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Our school allows us to write a letter describing what type of teacher/teaching style our child would benefit from which will be considered when they assign classes for the new school year.

Does anyone have last minute advice as to how to word such a letter?

Although I’m not there yet, there was a similar thread recently and my favorite words from that were “flexible,” “compassionate/sensitive,” “has an extensive fund of knowledge” (thanks Grinity!), “doesn’t mind persistent questioning,” and “good at differentiation.” There were lots more great ideas if you read through the whole thread. Hope this helps.

placement with an elementary school teacher

Thanks for the reminder to get this done.

This is a highly local process. The informal rules here are that you can't mention teachers by name, but you can mention characteristics. "DS has benefited in the past from having teachers who used positive disciplinary methods, a highly organized classroom style, and differentiated instruction in his areas of strength." We are also allowed to mention peers who we think would be good choices to have in with our child.

DeeDee

Here are some I've used -
patient
willing to work with children who think outside the box
organized but patient with children who are disorganized

Do you have a particular teacher in mind? A friend of mine describes the teacher's characteristics exactly without actually mentioning her name. It seems to work well for her.

I would also suggest discussing it with his current teacher if you have a good relationship. In our school, the current teachers and the next grade teacher get together to decide the placement so, while the letter may not be influential, an advocate in the decision-making process can be. Again, it depends on the school's procedures, though.

In our case, I shared my concerns with my second ds's kindergarten teacher because my first had a nightmare of an experience with one of the first grade teachers last year and I absolutely never want to see that woman again much less subject another one of my children to her. We don't even get to write a letter, but I just talked with his kinder teacher about the situation and am hoping that they respond accordingly. Fingers crossed on that one.

This is what we requested, after a year in which the non-mathy teacher had DD baffled as to how to do math: "We'd like to request that [DD] be placed with a teacher who is good at explicitly explaining the logic behind the math being taught next year. This past year, [DD] has had issues with rote problem-solving techniques. When she doesn't understand why a given method works, she has difficulty consistently applying that method to her assignments."

I put in some other examples of how DD has issues with being asked to follow a set process without understanding the logic behind that process, and an explanation that in non-math subjects, it was affecting her classroom grade but not her ability to learn those subjects, because I think a big part of the issue is "DD is not picking up on implicit instructions," and IMHO the school is more receptive to "my kid has a weakness and needs a teacher who can help remediate that" than to "we don't want a bad teacher."

There are three teachers next year; the one generally thought of as the best has already said she'd like to have DD next year. My goal is to not get the one generally thought of as the worst unless she is particularly good at what DD needs.