lamam

Iamam so sorry to hear, through what you and your child went. i just can't imagine a young child being treated this way. i am also in the process of dropping application forms everywhere, can you please mail me the name of school, so that i can stay meters away. my child is not that vocal till now, and i am afraid that if something like this happens he won't be able to clearly tell me my e mail is orchard88 at hotmail dot co dot uk hugs to you TIA Thank you and hope your child ends up going to a lovely school that appreciates your son for the unique child that he is :-) best of luck. I will send you an e mail in a bit. for the wonderful ladies who weren't able to catch the hint of the schools name i posted earlier which got deleted by the forum admin., please feel free to contact me on my e mail, Lamam1980 at gmail dot com . Hope you all have a marvelous day :-)

OMG Iamam, Reading this reminded me back to a few years back, this what happened to my son. I just started crying. I am so sorry for what your son and family have had to go through :-( I hope you and your son all the best in his new school and juwish him to be a happy boy always:-) There was a boy in my son's class, in that same school, who was also mistreated by the same teacher and was sent to other classrooms/places and to the security guard as well. His mother informed me that once she went to pick him up and she didnt find him in his classroom, so when she asked the assistant teacher, she said that he was in the other FS1 classroom across from their classroom because he was sent there for timeout. When she went in the classroom, there was noone inside, all the children had left and her son was standing in the corner all alone, head down, misreable....they had FORGOTTEN him there!!!!! She cried that whole day and was hysterical.i wish she has the courage to do something about it..i know it took me some time to take him out of the school and try now to post my story and seek advice for our next step, but that would be unacceptable if i witnessed that with my son.... How could they just forget him there?! <em>edited by lamam on 14/02/2012</em>

It is a good school but the attitude of some teachers towards a child who doesnt fit the mould is shocking.Each child is an individulal and they should be allowed to develop at there own pace and not be judged. At the end of the day a school is only good if it has caring nurturing Teacher's edited by cddsmum on 14/02/2012 Seriously! That is just terrible. I wish your little girl to always be happy and never come across such people again. You put it brilliantly. Thats exactly the attitude i wish schools would have towards our children. To try their best to find the active, hyper kids, and focus on what they might be good at and develop on that. Like in my sons case sports, art, music and it just gets the best out of the children. Or to focus on the quiet kids, who are not as social as the rest and find what they excel in and make them feel confident enough to come out of their little shell and shine. Oh how i wish we could evaluate our childrens' teachers before we take the final step of enrolling them. I dont know if that would help much, but you know what i mean... The school could be a really good one, but believe me if just one teacher messes up or in our case an entire primary department, then thats it for the schools reputation...Its not easy but something has to be done about this.

**Shaking my head** I made a complaint with KHDA about the school - it was useless. We got an apology from the school, I told the school their teachers were unqualified, that it is standard i a teaching degree that a behavioural course is taken, but I felt no recourse in the end. I wish you luck and all of the patience in the world. I also wish you AND your DH together strength as I KNOW how much pressure this puts on the family. Thanx again, it was a very rough period we all went through and thank God my son is slowly gaining his confidence and self-esteem back. I said i would first make sure my DS was getting back to his normal fun-loving self again and then i would definetly go on to posting our story so i would make sure other moms looked out for any signs of mistreatment of their children. Believe me, as much as i would love to forget all this and just let it go, it is just not right to NOT do something about it. My question is what should we expect from the KHDA after complaining about a school, or in particular the primary department in a school? Is there any form of investigation that takes place? I would really love to know.

The UAE Ministry of Education launched a toll free hotline on Thursday to receive complaints and suggestions from residents. The number to dial is 800 51115. The hotline will allow schools in UAE, students, teachers, parents and all other stakeholders to contact the ministry to lodge complaints, offer suggestions or to request information, the minister said. Sorry that you had to go through something similar with your child. Thank you so much for posting about Hotline :-)

**Shaking my head** Words escape me for that meeting you had - we were told the EXACT thing. Our son is distracting all others, they cannot help him, we should put him in a school who can help him, he is special needs, he needs a school where there is only one student per teacher and of course completely insulting our DS.[b'> I'm not saying my DS was perfect, he isn't, but they acted as though he was the ONLY disruption in the class - as though the others sat angelically as he grew horns and spat fire.[/b'> [b'>[b'>Oh God, its so furiating how many parents and children have been in the same spot. In one of my meetings with the school, i sadly asked his teacher and the learning support teacher, "in all your years of teaching how have you dealt with children like my son?" at the exact same time i got their response, "NEVER have we had children to HIS EXTENT!" So yes, like you said, they acted like he was not only the ONLY disruption in the class, he was the devil himself![/b'>[/b'> <em>edited by lamam on 14/02/2012</em>

