Isakat

That is ****ing appalling!
You must complain to the head and any other school authorities, as the head will be on her side.
Get a VAR( voice activated recorder) and keep it in your pocket. Legally you can record a conversation you are taking part in, even if it is not visible.

She is obviously 'maleducata' to the core to talk to you like that.

Did any of the Italian parents complain or they did they do the usual, moan under their noses but not have the courage to confront?

Lorna at Vicenza

I for one won't stop moaning ..... but I didn't grow up in an inner London comp.
My mum didn't buy my books, but she saw them when I brought them home. She certainly didn't have to go through my homework with me as I was supposed to have been taught how to do it at school ... and if I couldn't do it or complete it, I didn't get bad notes the next day from the teachers. I got extra explanations and shown where I had gone wrong or got stuck. I wasn't afraid to say "I haven't done all my homework" when I did get stuck.

My mum bought my uniform (I don't think ours was horribly expensive as the school blazar wasn't a must and the rest of mine was navy and white- cheap white shirts and blue skirts). She never had to buy a hockey stick, a tennis racket or a netball ball, a paintbrush or a set of paints or a sketch pad.
She got me hockey boots but there was a pass me down between the neighbours.

I also think many Italian teenagers are better socially or with adults or alcohol etc. I also see the party side of them when I talk to them outside school. I know a few who binge drink at weekends but I know they are not all out drinking vodka in the park.

I like the polite, helpful, kind teenagers, still a bit in awe of Mum. I've seen the couldn't give a shit ones here too.

The education here might be solid grounding in facts, but it's as boring as bat shit and a right pain in the arse for kids that do not have a photographic memory or cannot memorise huge reams of facts in one go. Science should be done with experiments and manual lessons - not just a whole shit load of writing in a book. Geography could be taken outside sometimes collecting soil samples or making a water filter with sand etc.

I'm sick of paying for the books here year after year and I'm sick of getting a second education all over again but in a second language and different methods, and I'm sick of certain teachers telling me that it's all my fault if my kid is having problems with Italian verb tenses because it's all my fault that I speak English !!!!

In England I went on day school trips but I didn't go skiing and I didn't go to France or Egypt because we couldn't afford it. We weren't the only ones. Mine didn't feel any need to keep up with any so called Joneses and I never felt out. More kids stayed behind than actually went skiing in France.

Oh - and I also learnt about 15 different sports at school in the UK as diverse as javelin and shotput to tennis. My parents never forked out for swimming lessons, football club, basketball or athletics. I also learnt how to use a sewing machine, a micorscope, swim, bake cakes and make simple meals, team sports and inter-school competitive sports, play a musical intrument (that school lent me) and we had a school choir, band and bank.

Lorna at Vicenza

Oh yeah - like always they were very very vocal at 4pm and full of bloody complaints. Many worse than me. All of them agreed that it can't have been so hard to make a call. All of them agreed that it was out of order. All of them agreed that something should be said.

When the bus rolled in , all of them slowly started to bugger off with their kids and I ended up alone in the school courtyard with my arms wide open and a silly grin and a joking "did you all leave home this morning without a phone?" I don't intentionally go out to start fights, but the response and reaction of this prof was beyond belief.

Isakat

And she is the one educating your daughter.

Patty

That is WAY out of order - they make the rules up as and when it suits them Lorna. However I think that no matter how high you go it won't make any difference. Not because you aren't doing it right but simply because they will close ranks and you (and me and all us non-italian mums) just don't seem to have a leg to stand on.
Just a quick story .....last year my very good italian friend had her daughter bocciata in the last year of the superiore. Some of her friends with lower marks were promossi and could leave school. My friends daughter however was told she had to re-do the year. My friend went to every single office and spoke to every person that counted but not one of them could give her an answer as to WHY !
I fear the same will happen here Lorna - a wall will come up and they simply will say that you are causing trouble - even if you are completely in the right and they deserve a huge kick up the arse.
I was feeling miserable today anyway with the whole being an outsider thing but after reading this (and another little incident today) I feel really sad.
Go kick arse Lorna

Patty

forgot to say ...part of the teachers behaviour is also because they have the attitude that they are accountable to NO-ONE. They don't have Ofsted checking up on them, they don't have school inspectors checking on them and in our area there are about seven schools that share a headteacher - so lack of continuity there as well.
nighty night.

