Debnfamily

[quote user="Ron Avery"][quote user="Debnfamily"][quote user="Ron Avery"] [quote user="Debnfamily"] To quote my youngest in her class 'the trouble is I tell her I don't understand and she just says exactly the same thing again, but louder, and then LOUDER!  She seems to think if she shouts it louder it will help me understand, but it doesn't."  (Aged 9) [/quote] Have you asked your son why he doesn't understand the teacher.  Have you considererd that you expecting too much of a 9 year old to understand a language that is probably new to him and I doubt spoken outside of the classroom?  [/quote] What is your point, Ron?  [/quote] It now seems clear from reading your posts that you expect everybody else to make allowances for your children whilst you make no allowance for the different standards and cultural differences in France and its up to the treachers to do what you want when you want to the detriment of the other children in the class. My point which is as written above is that your child who fidgits and does not pay attention or do as he is told,  probably does not understand half what is being said to him.  Do you really expect in a classroom environment he should be able to understand all the words and has time to look them up in a dictionary? It matters not what level he is at, its what he understands that is important.  Doing a written test means nothing, we can all read French at our own pace, its when its being thrown at you 15 to the dozen and you are supposed to just understand it is when it gets difficult.  Just supposing that your son looks up the words he does not understand in his dictionary as you expect him to be able to, what do the other kids do whilst he catches up the bits that he has missed? [/quote]OK - it seems that you just want to have an argument or to be insulting.  I have made allowances for the differences - if any of this stuff happened in a UK school I would have been down there the same day telling the teacher what I thought in no uncertain terms.  I checked on here and TF what the rules were in France before I spoke to the teacher, in case this sort of thing was accepted here.  If I had been given that impression then I would simply have removed my son from the school.  The son who was fidgetting understands well.  The son who did not understand something said to him in his extra lesson, a lesson which gives him extra tuition in French vocabulary, outside the normal classes, is a different son who is doing well and in the correct year for his age group, but needs extra help with French, just as a couple of other kids do - French kids.  What do they do while he looks up things in his dictionary?  Struggle along with him to understand the bits they've missed, even though they have been at this school since they started school.  My kids are not the bottom of the class or causing problems for other kids, whether because of their behaviour or because they are behind - there are French kids who do that.  My kids are near the top of the class - even the youngest.  Just because they don't always understand the language, especially the strong local accent, sometimes, does not mean it is ok to shout at them. How is anything I have done to the detriment of the other children in the class?  They are now all extremely happy that they have a calm and pleasant teacher.  Two parents have thanked us today, on behalf of their children.  They don't seem to mind our kids going to the school - but it seems you do.  What's your problem with English kids going to a French school? 

[quote user="Boiling a frog"]In schools there is no explicit prohibition of corporal punishment  and correction is allowed the same as for parents[/quote]Oops - I thought it WAS prohibited, which is why I girded my loins and went and complained (I thought I was on solid ground).  The teacher didn't correct me when I told her the law said she shouldn't hit the children and that in my view, flinging them around by their clothes came under this umbrella.  So they are allowed to strike children then?  That doesn't seem to be the view of a lot of people - some of whom are teachers.  I would like to be sure on this, in case anything happens again.

[quote user="Ron Avery"][quote user="Debnfamily"] To quote my youngest in her class 'the trouble is I tell her I don't understand and she just says exactly the same thing again, but louder, and then LOUDER!  She seems to think if she shouts it louder it will help me understand, but it doesn't."  (Aged 9) [/quote] Have you asked your son why he doesn't understand the teacher.  Have you considererd that you expecting too much of a 9 year old to understand a language that is probably new to him and I doubt spoken outside of the classroom?  [/quote]Of course - are you saying 9 is too old to consider relocating to France?  He is in the correct class for his age whereas the two older children are in a class a year behind where they would have been had they started school in France.  He is doing well considering - he actually started in CE1 (a year behind also) at the beginning of May last year but then skipped CE2 and went straight to CM1 because he passed all the tests and they thought he would be fine in with his age group.  He has time to redouble if he has real problems but at the moment he appears to be doing better than his older siblings in a lot of areas.  What is your point, Ron?  She was shouting at him in his extra lesson, which is supposed to aid him in learning French (a new thing this year - there are French kids in there too).  She said his brother was managing ok, which upset him as his brother is two years older and more outgoing and so is picking up the language more easily in some ways (even though he has problems concentrating!).  He has a French/English dictionary which he is quite competent at using, so if it was a language problem (it was) then she could have helped him use that to find the word(s) he didn't understand.  There really is no excuse for shouting at him, in my view, but obviously you have your own views and are entitled to them. Deby - I know what you mean and I remember reading this forum when you were having your problems and made your decision.  You were one of the reasons we kept an exit strategy in mind, should the children not settle.  I want to give them a good go at it though and not let them think we can go back, or they won't try to settle in.  Things are improving - it just takes time and obviously is a bit upsetting in the meantime (probably more for me than them).  It is hard enough they have to get used to the kids being rough and picking on them for being English without having to deal with rough teachers too.

