Discussion Board: Primary

A little while back I asked my 9 year old daughter how her day at school had been (as you do) and the response I got from her shocked me to the core! I was informed that her teacher had told one boy he was 'ugly'!, another that he was 'not important'!! and to the class as a whole - that they were 'losers'!!! I expect you can imagine my initial disgust. I did however, give the teacher the benefit of the doubt for a moment and quizzed my daughter further as to the circumstances that surrounded these comments. After getting a child's view on this, I was still not happy at all and so decided to contact another parent who had a child in the same class. The story was confirmed further with the inclusion of the boy's name who had been called ugly. I then decided to meet with the Principal and ask him to speak with the teacher - of which he has since done. She admitted (somewhat) her comments were un-excusable and offered only that she had been having a bad day. I have kept an eye on this and continually ask my daughter how school has been and specifically how the teacher has been. Although as a whole, the teacher seems to have changed her ways, she has since said 'crap' in front of the children. Needless to say, my daughter began calling her 11 month old brother a 'loser' when he first started taking steps and learning how to walk around 10 and a half months. I jumped on that rather quickly though and she now knows it is not nice to call people names like that. So, I now question myself....have I done enough? Should I do more? Should I go further than the Principal? Do I need to speak to the Board of Trustees? Or even higher - the Ministry of Education? I would love to hear some other point of views regarding this.

I can understand your concern, I would be shocked too!!!!
I think the only thing you can really do in the mean time is listen to your daughter when she talks about the teacher. I find if I question my 8year old too much she tends to stretch the truth a little to make things sound more dramatic that they really are. But you should still take all of your daughters comments into consideration. If you hear more things about the teacher that concern you, by all means, go to the principle. Give them a number of 'chances' to rectify the teachers behaviour and if the teachers language and behaviour towards the children does not improve, then I personally would be seeking advise above the Principle, whether it be the Board of Trustees (which the Principle is usually a member of) or do contact the Ministry of Education. A more drastic step would be to contact the local paper and voice your concerns (but not naming names).
But you might find, that if you just approach the teacher after every incident you hear of, she might tone down a bit. I wouldn't be a teacher, I wouldnt have the patience, they do have so many children to deal with, and I could imagine how easy it would be to 'lose it' in front of the class.
But do keep dealing with the issue, no matter how you do it. Good on you for doing something about it in the first place and not just burying your head in the sand like a lot of other parents do...well done!!!!

It has been some time since I've been back on the site, so I apologise for the delay in responding.

I continued to ask my daughter on a regular basis how things were at school and how the teacher was - in particular her language towards the children - and she never really had another incident to tell me about thankfully!

I did wonder if the truth had been stretched a little, which is why I didn't really want to take things too far at the beginning. Had it continued or gotten worse I certainly would have investigated further. The principal obviously did do something in the end then.

You make a good point when you say you wouldn't have the patience, as I too don't think I would be able to do it. It opened my mind a little more to her situation actually, and helped me to be a bit more emphatic - so thank you for that holdenbabe :0)

Other than this one-off issue with the teacher, she is a really good teacher and I have been happy with my daughter's development since being in her class.

So all in all, a happy ending!

i daughter told me that she is scared of her teacher because she yells at children all day long. some times my daughter does not want to go to school. I have asked for her to be moved to another class but was told that there is no space in other rooms.

Hi avikash'

I can see your posted message is quite dated now and I was just wondering how you got on with your daughter's teacher? Have things improved at all? I hope you didn't stand for the answer you were given, or at least that the school have tried to remedy the situation by speaking with the teacher involved. Your daughter is the innocent victim in all this and it's simply not fair for her to have to feel the way she does when school is supposed to be a fun place to learn - shouldn't they be given as much encouragement as possible to want to stay in school. I do not blame her at all for sometimes not wanting to go to school. How different is this teacher to a child school bully? No different I say! When our children are being bullied by other children they tend to not want to go to school then either and most schools 'apear' to not tolerate bullying - yet this teacher gets away with the same sort of behaviour. Unacceptable!

Curious to know how things are.

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