Fumming mother

LegacyUser

Going unreg for this

My child in secondary school gets on grand. Never had a call from the school re bad behaviour. Good reports etc etc

Now the child is dreading going to this teachers classes.

Said child has had a clash with a new teacher since the start of the year ie negitive notes home nearly ever class that this teacher teaches. chatting with other parent this teachers name has come up to many times for my liking.

Rang the Head mistress this morning. told her I was concerned that if the behaviour was so bad would the other teacher not be having the same problems. And if the behaviour was as bad as is been made out should I not have been informed.

i was told 'Im not going to make a big deal out of this'

My child is upset, dreads the classes that this teacher teaches. Am I over reacting by not being happy with this response?

cynder

ouch, my lady had a teacher last year that no one liked, (she was in 5th class) i met with the teacher and i liked him. He had a different method of teaching as wasnt as friendly or up for a laugh as her previous teachers. so she purposely wound him up she got write outs 3 times a week but we were never called in about it. I did speek with him and to be honest i liked him its just all the kids in his class did not, he never singled my lady out but becasue she purposely wound him up she got the worst out of him. this year she has a new teacher and he is supposed to be the toughest one in school and she gets on great with him.

I would suggest you go meet with the teacher and see what s/he has to say. By rights you should have done this before going to the head.

pickarooney

What exactly did this teacher write home about and have you discussed it with your daughter?

Kildrought

Principal was quite correct; you didn't follow the proper procedure which was to talk to the teacher concerned first.

And honestly if your child manages to get through their entire school / university career without coming across one teacher/lecturer that they don't 'get on' with it'll be a miracle.

You can't (and shouldn't) deal with every problem, sometimes they'll just have to learn to handle it themselves.

mikemac

Talk to the teacher, you should have done this before going straight to the head mistress.

Maybe the teacher is no-nonsense and very strict and while this doesn't make them popular, it's for the best

So go meet the teacher and form your own impression and not just what you hear from chatting

Bannasidhe

If it continues I do think you need to approach the teacher and the principle. It may be nothing, on the other hand it could be something that needs to be dealt with urgently.

My own son had serious problems with his Art teacher who had very fixed views on the subject. Views my son did not always share (son preferred Carravaggio to Raphael!). Having grown up surrounded by art (my in laws at the time had a large collection of original Modern Irish art from Yeats to Ballagh), listening to/participating in discussion with artists and art historians and being brought to exhibitions and galleries from a young age he was used to discussing art in an open and lively way and found it impossible to accept an attitude of 'this is the greatest artist in the world because I said so'.

Every week there was a note or detention slip. Things finally came to a head when the teacher in question rang me at work and essentially attempted to patronise me - apparently as 'an ordinary person' I would not be able to appreciate the finer points of art history-. I have degrees in both Fine Art and Art History so needless to say I was able to stand my ground.

What I regret is that I did not deal with the issue much earlier and honestly thought my son was being a smart a*se. After speaking to the teacher I realised my mistake - he was penalising my son for not only having an opinion which differed from his own but the knowledge to argue his case. I later learned many others (ironically from 'arty' backgrounds) has the same issues with this particular teacher.

headmaster

As you have not come back to tell us what the problem is, i don't see how we can help you. In general a teacher will not send a note home unless there's good reason for it. Maybe, just maybe, your little darling is not the darling you think they are. This happens on a very, very, regular basis and is never broadcast. God help teachers is all i can say. However, as i don't know what your childs problem with this teacher is, well, i can't help.

Big Bag of Chips

I was your daughter. I was good in school. Wasn't cheeky. Afraid to answer back etc. Generally good!

Midway through secondary school we got a new teacher who, for reasons still unknown to me, came in on the first day.. first thing she said was "is there a XXX in this class?" I put up my hand and she stared at me. From that minute she was horrible to me. At first I did nothing to warrant it. In the end I decided I was getting in trouble anyway, being kept in, made stand etc, that I DID start being cheeky in class. Everyday I had her I went home and told my mother what had happened (including when I started back answering)

The vice principal stopped me one day, asked me what was going on. He'd had a complaint to the office about me and had to think for a minute who I was, because I wasn't a "usual suspect"! I told him she didn't like me. I didn't particularly like her. I went home and told my mother. She went to the vice principal, who told her not to worry about it. It was probably a personality clash and that he knew I wasn't a troublemaker.

My mother met the teacher for the first time at a parent teacher meeting. The teacher was all smiles and polite until she discovered who my mother was. She then laid into myother about how rude, arrogant, disruptive etc etc I was. My mother stopped her and said up until the day she walked into our classroom I never had a complaint from any teacher. Teachers couldn't say enough about me etc. And she could produce all my school reports through the years to back that up. She also said she knew I had started to answer back and be cheeky, because I told her. I think the teacher wasn't expecting me to have told my mother so much. She even tried to exaggerate some if my "bad behaviour" to strengthen her arguments, but I had already told my mother exactly what happened.. including as I say, the part I played. My mother told her if she left me alone, I'd leave her alone.

I never had a days trouble with that teacher again. She never liked me, but she stopped picking on me.

I know it's hard for the good teachers to understand but some people are just d**kheads... and in turn, some of THOSE people are also teachers!

Listen to your daughter. Go speak to the teacher, and if after that you think she is picking on your child needlessly, tell her to back off!

LegacyUser

Sorry for not getting back earlier.

I was very cross yesterday when I posted the post and was not as clear as I should have been.

@Headmaster this is the attitude that im taking about above everyone and everything.
Thanks for the reply

I did talk to the teacher TWICE before I rangthe head. The Head rang me back yesterday afternoon to appoligise for cutting me short that she was on duty ( we all have bad days and I admire her that she rang me back!)

She said she will have a chat with said teacher and keep an eye on it
So im happy with that

run_Forrest_run

headmaster wrote: »

In general a teacher will not send a note home unless there's good reason for it. Maybe, just maybe, your little darling is not the darling you think they are. This happens on a very, very, regular basis and is never broadcast. God help teachers is all i can say. However, as i don't know what your childs problem with this teacher is, well, i can't help.

you don't know the child's problem with the teacher is, actually you don't even know the child but that doesn't stop you from making smart comments, helpful posts are the way to go.

headmaster

run-forest,
why don't you read my reply again and you may see exactly what i have written, then read it again so you understand the content, then and only then you might be able to see i've said nothing smart and assumed nothing either. Now, take that chip off your shoulder.

mikemac

run_Forrest_run wrote: »

actually you don't even know the child

None of us do apart from the OP

Don't many parents think their little angel could not possibly be disruptive and it must be the teacher who has an issue. You don't get notes home for no reason

The OP is in contact with the school and should get this resolved soon