Advice please.

Teacher overreacted IMO. My GS who is 6 and has Aspergers, says similar things to his friends, and it is all sorted out in the classroom.

What happened to 'Circle Time' a lovely class session where playground spats could be resolved and concerns dealt with all within the privacy of the classroom (I always put up a notice on the door.... Circle time, please do not disturb). Children took turns to speak, enabling several viewpoints to be heard, wise words were often spoken by their peers and potentially difficult situations resolved.

Thank you all for your comments.
This saga is continuing I'm afraid as the teacher accosted my daughter in the classroom again this morning and began further discussion about the incident in front of the other parents who were dropping their children off. My daughter insisted they go outside and the teacher then made remarks about my grandson's home life that were obviously based on totally erroneous assumptions the teacher has made. The teacher was also asked why, when (several) other children have said similar things (e.g. I'll chop your head off), no further action was taken. The teacher responded that she was not prepared to comment on the behaviour of other children in the class.

This teacher really seems to have a bee in her bonnet about your DGS and/ or DD doesn't she? How upsetting for everyone. I think I would be asking for a meeting with the teacher and head teacher ASAP, before your poor little grandson is put off school altogether.

This is disgraceful grannyactivist why on earth is the teacher making such a big deal out of a 5 year old childs silly comment? and to discuss it infront of other parents is shocking. What on earth will the other parents think?

There are now 3 threads dealing with school issues and it has got me thinking as a GP that I never involved my Mother or in-laws in that aspect of my DC'S life. It was something we dealt with and it wouldn't have occured to involve them. Was I alone in this,bearing in mind my DC's are now late 40's one 50 soon? And this is no critisism just a thought.

This sounds to me like an over-reaction on the part of the teacher who should have been able to deal with the incident with commonsense.

Unfortunately, because she didn't do that in the first place she is now trying to justify her actions and exacerbating the situation which would probably have been forgotten by the two children involved.

If it carries on then a meeting with the HT would be a good idea before it escalates even further.

Very unprofessional, stating the obvious, your DD needs to make an appointment to speak to the Head (already suggested but worth repeating!).

Sorry, posts crossed!

Great minds, OGM and in the same second too!

"Killing" does not mean the same thing to little ones as it does to us. Making a huge fuss is inappropriate. He should simply have been told that it was not kind and asked to apologise. I am sorry he is feeling a bit less keen on school now. That is really a shame.

Heavens - you should have heard my brother dashing about with a gun and cowboy hat busy shooting everyone in sight when he was little!

As a former teacher and mother and grandmother (all boys) all I can say is that you will go mad trying to find out who started it, what actually happened, where any blame lies. Even if you hear or see the incident at first hand, you have no idea what happened previously. Schools aren't courts of justice, they are places where children should be given every opportunity to grow up. If I were the mother, I would be worried that the teacher will not let this go, and I would be even more worried that my son was getting upset about going to school. If the head is any good, she will also be worried by learning this. Sorry, grannya, it's one of the worst things to deal with and parents who try to be objective and rational are often at the mercy of teachers and other parents who are far from either.

GA It does sound as though the teacher is not going to let this lie,she should have started to day afresh and made no more comments about it,and to discuss the matter in front of other mums is totally unprofessional imo,a time to speak to the Head Teacher I feel.
A lot of these comments are picked up in the playground we all know that with some knowing more than others,my two used to come home saying allsorts and we wondered where they had heard such things and it came from class mates who watched TV unsupervised and didn't know what was acceptable and what was not.
Writing a letter at 5yrs is certainly over the top and it does look like the other childs mother is making a mountain out of a molehill. and have a your little man will be fine.

My son was bumped into a higher class at the Easter of his reception year as he was obviously bright, but he was not emotionally mature enough to deal with some of the rather agresssive six year old boys he encountered.

This particular teacher was not sympathetic or skilled at managing him and the teasing/bullying etc which she should have been on the look out for with a newcomer to the class.
He became very unhappy and had a bad year, spending a lot of time outside the headmasters office. The head himself was very experienced and well liked by the children and he could see and understand what my DS was about.

