I've never been violent, or aggressive, to a wonderful teacher, only thanked God for them, silently.

I did however, learn to be assertive, at the age of 40, due to my daughter's headmaster.

He had told me she'd never set the world on fire...and he had left the children themselves to make their own way to Tavistock College, from their primary school in Horrabridge, via the normal bus service, which went through the village.

This was for the day when primary school pupils go to their next school for the day/week, so that they get to know it a little before they actually start in the new term..

I couldn't believe that he hadn't organised school coaches to take the children from their primary school over to Tavistock College.

Everyone was complaining about it, but as ever no-one did anything...

So, I went to see him.

I was a little nervous, because I was still 'conditioned' to quaking in my shoes when it came to teachers..they always 'being right an' all'...(Ha!)

I sat down and told him that he was wrong not to have organised this officially, as other schools seemed to do. He told me that many children had older brothers and sisters at school, and went in with them. I asked him what he did for the children who did NOT have siblings already there...and he stared at me.

I told him that this was a very important time in the lives of the children and it should all have been arranged correctly by the school to ensure as smooth a passage as possible.

At this point he started to interrupted me, and he kept doing so over and again, talking over me...

That was when I suddenly refused to back down...and I slammed my hand down on the arm of chair and told him to never interrupt me again, because he had no right to do that. I told him the buck stopped with him, and it was no good trying to weasel his way out of his responsibility, because every single one of those children were in his care, and it was during his school time as well. I wasn't interested in local authoritys, or excuses...because there were NO excuses.

He eventually backed down and organised a coach.....

Fast forward..........

My son, now 5 years old.......

I had refused to send him to school when he was just 4, because it was way too young. He is a summer baby and so would have been a very young 4...I asked if I could send him during the final term of that year, about half way through, just so that he could have a short time to get to know school, before he started in September, aged 5.

They agreed.

However, when I rang up to arrange this, I was told that because I'd not sent him at the start of the Reception Year, when he'd literally have just turned four, I would now have to wait until the Year 1 September term started.

I was fuming, because they renegaed on their word, but they were adamant. I presume I'd been a naughty parent and was therefore being made to pay the price.

Fast forward again.....

It's the first 'meet the teacher, see how your child's doing' day in Year One, a few months later...and I am sitting there listening to his teacher talk about him in glowing terms, saying how well he's settled in, how he gets on with everyone and what a happy child he is.....and I felt very proud of him. He was happy too, I knew that...

A week later I was walking down the road when someone called out to me...and I went over and spoke to her. She asked how my son was getting on as she'd heard he was having 'major problems'...?????

I stared at her, puzzled.

Then I told her that he was having no problems at all....

I then got to hear the story of how Mr. Idden, the headmaster, had been welcoming the new parents to the school, who had the next lot of 4 year olds...and he'd told them how important it was to send your child to school early. He then went on to tell them 'the story' of my son...telling them that because I'd held him back a year, he was now struggling terribly, both work wise and socially...

The air turned blue!

I went straight home, rang the school and spoke to him...and I told him that at the EXACT time I was hearing, from one of his teachers, how well my son was doing, what a pleasure he was...he was in another roon holding him up as an example of what could happen if you were a bad parent and wanted to keep your child away from school until they turned 5!

I was bloody angry!!!

He knew he'd made a FATAL mistake and fell over himself to apologise!!!

The ONLY reason he'd said what he did was because he wanted the money for yet more 4 year olds, that the Government was then paying, to drag more and more little kids in, WAY YOO EARLY!

What a complete bastard!

He grovelled....and grovelled, but I told him where to stick his apology and that's when we moved away!

Absolutely disgusting way for any headmaster to behave! It took the parents years to get rid of him, but they did, eventually.

He went to work for OFSTED!

HA!!