School stress

tacpot12 wrote: »

Kids don't know what they are capable of unless someone pushes them, and very often they are surprised at just how much more they can do than they imagined.

Whereas at my local RC primary school I knew I was capable of far more than the work our teachers were giving us and they were holding me back to the pace of the rest of the class, leaving me bored senseless and a disruption. "Pushed" I certainly was not. Primary school really felt like a total waste of four years, waiting for everyone else to catch up to the level I was already at.



My teacher in the final year there told me this a few days before the summer holiday, I would have just turned 12: "When you start at grammar school you'll be taken down a peg or two and you'll just be another middling student as there will be lots of people cleverer than you in your class." Mrs Lowe, I'll never forget her saying that. She was totally wrong - I was top of my class and in the top 5% of my year in maths, the sciences, technology and languages, but at least the work was interesting and required some effort.



I had another experience at secondary school, at the end of the first term of the 4th year, which was the first term we were doing the subjects we had picked for O level so had new teachers in every subject. My new physics teacher gave me a C- for attainment on my report card and I was devastated when I had been getting A consistently for the last two years. Turned out he had decided I was cheating on homework as despite getting every answer right, I was mostly solving problems by inspection, which is just seeing the answer by looking at it, so no "working out" required by me or shown in my submission. He didn't believe a 14 year old capable of that, so marked as if I had copied someone else's answers. When I got 98%, top of the class by miles, in the end of year exams he realised his profound error in his treatment of me. Idiot.



Schoolteachers don't know everything, most particularly about the abilities of the students they teach, and many don't have a shred of empathy.






To the OP, from my experience of being a child, I would say the most important thing is that your daughter feels you are listening to her concerns, understanding them and taking them seriously, not taking the default position that because the teacher is a professional person they must be right. The worst thing you can do IMO (again, speaking from my experience of being a child, not a parent) is make her feel isolated and unsupported at home (or worse still, condescended to) when she has problems at / with the school.

When the teachers tell her that she must do better, or words to that effect, does your daughter know exactly what they want her to do?

'Better' is vague, 'present your work like this' or 'don't talk when the teacher is talking' or 'remember to put a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence' is specific.

If she doesn't know, she should ask.

Fireflyaway wrote: »

My daughter is in year 8 at an independent school and has told me she is unhappy at school as she feels the teachers expectations are too high and it's making her feel inadequate. It seems some teachers are quite blunt and say things such as 'its not good enough' or ' you need to try harder' . One teacher said something along the lines of ' your parents expect more because they are paying'. The last comment I personally thought was a bit unfair. My daughter apologized for wasting our money so I think she feels guilty.I have reassured my daughter we chose this school because we thought it was the best for her. We don't expect any more or less because we are paying.

I'm not sure what to do. Is my daughter being a bit too sensetive? Are the teachers really putting too much pressure on the kids? I have thought of exploring different schools but I'm not sure that's the solution. All of our local schools are rated below average academically and behaviorally. I think she might be exchanging one problem for another if she moved.

I'm thinking I need to boost her confidence and foster some resilience but what if she really is truly unhappy and I'm doing the wrong thing? I don't want to ruin her childhood. Any suggestions?

I'd be asking if the comments in bold from teachers are actually true.
Is your daughter's work below the standard expected?
Is she really trying her best or is she coasting?

All you can expect from your child is for them to do the very best they can and put in the maximum effort.


FTR - I think the 3rd comment about you as parents expecting more because you're paying is way out of order.