[quote user="odile"]Good point Sue. and the same applies to the majority (perhaps all) of European countries- where 'how' to teach and the ability to communicate, and positively 'control' children seems irrelevant- during training, during teaching practice and during the registration year after graduation. [/quote]I've run training courses for adults in the past and found that often the best way is to present the information in a different way, to aid understanding when there is a problem. To quote my youngest in her class 'the trouble is I tell her I don't understand and she just says exactly the same thing again, but louder, and then LOUDER!  She seems to think if she shouts it louder it will help me understand, but it doesn't."  (Aged 9)

[quote user="odile"] But I would say try to see if from now on you can support the teacher, and work as a team. Your child need to know that the teacher bechaved badly, but that it doesn;t give him the right to challenge her authority in future. [/quote]er - my child went into school the next morning and apologised to the teacher for being inattentive and promised to try better in future.  He didn't tell HER at the  meeting that evening that she was only repeating what I had said - he only told me afterwards.  It was the older child, who had experienced no bad treatment, who stood up and disagreed that she had not really been rough - because she had witnessed the rough treatment.   I do support the teacher and my children know not to challenge her or be disrespectful in any way - but they also know that if they are at all worried or scared, they can tell me, and I will investigate thoroughly and deal with it.  I would like to point out that the first note I wrote was on 21st October this year so you can hardly accuse me of being an overprotective parent who has rushed in, believing her child to be perfect and innocent.  I left it this long because I know his behaviour can be frustrating (he gets bored in class and goes into dreamer mode) and also made allowances because I thought he needed time to settle in and get used to the different environment, which means more rules and less discussion than he was used to.  I know quite a lot of the children in the class now and have asked them how they feel, so I know it's not just my son who was having problems.

[quote user="Rob Roy"]It is not just the general level of behaviour in secondary schools - the children in primary are just as bad. I was amazed when I started working in primary schools here at how badly behaved the children are on the whole. The teachers are at their wits end trying to get them to pay anyattention in class, and whilst I don't agree with, or condone, hitting a child, I think using words like 'abusive' is very emotive and unnecessary. I would be interested to know what people think should be done to maintain discipline when faced with up to 25 or so children who are not paying any attention to what you are trying to teach them.  Sending them out of class, giving them lines as punishment, keeping them in at playtime, it all happens but has little effect. The children you see out with their parents, being so polite and charming, turn into completely different beings when in the classroom. [/quote]The behaviour was abusive, simple.  In the current climate in the UK, if I was witnessed treating my child like the teacher did then I would be reported to social services.  Why should a teacher get away with it?  Yes, it is a difficult job.  A job she is trained to do and paid to do.  My last complaint to this teacher was within the first couple of weeks of term, when two of my children came home with horrible grazes on knees, hips and shoulders  from being pushed over in the playground - but the same child, repeatedly.  My husband went  to see the teacher and show her the latest graze, on my son's hip (5 inches long and 1.4 inches wide) and said it was unacceptable.  She said she had written notes to the parents but the child's behaviour stayed bad and she couldn't control him.  My husband said she should tell the child's father that he should deal with his son's behaviour or he would visit him to make sure he did (he has less of a problem with violence than I do - and feels justified at the idea of taking it out on the adult he feels should be controlling his child!).  She looked worried and said he couldn't speak to the child's parents, and that she had to deal with it.  My husband said fine - but pass my message on.  We don't know if she did pass the message on but she did write to them, call them in for a meeting and tell them that if his behaviour continued she would have to exclude him from class because a lot of the parents were very angry that their children were being hurt.  This seems to have worked.  This was the child who owed the old teacher 140 playtimes. I don't know how to handle bad behaviour in a class of 23 kids.  I do know how to handle it with my own kids.  If the teacher tells me there is a problem then I will deal with it at home in my own way.  If I don't, then I should expect that my child may be excluded.  However, if my child goes to school - he should feel safe there.  He may do if this teacher continues to behave calmly.  Perhaps the kids will follow her example.

[quote user="tegwini"]Debs If your son was told to stay behind, but got out when the others left,  he's not doing as he's told. Only if you can be a fly on the wall can a parent really know what is happening in the class & how difficult it can be. [/quote]I understand she's not allowed to keep him back after school.  He figured she wasn't his 'boss' after school closing time and so he would come home and tell me.  He also thought she might hit him if he was alone with her.  I totally understood and agreed with what he did.  I live 100 metres from the school so she could easily have come and spoke to me or even just phoned.  I don't need to be a fly on the wall - I know exactly how my son behaves and I know he has problems staying attentive in class but I don't condone physical punishment of any kind.  I also have two other children in the same class who tell me what happened from their perspective.  He wasn't badly behaved.  In his old school in the UK, also a small rural village school where all three children were in the same class, his behaviour would not have been commented upon.   The laws about hitting children - or not - appear to be the same in both countries.  It was the teacher who was badly behaved.

