5 year old banned from school

[richard III]

Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum and is the only source I can look for help. My 5 year old has just been banned from school, he joined at the beginning of this term due to finish in june his SK-2. He joined without speaking english and with really good reports from his previous school, we were never called last year in pre K. On the contrary he was praised for his sociability. This year however in this school we have been called constantly because he doesn't follow his teacher's intructions. My argument is that they cannot call the parents every time the kid is causes an uproar. He is a 5 year old for christ sake!!!!!!not bin laden. When I asked what the school psychologist can do to help, in order to find a solution I was told that they didn't provide that service. What kind of school does not have an orientation deparment?? I was simply told that I have to whitdraw the kid from school because the teacher cannot cope with him. No solutions or alternatives whatsoever. Any suggestions???
Is this legal??anything I can do? can MOE help with International Schools?
After all we pay can they flatly refuse to provide a service that's been paid for. And the damage to the kid? he was not given an explanation why he cannot join his friends at school, I believe this is not fair and that the teacher is not competent enough if she cannot provide an alternative or a solution. I will apprecciate any advice in order to find a solution since I don't believe a 5 year old deserves that kind of treatment even if he misbehaves.

[QRM]

Have you looked into why he is suddenly disruptive if he was so good previously?

Two sides to the coin: There is the argument that parents are not taking the responsibility for looking after and nurturing their own kids. They just dump them into school assuming they will sort it all out.

When you say banned from school do you mean expelled? If so I never heard of a school helping out an expelled student, that's the parents job.

Do they have physiologist at toddlers schools these days?

When they say he was not given an explanation why he cant join his chums at school isn't that your job?

[road.not.taken]

Richard III, there seems to be some information missing. I hope you answer QRM's questions.

Are you sure you're getting all the information from school? Is it possible they thought he spoke english better than he does when he was admitted?

Often times children of this age will settle things violently when they don't have the words to settle disagreements. Other parents, may have complained if your son hurt their children and the school may be protecting their identity. Find out all you can.

If your school is calling you constantly, there is a problem. I would trust the teacher on this since he or she is there to see what is happening. It's too bad you couldn't have observed the classroom before he was asked to leave. The school can mostly certainly, and should call the parents of children who make the teacher's job impossible. Even 5 year olds have to behave in school.

Ask for his record, and take him to a Child Psychologist if you feel it's necessary, I can PM names to you if that helps. Don't let the fact that the school doesn't provide one slow you down. If you think there is a problem (and getting expelled from school is a problem) -- go find the answer. Have you seen any behavior changes at home?

He can still have play dates with his buddies after school and you can find other ways for him to socialize: Julia Gabriel, KinderMusik, Gymboree, there's lots of things you can do to make and maintain friendships. Is he your only child? or your oldest?

It must be terrible, to have this happen -- but chin up. He's not the first, and there is lots of help out there.

[richard III]

Thanks for the advice, to QRM all I can say is that it looks that you work for the school...I would not have bothered to post THIS If we were the kind of parents you say. I posted asking for advice, not to be critiziced. To the useful advice I can say that I have looked into this possibilities, obviously I have considered possibilities, one is that the change is frustrating, other is the language problem, that makes kids irritable if they can communicate their feelings, and there were some violent settlement of conflicts in the beginning, having said that, the school with their experience with expat kids must be aware of that, that's why they interview them and request proper reports from the previous school. And should advice you in order to deal with the kids frustration. My position is how little help or alternatives they give. In my country the school where my trhee kids have gone have psychologists on staff or at least orientators either for special needs kids as well as for teenagers that have to decide what are they going to do with their lives. For the kind of money you pay I am really surprised that this is not provided for. If I look at the issue from another perspective, when you entrust your kid to an educator, you are making a financial as well as a moral contract, in which you contract the education of your kid, and that does not include academics only, thats the service you are paying for, If you give a service whatever this is, you have to deliver, or does the mrt offload a person because is too fat and takes too much space? or do airlines cancel their service because weather got bad? If the requirement from the school is that they want robots in order to make their job easier, then they should warn you before hand, not after you handover the check.
Anyway I rather not publish the school's name because I still give them the benefit of the doubt, and wait for a more reasonable solution than the one they given me so far. And please do not forget that we are talking about a 5 year old, not a teenager. How terrible a 5 year old can be that adults trained for this cannot cope with? I just want to seek for options legal and otherwise.

[QRM]

Thanks for the advice, to QRM all I can say is that it looks that you work for the school...I would not have bothered to post THIS If we were the kind of parents you say. I posted asking for advice, not to be critiziced. To the useful advice I can say that I have looked into this possibilities, obviously I have considered possibilities, one is that the change is frustrating, other is the language problem, that makes kids irritable if they can communicate their feelings, and there were some violent settlement of conflicts in the beginning, having said that, the school with their experience with expat kids must be aware of that, that's why they interview them and request proper reports from the previous school. And should advice you in order to deal with the kids frustration. My position is how little help or alternatives they give. In my country the school where my trhee kids have gone have psychologists on staff or at least orientators either for special needs kids as well as for teenagers that have to decide what are they going to do with their lives. For the kind of money you pay I am really surprised that this is not provided for. If I look at the issue from another perspective, when you entrust your kid to an educator, you are making a financial as well as a moral contract, in which you contract the education of your kid, and that does not include academics only, thats the service you are paying for, If you give a service whatever this is, you have to deliver, or does the mrt offload a person because is too fat and takes too much space? or do airlines cancel their service because weather got bad? If the requirement from the school is that they want robots in order to make their job easier, then they should warn you before hand, not after you handover the check.
Anyway I rather not publish the school's name because I still give them the benefit of the doubt, and wait for a more reasonable solution than the one they given me so far. And please do not forget that we are talking about a 5 year old, not a teenager. How terrible a 5 year old can be that adults trained for this cannot cope with? I just want to seek for options legal and otherwise.

I see, so what you are saying if the advice you receive does not tally with your way of thinking then you become all defensive and call it criticism. Could this attitude at home be rubbing off on the kid? ever heard of constructive criticism? Make a BIG note next time you post, you only want views that align with yours.

There is more to the story than you are saying or accepting, teachers are trained to deal with day to day tantrums of a 5 year old. You come up with excuses, saying "he not a Bin Ladin, hes not a teenager and how bad can a five year old get?" You are missing or refusing to acknowledge the point. Its not age that is the issue, you can keep going, how bad can a 8 year old be? how about 14 year old?

The fact that he is disrupting the class is crux of the problem. To make the problem worse you get all defensive and seem to think the school is the one who is wrong. Your gripe is how the school is handling the situation, its a two way street.

Being Singapore you will find Robots in classes are actually actively encouraged. Though the Big cheeses are trying to change this attitude in education. Airlines do cancel services when the weather gets bad and charge fat folks extra to fly. Anyone who is disruptive on the MRT will be chucked off fat or thin. "The school should have warned you," are you serious? They did with the numerous calls about your kid, plus you should have done your homework on the type of establishment it is.

If you have no faith in the school why pass the buck again and wait for them to come up with a solution?

[sundaymorningstaple]

In my country the school where my trhee kids have gone have psychologists on staff or at least orientators either for special needs kids as well as for teenagers that have to decide what are they going to do with their lives. Surprise, surprise, you are not in your country. This is Singapore and you need to do you own homework first. For the kind of money you pay I am really surprised that this is not provided for. Why should it be? It not provided for from my country so why should it be provided for here? If I look at the issue from another perspective, when you entrust your kid to an educator, you are making a financial as well as a moral contract, in which you contract the education of your kid, and that does not include academics only, (sorry, but that's exactly what it pays for, they are not hired to be parents nor babysitters) thats the service you are paying for, If you give a service whatever this is, you have to deliver, or does the mrt offload a person because is too fat and takes too much space? or do airlines cancel their service because weather got bad? (Most certainly and quite often) If the requirement from the school is that they want robots in order to make their job easier, then they should warn you before hand, not after you handover the check. They're educational facilities, not substitute parents. It sounds to me like you want them to act like surrogate parents and do you job.
Anyway I rather not publish the school's name because I still give them the benefit of the doubt, and wait for a more reasonable solution than the one they given me so far. And please do not forget that we are talking about a 5 year old, not a teenager. How terrible a 5 year old can be that adults trained for this cannot cope with? There are lots - that's why there are child psychologists and they make lots of money. Quite often they actually find out the parents were basically at fault other times not.I just want to seek for options legal and otherwise.

Legal options? None. The International Schools are not governed by the MOE. Sorry. You might be able to get a refund of a portion of the fees though. What legal option do you want? You want to FORCE the school to keep the kid where obviously he has a problem and keeping him there is just going to exasperate the problem?

[splat]

You put your son in an awful situation by putting him into an English speaking school where he wouldn't understand a word. I am not sure why you would do that?

My advice for you would be to spend time teaching him English, get a tutor. Obviously you have some English skills so you can also help with this.

Before he goes to his next school I would speak to the teacher and work out a plan of what he should do when he doesn't understand and you should make sure he understands violence is not acceptable.

Can you put him back into his old school where he was doing well?

[richard III]

"Two sides to the coin: There is the argument that parents are not taking the responsibility for looking after and nurturing their own kids. They just dump them into school assuming they will sort it all out.