Lorna at Vicenza

Patty - in part I'm pissed of (hugely pissed off) for myself and a part of me is pissed off for the others - even though they don't really deserve any consideration from me seeing as how they left me on my own. Totally incredible the bitching coming out of them and even the solidarietà mums with mums ... and then they all slink off slowly.
The teacher did say something like "who are you to come here arguing with us'" and my last shot was something like ..... "you're bloody lucky that you're not English coz I can argue a whole lot better in English you bloody cow." Bloody Cow was said in English with a two fingered wave of the hand.

Lorna at Vicenza

Just found this ..............

DECRETO DEL PRESIDENTE DELLA REPUBBLICA 16 aprile 2013, n. 62

Art. 1
Disposizioni di carattere generale
1. Il presente codice di comportamento, di seguito denominato
"Codice", definisce, ai fini dell'articolo 54 del decreto legislativo
30 marzo 2001, n. 165, i doveri minimi di diligenza, lealta',
imparzialita' e buona condotta che i pubblici dipendenti sono tenuti
ad osservare.

37100

.............

HADENOUGHPIZZA

We got sent a copy of this by the school but I can't see it making a lot of difference when heads don't have the power to inetrvene or sanction memebers of staff

Lorna at Vicenza

I know ....... but I printed the letter anyway, took it to school and had it put on the school protocollo. Secretary told me the Head won't see it until Friday as he's not there. Presume he's in one of the other two schools he's supposed to be running.

Chloe told me that yesterday, the teacher that screamed at me, asked them all who had a phone on the school trip. They all said that they didn't take one ........ put that in your pipe bitch!

The Italian teacher, who wasn't on the trip, gave them all a lecture about being immature, ungrateful brats as none of them stopped to say thanks to the lovely teachers for taking them out when the coach arrived back at school.

Well think on a minute ........ the bus was 2 hours late and most parents and kids couldn't wait to get out of there to try and make it to their other clubs and sports.

The teachers were the first ones off the coach and halfway back into school by the time all the kids had got off .....

..... and one of them was too busy screaming her head off at me !

Patty

I can see what Hadenough means however maybe if we all start by doing little things then maybe, just maybe, (although not overly optimistic) we might eventually get through a bit

I was recently asked to fill in a questionnaire for the school and in the bit where they asked for suggestions I put down a couple - whether they took any notice I dont know - but at least I felt better. I suggested they have lockers because the weight they have to carry on their backs is ludicrous. If we all contributed surely it would help ? When they have to travel quite a distance for the superiori they shouldnt have to log tons of books back & forth. I also said (and probably didnt do myself any favours) that I will not attend any more parents evenings. I work full time and then make the effort to go to school only to wait 3 hours and see 3 teachers (each for about ONE minute) and even then they dont even really realise who your child is

Anyway Lorna - keep us updated !

ps. forgot my gripe for today ........ on the booklist we were told to buy a new chemistry book - cost 40 euros - the school got it wrong and the book we got for Prima is enough for the biennio and so a few of us have wasted money on an unecessary book ................grrh

Lorna at Vicenza

If that preside gets back to me .... I'll let you know. If he doesn't, I now have a letter registered on the legal books so I can write another one, asking why my first one wasn't replied to.

Lorna at Vicenza

Chloe and her classmates discovered who their new maths teacher is on Saturday morning. They had a 2 hour double lesson with her.

She walked in and said,

"I have driven 10 hours from Campania to be here and I demand respect always. (io esigo rispetto sempre). I do not tolerate talking and nobody is going to the toilet. Anybody who ever talks back to me will not get 10 pages of work to copy out - you'll get 10 x 10 pages to copy out until your wrist is red and bleeding and ready to drop off. Now did I tell you my name? No? My name is .............. Did you get holiday work to do? Why haven't you all done it?"

(The kids explained that their last teacher had said that the holiday work wasn't obbligatory, especially for the kids with good marks, and it was a revision suggestion not a must.)

"I'm not having that. Anybody who hasn't done it or completed it will give it to me on Monday morning. Now let's get to work. You boy in the blue t.shirt, get up here to the blackboard and solve this problem."

Chloe said you could have heard a pin drop in the classroom as they were all in shock. I'm already preparing myself for a fight with this woman if she refuses to let Chloe go to the loo or threatens her in anyway. My first sentence in my head is something like .... you do not get respect with threats!

Poor kids have another 2 hour lesson with her today. I'm half hoping that her stinking attitude was just to scare the kids in her first lesson, to let them know who's boss so that they don't mess around, but I'm doubtful.

HADENOUGHPIZZA

OMG ! mine would have been in tears but I share your hope that she's heard terrible things about teaching up north and is trying to get the class to sit down , shut up and listen .. let us know how she gets on !!: