There is a girl in my year 1 class who is distressed to come into school every morning. She hides behind her mum, clings to mum’s legs and screams. I have to hold on to her to prevent her from running after her mum every day. According to her reception teacher, she was not like this in reception. I have run out of ideas of how to help her. She is a bright, articulate child but when she is in this mindset she hardly speaks or only says things like “I want home time right this second”. She seems to be both sad and angry, but she cannot explain how she feels. After 10-15 minutes she calms down and participated in the class like nothing had happened. The mum is extremely supportive but the school is toxic and I just don’t know what to do. Has anyone else successfully turned this kind of situation around?
It’s a year 1 class with no TA support so whatever I do cannot involve having an additional adult. The children are supposed to come in and start straight on morning work, so I’m supposed to be teaching handwriting to a group during the time I’m helping this girl to come in. The head teacher is not happy that my class are so behind in handwriting but I can’t work with a group while also bringing her in. Our timetables are so full that it’s really hard to get handwriting in anywhere else, so I’ve only managed to do it a couple of times this term instead of every day.