[Redway]

Originally Posted by Soldier Boy

FWIW my daughter is always let down by her "attitude" score but it's basically because she "back chats" teachers, i.e. questions them and their reasoning and tells them if she thinks it's stupid . No deference to authority at all. So proud.

And that’s where I was the opposite to your daughter (is DD the Mumsnet term?). The problem I had was teachers assuming things about me lacking somewhat in self-esteem based on things I said when I was literally 11 were true even by Year 10. I got great report cards on both sides of year 10 and no doubt they were singing my praises about a dramatic return to form after a bad performance in Year 9 but there were still a few complaints here and there about things that were made to drag on since the early days of key stage 3. With my French teacher it was just a case of the fact that my French didn’t quite catch up (not consistently) after Year 8 and obviously she didn’t know me after year 9 (she’d semi-retired from teaching at that point). So a certain negative impression stuck with her for a while after the actual time it was relevant.

It’s not nice when people assume things about you on your behalf and make them relevant when you’re long past that stage. There was just a really negative barrel of assumptions about how I basically hated myself in high school and I totally didn’t. There were a few things here and there but nothing that should’ve dragged on as a point of concern years later. I may or may not have called them out directly on it but it bugged me for years after. Right to this day, even.