I’d like to say thank you to those people who were supportive of me over this issue – and also give an update. The day after our 2 hour meeting with the teacher and teaching assistant, they called our children to a meeting and discussed the situation.  The teacher tried to say she hadn’t pushed or shoved very hard but my eldest said ‘well – except for those times when you through my brother over to his desk/over to the stage to write his name on the punishment board/into the canteen’.  She said it wasn’t as hard as she had seen the kids pushing each other in the playground.  My eldest replied ‘yes, but that’s kids and we know we are playing – it’s totally different because you are an adult and your face is red and you are angry and we know it’s serious and it’s quite scary!’  (My eldest hasn’t experienced any of this but has just seen the middle child treated in this way.)  Eventually, the teacher admitted she had shouted a lot and had lost her temper.  She apologised for this, and for the pulling and shoving, and promised to do her best to keep her temper in check in future but said it was difficult sometimes when dealing with 23 children, a fair few of whom misbehave.  She told my son she hoped he would try to concentrate and follow the rules in future.  He told her he was sorry he hadn’t been concentrating and said just as he had promised me the night before, he now promised her he would do his best to concentrate and follow the rules.  He said she was just repeating what I had already said to him and he repeated to her what he had promised me but it felt a bit different because he felt as if her promise to keep her temper in check was conditional upon him concentrating and following the rules!  Anyway, since then the teacher has apparently been a model of decorum, speaking quietly to the children, even when she is telling them off, and not touching anyone.  The other kids in the class have noticed and said to ours that they don’t know what was said in our meeting, but it has caused a transformation in the teacher that they are very happy with! One of the things I told this teacher was that the previous teacher (a man who had been there a very long time) was quite physical with those children who were really naughty and disobedient.  He did the knuckles on the top of the head thing, he would grab hair at the temple (very painful apparently – he did this to my son), slap them with books or text books, hit out with rulers, pick them up by the scruff of the neck and throw them in the class armoire, there to stay until he deigned to let them out, or make them sit under their desk until he let them up.  He also gave them playtime detention and one notorious child owed him 140 playtime detentions at the end of last year!   My kids were a little worried at first when they saw all of this going on.  However, they found it never happened to them (apart from the hair pulling thing that one time) as they always behaved well compared to the kids it did happen to.  They and all the other kids too, even those on the receiving end of this behaviour, felt that he only did these things when it was justified!  They felt he was fair, didn’t lose his temper unnecessarily and was a good laugh – he played games with them in the playground at playtime, when he was off duty so he didn’t need to.    She looked really shocked when I told her that the consensus of the class was that they preferred the old teacher, because he was reasonable and even tempered whereas she was unreasonable, bad tempered, unpredictable, hysterical and didn’t even play with them at playtime to try and even things out a bit!  Someone suggested it might be worth talking to the parents council about my problem.  The trouble with this was, the only parent I know who is on the council (which covers three schools, two in different villages, because the classes are spread around the villages to keep all three village schools in use and open) is someone who I have seen hit her child harder than I have ever seen anyone hit even a dog, never mind a child.  She may not agree with other people hitting her child and think it is her own preserve, but because of her behaviour, I didn’t feel she was someone I could approach about this.   Anyway, all seems well so far – let’s hope it continues after the holidays into the New Year!  

    Ron - apparently he was fidgetty in class (worse in the afternoons, so he's now off caffienated drinks at lunchtime, just in case they ar making him hyper), messing around with a keyring attached to his pencil case (now removed from it) and when his friend was explaining a question to him, he did it in English (the boy's mother is English) and they are not allowed to speak English in school.  She also complained that he spoke English when playing football in the playground - something the last teacher, also directeur, used to allow.  She also said he wasn't listening (often typical of a boy of this age).  Really nothing I could understand her flipping over.  However, I know she has some kids in the class who behave quite badly so maybe my son just got the brunt of it when she lost patience.  The main thing is, even if he had behaved badly, she shouldn't handle it with anything physical and she should speak to us, his parents.  We've made it quite clear we have plenty of ways of punishing him at home if necessary and we are happy for him to lose playtimes or do lines or those types of punishment at school.  We simply don't expect him to be afraid to go to school because his teacher might throw him around and injure him!  Both teachers denied it at first or made out they hadn't been as rough as claimed - but our other children and other children in the class have confirmed what happened, so we stuck to our guns.  The thing is, some of the other kids I know of who have actually been hit actually get just as bad or worse at home so their parents aren't worried.  That's why I first wrote a note saying I didn't give my permission for this - in case it was assumed by her that she had permission because others gave theirs.  My son didn't immediately show her it but kept it in case it happened again.  She now has a letter reiterating this and clarifying that I include pulling, pushing, throwing etc in 'hitting'.  She is now perfectly aware that I do not condone her touching my son (unless it's an emergency and he or another child may get hurt, obviously) and if she does it again she can accept the consequences because I will do as promised and report her. 