When you say banned from school do you mean expelled? If so I never heard of a school helping out an expelled student, that's the parents job.

Do they have physiologist at toddlers schools these days? "

Dear qrm, could you tell me where is the advice in your post? constructive or otherwise. I didn't post to have an argument with some bitter housewife with extra time on her hands, I posted to seek help In a matter I consider important and believe it's wrong even though in the end all I am looking for is the welfare of my kid , and not just the help I want to hear. I have raised 3 kids already with great emotional and financial effort, and they all turned up really well, so I can safely say that I have some moral authority to express my opinion right or wrong. If you can say the same you should try to provide help and not argue for the sake of it.
Staples, sorry but I don't need a debate on every point made, just need the advice the school wasn't able to give me, I know this is Singapore but this is an International School, with western curriculum, agreed that I didn't make my homework, but now I am looking for a solution, that's all.
To road.not taken. I thank you for the supportive words and I will PM you to get the information, that's the type of help I am looking for, like it or not.
If this post becomes a debate on who is right or wrong I'll just delete it since I do not have the time to argue trivialities.

[QRM]

"Two sides to the coin: There is the argument that parents are not taking the responsibility for looking after and nurturing their own kids. They just dump them into school assuming they will sort it all out.

When you say banned from school do you mean expelled? If so I never heard of a school helping out an expelled student, that's the parents job.

Do they have physiologist at toddlers schools these days? "

Dear qrm, could you tell me where is the advice in your post? constructive or otherwise. I didn't post to have an argument with some bitter housewife with extra time on her hands, I posted to seek help In a matter I consider important and believe it's wrong even though in the end all I am looking for is the welfare of my kid , and not just the help I want to hear. I have raised 3 kids already with great emotional and financial effort, and they all turned up really well, so I can safely say that I have some moral authority to express my opinion right or wrong. If you can say the same you should try to provide help and not argue for the sake of it.
Staples, sorry but I don't need a debate on every point made, just need the advice the school wasn't able to give me, I know this is Singapore but this is an International School, with western curriculum, agreed that I didn't make my homework, but now I am looking for a solution, that's all.
To road.not taken. I thank you for the supportive words and I will PM you to get the information, that's the type of help I am looking for, like it or not.
If this post becomes a debate on who is right or wrong I'll just delete it since I do not have the time to argue trivialities.

You really cant see it? and how about two of my sentences you conveniently left out of your quote. I can see how you operate, with threats of deleting your posts if they don't go the way you want. Calling me and other posters bitter housewife, you really need to do your homework. People have taken time out to make suggestions and you just brush them off as trivialities.

I suppose you used this "moral authority" tone with the school staff when they suggested you should find some help for your kid? Wait a minute I see two words in the red mist.. Anger Management, and that's another piece of advice in case you miss it.

[road.not.taken]

Every student and family deserves an exit interview. End of story - if they are unwilling to do this, then you are well rid of them. There should at the very least be a meeting between teacher, administration and parents. Most schools are masters of triangulation - making the parents feel as though 'they're the only one' with whatever particular concern they have. If it were me, I would insist on a meeting; otherwise you don't know exactly where the wheels fell off the cart.

I don't think you are asking the school to 'parent' as SMS suggests, the school has severed the relationship, the onus is on them to explain why. They witnesses the behavior, they made the decision.

QRM, good schools help expelled students all the time, with referrals, etc.. Often times they will welcome the student back if certain conditions are met. In fact by expelling them, they are probably helping them most of all, by issuing a huge wake up call to student and family.

Of course there are two sides to every argument -- but the notion that some parents 'dump' their kids at school should only enter into this one if the school feels this was Richard III's position. The fact that some parents do one thing or another is not relevant here, stick to the facts of this case and treat the student as an individual. This is another facet of triangulation, to paint all parents with the same brush.

Richard III, get all the information you can from the school and seek professional help for your son. Good luck to you.

[richard III]

thanks splat and road, I know its demanding on the kid to go in an english enviroment all of a sudden, but there's not much choice around and his progress in english as been good so far, I don't think is much of an issue anymore, what is true is that the kid is unruly sometimes, but the solution given was, come and pick him up, no work done or maybe change his class since personality conflict may be a possibility, have him seen by a specialist, any options, I just don't think they were helpful in that sense, it's just not the experience I had with other schools when kids run into trouble. Also no chance for him to send him back to his former school since is in another continent, so I have to do with what's available, but as road said, is not the first one nor the last one, there is possibilities out there.....and qrm you are right, "anger management", you entered this post in anger, hope you leave it in peace. Unless you are willing to provide sound advice like the others, and not just what I want to hear. I need to get my kid trough this and not debate if I'm right or wrong.

