If you are a regular reader of my blog you will know that Isaac has been having some issues at school. This was going to be a ranty post, but as the week has played out things seem to be improving and it is all thanks to the school working closely with us as his parents.
It has been a frustrating few weeks, Isaac seems to have a number of good days at school and then something is triggered in him and he has an awful day. Last week was a brilliant week and I was beginning to think we had turned a corner but on Monday he had a terrible day – bad enough for the head teacher to wait until after football club to come and see me.
We sat down with Isaac that evening and talked to him and when he went into school on Tuesday, he promised he would have a good day. The day started brilliantly and he was, by all accounts, doing some amazing learning but then it all went downhill just before lunch and he was sent home from school with his days work to complete. The head teacher expressed her disappointment with him for making the wrong choices and we were on our way. Sometimes I think the softly softly approach just doesn’t work.
I have to admit I felt frustrated by him being sent home as I can only see that as a reward, even though he had no television or access to technology he still had his brother and sister to play with. He did seem a little subdued at first, but once he had finished his lunch he picked up his work with no prompt from me and completed it all within an hour!
I waited until Daddy came home to talk to him, more to give myself a chance to gather my thoughts and then we spoke to him. Isaac came up with his own idea and made his own sticker chart which I thought was for home but he insisted on taking to school the next day.
I was a bit worried about meeting the headteacher the following morning. I was expecting he would get another talking to, but what happened next really surprised me. She spoke to us and asked what he had said that night and then sat and listened to Isaac. She encouraged him, she said how she loved his sticker chart idea and they have come up with a reward system whereby he gets to do something he enjoys at the end of the day if he gets all his stickers – he has something to work towards now and so far so good.
I am reassured that they are working with Isaac to find his trigger points and support him when he feels out of his depth. I know being the smallest in his class he does get pushed around a bit and has subsequently become the class clown, which is fine, but sometimes he takes it too far and can’t find a way to get out of the silliness again – hopefully something we are all now working on.
Obviously I was feeling very low this week because of it, but I have some very lovely friends who decided to help me feel better and tell me about their escapades at school and how the teachers back then dealt with it…………I went to a convent school and they used to smack the backs of our hands with a wooden spoon, and then a subsequent school I went to had no qualms about using the cane (only on the boys), but I had one teacher that had “the look” which would work everytime.
There was one friend who described how her art teacher used to staple – yes staple – the naughty kids to the wall (by their clothes obviously). Apparently she did take it too far when she stapled a boy to the door using his earring holes and he ripped his ears…….ouch! Or the friend who used to get shut in the dark art cupboard!
So to cheer me up a bit more…….did you have any teachers who used any form of extreme punishment which would never be allowed these days?
Oh poor you, it’s so hard getting called into school. I went through it a lot last year with my middle daughter which was because she was so sad, which in some ways is even worse. I’d hear she was crying by the tree on her own again most days I picked her up which was heartbreaking. Thankfully a new year seems to have really helped and she’s much more settled now but I know how difficult it is. One of our teachers used to throw the chalk rubber across the classroom when he was cross, that was terrifying!! I hope it all gets better for you now, his idea of a sticker chart is brilliant.
School can be so tough can’t it – for children and parents! It sounds like you are going the right way about getting it sorted together, however, I do agree that sending him home is not really suitable punishment so to speak.
I do remember when I was nearing the end of primary school one of my teachers whacked a group of us over the hands with a metre stick when we were talking! It wasn’t that long after that he got the sack! Thank goodness things aren’t like that anymore!
Good luck x
I was a convent girl too and we had a ruler on the back of the hand regime – my mum’s teacher used to throw chalk board cleaners at children, or throw their bags out of the window! I hope the sticker chart works for you all – I know how hard it is for little ones to get out of the silliness created in class once it starts. Hugs to you.
I’m so pleased to hear that the school are working well with you and working towards a solution to this. Although I think that sending him home isn’t ideal, it does seem to have given him a bit of a shock/more motivation to change things for himself. I hope that things continue to improve for you all. When I was at Primary School, we used to just get shouted at. I didn’t really enjoy that!
Oh hon that is so difficult. I hope Isaac has a better time at school. It is so worrying isn’t it. I didn’t have a good time at school and I worry about the kids all the time. I don’t have any advice, but here if you ever want to vent. Hugs xx