacher is a different person, just as every child is. No schools encourage shouting or showing a lack of respect to children. Does anyone really imagine there is a school policy to do such things?

Likewise, there is no school where voices will not be raised sometimes. As a previous poster says, raised voices are often used to gain attention, but it is extremely rare for a teacher to shout directly in anger, at an individual pupil. As that poster said, it would achieve nothing. So a teacher on the playing fields on a windy autumn day, may shout instructions, so everyone hears. Or the teacher in an art room,where there is a happy hub but of noise while people are working, may raise their voice,to get the attention of the children and give the next instruction. This is the kind of shouting that goes on. I can't see any suggestion anywhere that the OPs child was shouted at.

And with regards to showing respect to children,of course that is encouraged too. That of course, does not mean never pointing out where behaviour or work could be improved. That is an essential part of being a good teacher. But yes, it should be done in a respectful way. However,some children and indeed parents seem to take exception to receiving this kind of feedback, however it is given, and see it as disrespectful or mean. How can anyone move forward in life and learn to progress and accept constructive feedback, if they are unable to hear it constructively, but always see it as criticism and a personal attack on themelves? We must teach children to be able to hear and respond to that feedback.

And finally, the idea that any parent entirely knows what is going on in any school, or can know how every teacher behaves all the time, strikes me as daft. Most secondary schools have very many teachers. You may know and like the ethos of the school, which is great. But to say that no one ever shouts or is ever disrespectful, is to say something you simply cannot know. It is like saying no child is ever unkind to another child or there is never an incident of bullying, or bad behaviour. You may have a general impression about these things but cannot really know the specific detail.

I see nothing to give the impression that the school the OPs child goes to is anything other than respectful towards its pupils. There is nothing reported so far which suggests it is a horrid place to be educated or that the child cannot thrive there. If the school is lacking sufficient information about any special requirements of the child at this point, which means she needs different treatment, then the onus is on the parent to ensure they have that information.....most people would supply it before the child starts. I am unclear about whether this has happened or not.