I did go and see the headmaster when eventually DS told me what was going on. That was shortly before that teacher had moved on to a Headship!!! For a while he had his lovely former reception class teacher back from her Mat leave.

At eight DS had a teacher who he really liked, despite as she said, she was very tough with him about his distractibility and fidgetyness. She had got the measure of him and knew just how to keep him motivated.

Sometimes a change of teacher, or if all else fails a school, can make a big difference to a child.

I can't believe how this teacher has behaved/is behaving. Perhaps she is now scared of losing face and doesn't really know how to proceed. The PC world we live in has made it so difficult for everyone.

Whenever there was some sort of confrontation at school, I used to say, "Never mind who started it. It ends now. Both shake hands and say sorry." Believe it or not, that even worked with the eleven year old boys, who thought it was embarrassing, but funny and that broke the 'spell'.

I wonder if a word with the Head could resolve this without it becoming too confrontational?

Not sure what you mean about "not involving your mother in law....." annsixty Surely it depends on how involved MiL is with the day to day upbringing of the children. Speaking for myself, I take the children to and from school at least twice a week. They stay over at mine at least twice a week too. I am known by the teachers as I have done this for all three children since they were born, so if an incident such as this happened in our family I know DDiL would want to discuss it with both me and her mum.

You don't want to cause an escalation from your side, certainly, and it needs to be put behind everyone. I hope the teacher and the other parent can move on from this.
Whilst the adults are still heatedly discussions issues like this, you will often find the children playing happily together having forgotten all about it - unless of course one or more of the adults makes a big deal out of it.

This is all very unfortunate. I do hope it's sorted out soon. The teacher must act more professionally. I know they are under a lot of strain with Ofsted etc., but honestly talking like that in front of other parents, it's just not on.

I obviously worded my post badly Gillybob I was referring to both sets of GP's at a time -late 60's ,mid 70's when I think they were not so involved with GC at the level they are today.I have made it clear on other threads that I also am very involved with my GC.I was thinking aloud about the way past generations were not so close. But then again perhaps it was just my family.

Time for Mum to talk to Headteacher about this.

Thank's for that annsixty

Yes things are very different these days aren't they? I could count on one hand the amount of times my parents looked after my two but my own grandma looked after my sister and I a lot. Maybe it isn't such a generational thing at all, just different personalities.

I think this is something that happens with particularly bright kids. Sounds so much like the child of a my DD's friend. He is intelligent beyond his years, but he was also, for a while, a little horror! It was a phase. He is definitely coming out of it now!

Not saying that yours is a little horror granny-a. Just don't worry about it. They push the boundaries.

Is the teacher inexperienced?

It sounds to me as if the teacher was going by the book, and taking it too literally, playing safe. I would be far more worried if it was said by a ten year old. MiL once reported a child for something similar, with dreadful consequences, social services became involved and it was almost a year before the child was returned to his parents. She told me about it and expected sympathy, but I was horrified and asked, How could you? She said it was procedure - and that was 20 years ago. DBH said it was because although he frequently threatened to kill his little brother, he was never snitched on and never did it in her hearing! I often heard DD's little boy friends threaten to kill her during their games, aged around four. I just used to say - kill them back. None of them appear to have been scarred for life.

That is why I was bringing up about procedures.
Is she going with it? Or not?
And if she is, which I doubt, the procedures sound like they need to be changed, or at least reviewed and tightened.

Sounds like the teacher needs a read of them.

A parent can always ask to see the procedures, even if they are not online. I did it once, and was given a whole load of them to peruse, and shown where the rest were if I fancied a read of all of them!

That little girl had better toughen up because she has the rest of primary school and then secondary school to get through. If she's going to tell tales at the drop of the hat she will definitely be picked on.

DD has taught in schools where, 'I'm going to kill you' means the teachers start thinking about restraint procedures.