Am I Going Mad?

[oldjerry]

Boboff,I'd be delighted to send my kids to your school.It goes to show how different they can be,and how with a decent head,staff and parental support,primary education CAN be an excellent experience.My jaundiced opinions,aren't just from my childrens' experience,my niece is a primary teacher,my sister just retired after 35 years as a primary teacher,and ,staggerringly,I've got a PGCE(unused for over 3 decades,Mrs.T put an end to rural studies,and my wouldbe colleagues all seemed a bit too normal !)

[chickenchargrill]

The facts as I see it are that Primary education is in excellent hands. There is no learning by route, their is no daft Scalastic stuff, just basic simple engaging ciriculum related items based around themes and the 5 key elements ( not sure what they are but staying safe, eating healthy, that sort of thing) As for innovation, yes of cource it goes on, recently our school got a grant to build a relationship with the Plymouth Basket Ball Team, it involved getting the whole school and parents to go to a couple of games, plus the MD came and couched after school, and they used the material to feed into all aspects of the ciriculum ( stats for maths, club history, designing uniforms, doing press releases etc etc etc)

The amount of outdoor foundation play areas is growing and fantastic.
...

That can be great, but it doesn't necessarily lead to a good primary. Like I said before, my kids' school has been given outstanding status by OFSTED, they've been given various other awards including one for Healthy Eating (which my daughter got to go pick up because her lunches are always healthy,) they have an outdoor Eco area, herb and veg garden, links with the local football and cricket team and so on. All this great stuff, but most of the learning revolves around play which is great with reception class, but by the time they're 7? Their recent Healthy Eating Week seemed to mostly involve using salad to make boats and other food art, dressing up as a veg one day then being sent home with a load of chocolate on the last day. They discourage parents teaching at home, apparently I'm putting too much pressure on Adeline with the extra stuff we do at home. They have no evidence of this, they only knew because their dad mentioned it at Take Your Parent to School Evening.

My eldest is intelligent, yet because of the class sizes most of the work is done in groups. Adeline's personality is such that she will allow others in the group to take the lead, which meant that the report she came back with last sounded like another child's! According to the reports, she'd taken a big step back. My OH did his PGTLLS training and when he was working with 18+ and creating foundation skills Maths and English sheets, he would practice on Adeline because she could pick it up far quicker than his students at college. Our 5 year old, they kept her behind with her reading for ages and have put her in a lower level class (her year mixed with younger children) yet she is logical and can easily work things out quickly. I do not expect the school to be wholly responsible for their learning, but I don't expect to be picking up the slack caused by school.

[Susie]

,staggerringly,I've got a PGCE(unused for over 3 decades,Mrs.T put an end to rural studies,and my wouldbe colleagues all seemed a bit too normal !)

Did they used to teach this in secondary schools? I'm having vague memories of my dad's school having someone who taught something in a greenhouse and it being very popular, then they got rid of it. I bet you would have been a really good teacher, that is the teaching profession's loss .

I'm agreeing with Julie Lanteri, actually, I think you always get better results by following the procedure, whatever you think of the procedure or the people involved (because normally anyone at the top of the hierarchy will just say to you initially, have you followed the procedure, and will be very careful not to undermine people further down, which will compromise the response you get). Give everyone a chance to be reasonable and then have a plan for when they're not. And yes that would definitely apply to someone on the supermarket checkout as well, it's like when you don't file a complaint with paypal until you've contacted the ebay seller! That sounds like what KB's doing anyway - if they'd talked to her informally when she went in, she wouldn't have to write!

Haha Susie, I can make you a lovely blue gingham dress if you want - free of charge, but my payment would be a photo on this board of you wearing it

Ha! You be careful, I might take you up on it ;-).

[boboff]

It is a question of choices.

The thing that I believe is that childhood should be fun. The rate of learning increases dramatically as you get older, I think values, personality and seeing the big picture is more important than knowing the capital of Peru.

Eldest daughter has just sat her SAT's and she was pushed hard, but it's the only time that I recall this happening during the 7 years she has been as school.

KS1 is all about play at our school, to the extent that we get really poor KS1 SAT results, but by Y6 the school results are good, not brilliant you understand, as we are extremely inclusive as a school, have a specialist Area Resource Centre and a great SENCO and team of TA's supporting the kids with special needs.

