Heavy Handed Teacher of Seven Year Olds.

I am not a teacher, nor do I have young ones your little one's age coming on in our small family but .... I would ask to see the Head Teacher. That teacher's behaviour was unkind & uncalled for. In my opinion it was bullying and cruel. I hope her confidence has not been knocked back & she continues to do well. I'd be furious!

I'd be having a word ?with the teacher after school, well actually, it would be more than one.?

Poor little poppet. I bet she was embarrassed in front of her fellow pupils. I imagine little girls of that age do everything ‘right’ if they can to please the teacher anyway.

see the head teacher as soon as possible. This is extremely poor abnormal teaching behaviour. If no joy and it happens again, speak to the head of govenors. My sister was a head governor and would not have tolerated this bullying

That’s disgusting we were taught to never tear pages out out books even if we made mistakes
Very aggressive behaviour I would not be happy with that at all complain to the head although she may not want you to she may want to just forget it and not make a fuss

Thank you, everyone, for your support. My DD is a Deputy Headteacher elsewhere and Parent Governor at DGC's school so is understandably reluctant to react hastily. However, she emailed the teacher who tried to play down the incident. On Friday, DGD was awarded Star Of The Week. We both wonder about his motivation in choosing her....!

Well done your daughter, that was the best way to deal with it. He knows now that he needs to change his negative behaviour and ripping out pages in a jotter in annoyance is not acceptable.

I am certainly not condoning what the teacher did, it was totally wrong, but is he inexperienced , under a lot of pressure or just not coping? If so, the management team need to be supporting him.

I know there there were occasions I have looked back at my teaching career and thought: I can't believe I did that, I got that totally wrong.

Hopefully things will improve.

My daughter had a similar experience at the same age and it really affected her confidence. Hopefully the teacher will realize that he totally over reacted and be more cautious from now on.

I've never forgotten the teacher I had at the same age, 72 years ago. She was a nasty bully too - not just to me.

I'm wonderig if this is nothing to do with your GD's work but the teacher being scared of the head? Some heads do rigorous examinations of books and some teachers are terrified of it. This isn't excusing his behaviour by the way just looking at the cause. I've seen some heads reduce teachers to tears because of an excersise book.

trisher, I was thinking exactly the same thing. My HT used to call in the jotters, as we called them at 10 minutes notice.
Now that was bullying! He would then keep them for days, making life difficult for staff.

I was forever advising young colleagues to keep their corrections up to date (as they should be) or there would be hell to pay.

He was like a forensic scientist when it came to monitoring forward plans.

This sounds horrible. So many adults recount experiences like this, bullying, fear inducing behaviour from teachers that leave the child with less confidence and low level anxiety.

Your daughter responded well. This teacher needs to know his behaviour was noted

If this was a relative of mine, the teacher would have a lot more to worry him than a child's English work. Please do something before another child has a similar experience. X

Another one in the wrong job.

Not missing a line after the heading?! Oh dear, that’s SO important. I agree with EllanVannin.
Is he bullying Y3 children over tiny mistakes because he isn’t confident enough to face up to older children or adults? I taught for many years and feel that most staff members would have been concerned about a colleague who indulged in such unpleasant behaviour.

Usually rules about setting out are an agreed standard right through a school, so I wouldn't think it was his rule. He may have had a rolocking from the head because his books have had too many mistakes in presentation, so he didn't rip the page out to upset or discipline the child but to hide the mistake. It's still wrong but unless you have witnessed the absolute terror of some head teachers you really can''t understand how awful it can be.
Perhaps you could comfort your GD by telling her he wanted her book to look perfect and it was just a way of taking away a mistake so no one would know.

trisher
You are absolutely right, books are collected and examined by Senior Management to check if the teacher is following the marking policy and other policies with children’s work. However that doesn’t excuse this teacher’s behaviour. It was reprehensible of him to do this to four children in front of the whole class. My own granddaughter, aged six, would be devastated by such behaviour.

so by not telling the head, you have taken your dgd out of the bullying loop but left all the others in class exposed to teacher`s bad temper. That is not ok.

trisher I think you’re probably right. At my last school the head would select 3 children every week per class and scrutinise their books. She reduced me to a quivering wreck and frequently made staff cry when sending back her ‘comments’. But whilst this may explain the teacher’s poor behaviour I don’t think that it excuses it. He needs help.

This thread sent me back over 60 years to a similar experience only it wasn’t a page it was my entire jotter ripped to shreds. I’ve no idea why she did it. I was 6 yrs old. The teacher was walking along peering over shoulders as we did our writing exercise with a fountain pen. Without warning she snatched my jotter, tore it up and dropped it on my desk. Then walked out of the class and left me terrified and trying not to cry in front of my classmates who were staring at me in silence. Not a word was spoken.

10 mins later the teacher appeared back with a box of penny caramels and handed one to everyone. When she came to me she lifted the jotter she’d shredded and put a new one on my desk along with my caramel. I’ve no idea what I’d done wrong.

Agree absolutely heavy handed. A thought did occur though ? Is it possible he said let’s tear this page out and start again ? Also wrong of course but less emotive than ripped out?
Honestly only trying to see why on earth this would happen !

Teachers tore out pages of exercise books regularly when I was at primary and secondary school. I have to admit it didn’t upset me. When the exercise book was used up you took it home for your parents to look at. I used to get extra treats for well presented work and no mistakes. So we were happy to have poor work removed from our books!!!

Off topic a tiny bit. The granddaughter of a friend was in the school playground with her friends practising their cartwheels etc. Aged 5-6. She was told that now she was in year 1 she shouldn’t show her knickers...........
Really shocking attitude.

I’d like to ask the teacher-on his own, no audience-what was behind the action. Very heavy handed and unnecessary IMHO but he, too, may be being bullied?