[quote user="moonraker"]How come three months into the school year you don't know who the headteacher is? Have you ever met the teacher your child is having problems with? I think you should start by speaking to her and find out what her problem is rather than giving notes for your child to give her. Contact between teachers and parents is really necessary as both are part of the child's upbringing. [/quote]Its a village school, housing the cm1 and cm2 classes only, 23 children in all.  The director is at one of the other schools in the circuit (and I still have no idea who he is but he's apparently at the salle de fetes for the school spectacle on Friday, where I will meet him along with all the other parents, for the first time). Of course I know who the teacher is, you ******.  I was at a parents evening with her just prior to the toussaints holiday where she told me how wonderful and hardworking all my children were!  I've also seen her at the various village events we have attended since.  She recently asked me to attend school to help explain how English families celebrate Xmas, as part of their English project.  I provided carols and music for the end of year spectacle.  The 'note' is how she communicates any problems on either side.  If she has a problem or wants to speak to me she writes in the relevant child's cahier de text.  If I have a problem or want to speak to her, I do the same.  She checks all the children's cahiers de texte daily.  I DO have 4 children and am well aware what is necessary and part of a child's upbringing. Thanks to all those people who made helpful comments.  This has been quite a stressful few days for me and though I wanted to sign on and write an update to this thread,  thinking it only polite, I'm now worn out and signing off! 

We went to see the maire but apparently the mairie are responsible for the school buildings and supplementary staff like those in the canteen, garderie and groundspeople but not the actual teaching staff.  Its necessary to contact 'education nationale'.   We spoke to the teacher this evening.  We went for an appointment at 4.30 and didn't leave until 6.30.  The teaching assistant was there too.  We stuck to the subject of violence with the children, doggedly, because after denying it (we told them there had been witnesses other than our own children, and in any case, our own children weren't in the habit of lying) and then went onto the problems they are having with the child concerned.  No problems have been mentioned to date - until this morning when we made the appointment.   We made it clear that the problems are irrelevant to the subject of physical violence, whether this is slapping, pulling, pushing, grabbing by the ear - its all the same and totally unacceptable.  They both agreed never to touch any of our children in any way in future.  We then were able to move on to ways of communicating if there were problems and ways of doing this immediately, because we were unaware that she has been having problems for 3 weeks.    Just have to see how it goes from here.  Fingers crossed.  I gave her a letter this time so there is a written record.   We made it clear if there are any further incidents, we will call the gendarmes.

    OK - thanks, Clair.  I think I'll have to visit the mairie as I'm not sure who is directeur or directrice now.  The teacher she replaced this year used to have that role but I don't think she took it over.  I stopped myself going to see her today because I would have found it very hard to stay calm after seeing my son so upset.  I don't think I'll send them back into school though, until I've discussed this with whoever needs to address it.

Where do I stand if I am unhappy with the way the teacher is handling my son? She pushes and shoves him, pulls him around by his clothes, screams at him up close and personal and has slapped him - though not very hard and I'm not sure if it was more of a push on the face with the heel of her hand and he was just scared because he's seen her hit the other children in the class. I put a note in his cahier de liaison stating that she does not have permission to hit any of my children. He didn't want to show her it the first time she upset him as he said it would cause more problems. I said ok - but if she ever worries you again, or manhandles you or hits you, show her the note. Today she dragged him about by his t-shirt so he showed her the note and apparently she had a screaming fit, said he has to stay in school - but he got out when the other kids left and came home. She told my daughter she would be telephoning me immediately to arrange a meeting, but the call never came. Apparently a teaching assistant joined in and also shouted at him and got hold of his ear-lobe, pulled him by it and shouted 'would you prefer it this way?' It's quite painful if someone pulls your earlobe. I felt like going down to the school and pulling the teaching assistant by the earlobe and asking how she likes it, but apparently she leaves before the kids. I'm really furious about this and I feel I should keep the children off school until I've met with the teacher, but I'm not sure if I shouldn't make a formal complaint. The fact that I haven't discussed it personally with her yet makes me feel I should hold off but I'm in a bit of a dilemma. Has anyone any experience of this sort of thing? Any advice?