[QRM]

thanks splat and road, I know its demanding on the kid to go in an english enviroment all of a sudden, but there's not much choice around and his progress in english as been good so far, I don't think is much of an issue anymore, what is true is that the kid is unruly sometimes, but the solution given was, come and pick him up, no work done or maybe change his class since personality conflict may be a possibility, have him seen by a specialist, any options, I just don't think they were helpful in that sense, it's just not the experience I had with other schools when kids run into trouble. Also no chance for him to send him back to his former school since is in another continent, so I have to do with what's available, but as road said, is not the first one nor the last one, there is possibilities out there.....and qrm you are right, "anger management", you entered this post in anger, hope you leave it in peace. Unless you are willing to provide sound advice like the others, and not just what I want to hear. I need to get my kid trough this and not debate if I'm right or wrong.

Actually Richard III, I was willing to provide some help, and the initial post was to clarify certain missing information, so other poster can get a better picture of the situation and offer a more focused advice.

I notice you seem to tone down the "I want to sue everyone" rhetoric now, and you even started a two way dialogue with other poster, even if their suggestions do not really apply.

Most importantly this is the first time you have admitted that your kid can be a bit out of hand at times. That is the first step.

In my days when someone gets expelled that's it "on ya bike we don't want that sort around here" and door is then firmly shut behind them.

You still have not said whether or not your kid was expelled or just been given a temporary ban.

It may be a mountain and molehill situation and its just a personality clash, or a food / environmental allergy. My toddlers playschool teacher younger brother here in Singapore had similar problem, he was fine for years then suddenly he was bouncing off the walls, he was diagnosed ADHD. There is a web site in Singapore specifically dealing with these issues http://www.spark.org.sg

I hope that helps.

[splat]

I think there may be some-thing not right. It could be a variety of things one of them ADHD, a friends daughter will misbehave badly when she has had colouring in food. I think you need to research on the net some of these things that can cause nice kids to not cope and therefore misbehave.

My older son was diagnosed with ADHD many years ago. You just couldn't hold his attention. It became obvious when he was 5 and school became more structured.

I have also bought books from amazon.com on how to deal with anger, written for kids. Also kids relaxation books.

My younger son had some panic attacks when we first arrived - he doesn't cope well with change. He just improved over time and I just made sure the routine at home was very strict, bath at the same time etc. Knowing that things (meals, baths and bed) all come at the same time each night also help calm anxious children. You child's whole world has just changed, it can be pretty tough on sensitive children.

Good luck

[Callalily]

Hey hey Richard,

This is a really sensitive issue and I can understand how difficult, worrying, stressful it might be for you and your family. To be honest, if the school is reacting like this, I wouldn't leave my child there. I am dying to know which one it is before I continue this... Anyway, it sounds like you need to withdraw him and place him in a school where there is a special educational need provision. I am not saying your son needs the special education component but if a school has those facilities, it means that the staff are well trained to deal with a lot of stuff. In the meantime, take your little boy to see a child psychologist for a chat and for peace of mind. It could be that he is stressed in that school, especially if he feels that nobody is there to help him when he needs it. It must be very difficult for such a little boy!!! I am happy to pm you the contact number of a fantastic child psychologist who worked with one of my kiddies. I really feel for you and wish I could do more to help. It is always sooooo painful when it touches our kids. The educational values from your country will not apply in most schools in Singapore. It is a rather elitist place and you must come to terms with it.

Best of luck
Lily

[richard III]

Thanks to everyone that has posted offering advice, to you too qrm, that's more like what I looking for, lilly.... I'd could use your pm, any advice of that sort is surely appreciated. . I am not looking to sue anyone qrm, I just want a solution that was not offered to me in the first place and that I honestly believe any parent would look for, weather he likes it or not, in the end what you want as a parent is the welfare of your kid, not getting your way. I am not an educator nor a psychologist, but I've had my kids in good schools all my life, to a great effort, and every time they've run into trouble I was always given advice by the school in order to see them through. Please don't give me again this....well, this is Singapore. I'm coming from a country were education is arguably less developed than in the countries these International Schools state their education is from,also Singapore, but, believe you me, the solution this school gives, is simply not acceptable, because there's no solution, no alternative, no strategy, just take the kid home .
Lilly when I figure this whole thing out, since I have never said that I am the owner of the truth and like someone said, not with the best of intentions for that matter, there's two sides to a coin, I will disclose all the details, I might even make a webpage, and I will be the first one to recognize I'm wrong should it be the case. But for the peace of mind of some posters, I initiated this thread looking for a solution for my kid's problem,not a debate, and I hope it's useful, so no parent in Singapore has to see his kid go through what I have seen mine go
Bluenose your pm is duly noted and appreciated.