Thank you ladies for your amazing support and words. Unfortunately, I was advised by someone working at the school itself, after hearing about our experience, to contact the top guy who manages or oversees the operations in this school and other schools, without mentioning any names! I did indeed speak to him personally and requested a meeting with him. He did sound genuine on the phone and concerned and immediately confirmed a date and time for our meeting. He also added politely that we would have to meet up at the school together with the schools Interim Director. I agreed and was so glad that at least our horrid experience would not go unnoticed by top personnel. Well let’s just say my DH and I’s disappointment goes beyond words, as I reached at our meeting quickly and eagerly awaiting great results, to find that the top man I spoke to canceled on us without even calling or sending any kind of apology, and told the Interim Director to meet with us alone instead. According to the Director he “had an important meeting to get to!” Well being the polite and professional people that we are, we did not reject this meeting and sat down and told our entire story, knowing of course that he knew every detail of it already. My DH and I put our hearts and emotions out while talking in the most polite manner. All we got from him was, “everyone has a side to the story, and I believe in my staff that they tried EVERYTHING possible, but your son is VERY AGGRESSIVE and we were afraid for the other students, so it’s good you pulled him out of the school.” No one can imagine how much I held myself professionally from replying to this comment about my son. Aggressive!!! Seriously?! Who speaks like that about a child! However hyper or active a child is, however a child may push or tumble over other students, and I know my son is NOT the only boy to ever go through this phase, you DO NOT say aggressive about anyone let alone a child! So yes, I did go to senior management in the school, and I was turned away, not only, even told off that my DS is a hopeless case after just 2 months of even getting to know him or getting to know whatever phase he was going through or to try to get to know whatever is causing any kind of behavior he was showing at the time! I apologize sincerely for my very long reply … Yes, I honestly think every single child has something they excel in and are advanced in. They are all so special and talented in their own little way, and that’s what we expect as parents that their teachers and schools should find out throughout the school year and develop on it. My son is very talkative and amazes you sometimes on the vocabulary he uses and his memory skills as well, but like you mentioned some teachers don’t know how to respond or react to children who “give them a hard time” as they say, because some teachers have an agenda and routine they need to stick to and they get frustrated if any child takes them off track, even if that child is showing any kind of advancement. All my child was going through was clear frustration and all he needed were challenges to do more and work more. In one of our meetings I mentioned what the psychologist had said about his vocabulary and skills, all I got from both the primary principal and his teacher was a little smirk and, “no he’s not, there are other children more advanced and skilled, and he lacks behind in his cutting skills!” Honestly that’s all that came out of his teacher, his cutting skills!!! Because my child doesn’t hold the scissors in the correct way or doesn’t cut in a straight line, that is a clear sign of lacking behind?! I actually resorted to speaking to another teacher, who the school had appointed as “team leader”, to tell her what was going on as I thought maybe she could do something or interfere and look out to what was actually going on in the class. I sat with her for over one hour, she kept telling me, “you’re giving me goose bumps!” She was clearly shocked by what was going on, and even commented when I told her about the security guard incident, that when she saw it she knew it was wrong and was shocked at it. She told me that my son might be frustrated in class because he was in the “wrong age group!” She said she would see how she could move him to another FS1 classroom. She kept telling me that she would do her best and not to worry. Next morning she had COMPLETELY changed, saying that she didn’t know the WHOLE story, and that he was in the right age group and that she herself had a child in her class before with my sons similar “case” and she would have to send that child to the library while the other children were in the classroom. Is that the way you give a child a challenge, by separating him from his classroom and secluding him as if he’s being punished for wanting something more to do? She literally did not show any kind of compassion but instead looked like she got a bit of a “talk” by the principal and teacher for even sympathizing with our story. To make things worse, this same day, while going to pick up my son in the afternoon, his teacher barely looks me in the eyes, and says, “the principal wants to see you.” I seriously felt like I was back in school myself and I was in trouble! So I’m on my way out and the primary principal walks up to me and says, “I’d like to see you in my office.” I go to the office and he seriously begins with, “I am very disappointed!” and I go, “really, why?” and he actually begins to lecture me about how could I go speak to the team leader teacher about my son, and he thought that we were trying to solve this “problem and issue”, and I go and try to talk to someone else. I won’t go into details on what I said next but it’s along the lines of, I didn’t talk to someone in the street, I was talking to someone qualified enough for them to appoint as “team leader of EY1 teachers!” and that this was never a problem or an issue it was us trying to work out what’s best for my son and finding out what is causing his frustration, which ONLY takes place in that particular classroom. I’m so sorry to hear that you have had personal experiences like this with your own children. I don’t know how any teacher could see little children as a threat. As mothers I know our concern is for our children’s well being and safety in school, I know so cause I’ve had experiences with other children in my sons previous nursery where my son would come back with bites on his hand or being pushed or shoved or any kind of rough play by another child. However, I ALWAYS took into consideration first and foremost that so many of our children will pass by one or more of these phases of not being able to control their hyperactivity, frustrations or excitement and will resolve to any kind of rough play to sooth them or make them feel in control of their own emotions. We all know this by common sense or by reading about it. We will resolve to a talk with their teacher about it, like I did about the child that was continuously pushing and hitting my son, but I did so to understand what circumstances within the classroom would cause that child to do so. I had the privilege of speaking to the mother herself, who to be honest was doubting her own son as well, and suggested we take them out for play dates by themselves and then with their other classmates. And you know what, it made all the difference. Unfortunately in my sons case and another mother who bravely shared her own sons experience, their teachers did not have the well being of our children in mind, rather they humiliated them, scared them off, and put in their little minds that they were labeled as “naughty” and “aggressive.” Ladies, much love for your posts and I wish to meet up with you all one day in one of expat woman’s coffee mornings to share our experiences together and share a few laughs together, cause I’m sure we all need it from time to time, I sure do  Again sorry for my much detailed posts, but I honestly need to vent