My Son has one of the all too common Individual Educational plans, and gets daily one to one with toe by toe, I was really angry when I found out at 6 her didn't know his alphabet, could barely read, and writing was non existant, but we got there in the end with him, and three years on, he is still not academic, but he is engaged by school, and I am confident that although he will never achieve what his Sister has academically, he will not feel he is in any way her inferior because he can't do things she can. Before the work, the cycle of under achieving, frustration, hurt, anger, being disruptive, getting worse at his work, being sad, getting angry, etc etc was not nice for him or us. The school didn't deal with it as fast as they could have, or as well as they could have, and sometimes we have to remind them about the need to carry it on, but surely that's our job as parents? No teachers are not perfect, but then again nor are nurces, doctors, lawyers, accountants, Farmers, and dole claimants. Its a joint relationship when you deal with any professional. Personnally I think that the days of if you get a whack from Teacher you got another one when you got home, i.e. Parents supported the teacher 100%, is the main problem. When parents challenge the authority of teachers from an early age, it means that kids grow up believing that dicipline is something which is optional, by that, I mean in front of the children, obviously it's ok to disucss things with the Teacher which you don't agree with, oh sod it, now I am waffaling, but I know what I mean!

[MKG]

Well, there's certainly an interesting collection of opinions to choose from. And I can see all of the points made. But I still don't agree with them. Julie, KB DID go to see the head, but was fobbed off. OK, she didn't first approach the teacher - neither would I have done, in the interests of avoiding what would have been an intensely confrontational situation. That would do no-one any good. Boboff, I'm sorry, but I'm never going to understand why daft scholastic stuff should go out of the window. The window, I feel, should be reserved for daft non-challenging stuff. And there is very good and sound educational logic behind SOME rote learning (and if you don't believe that, ask any otherwise innumerate bloke who can score a darts match with barely a pause for thought).

Anyway, I've said my piece and poor old Keaniebean must now feel like hiding under a stone

Whatever happens, you are absolutely in the right.

Mike

[becks77]

Hi KB,
Any news yet?

[chickenchargrill]

I believe that childhood should be fun too. But there is making learning fun so they remember stuff, eg my girl's can tell you all about the sun thanks to They Might Be Giants, and then there is making it so fun the kids have no idea what they have been taught and getting a huge shock when they have to do work. The great thing about pre-teens is that they LIKE learning. I feel this should be made the most of, I don't make my kids recite their times tables again and again, but I do work closely with them at home - they devour any of the workbooks you can pick up. It's a question of finding the right balance. At the moment I feel like I've sent them to nursery for 5 years.

I wouldn't have approached my kids' teachers first either, I've read plenty of complaints by teachers on TES about parents barging in to have words over something little Johnny has told them. I've sent letters in with my kids only to find them unopened in their bags a week later. If I need to raise any other issues I go speak to the receptionist or they have a member of non-teaching staff especially for any concerns you wish to discuss.

[Keaniebean]

Hi Folks, sorry our home computer decided to die in amazing fashion Wednesday evening, really annoying and lots of work lost but anyway, I'm stealing my daughters laptop briefly to let you know the next installment.

Yesterday when I picked up daughter from school the tacher who made thye comment came over and made a very half hearted apology. She said ' oh sorry about the dress, you went to Mrs K ( the head). The one she has on is fine but sorry about the other one.'

I then said to her, 'well that doesn't explain what is wrong with the other one - to which she replied ' oh it's got no collar'. So I then said well it doesn't say that, it just says blue gingham summer dress.

She then muttered a few more sorrys and walked away.

Husband and I are still deciding if we should write to the head as we don't feel this is the end of the matter.

HOWEVER the Wee Man is starting in September and because of his condition (achondroplasia) we are going to have to have LOTS of contact with the school so we are reluctant to make an enemy of the head. As I say, still in deliberations as to how to persue this if at all, but all input will be greatly apreciated

Although, i may not be able to respond very quickly thanks to poxy computer having died at a most inopportune moment!!!!!!!!!!!

[boboff]

Maybe its a blue collar school?

Hahahahaha!!!!

My advice for what it's worth, see that Alsation over in the corner having 40 winks, I say best to leave him there.

[chickenchargrill]

Oh, well in that case I would write a letter saying something along the lines of:

Sorry to bother you again on this matter. Mrs - has informed me that school dresses must have a collar. I'm sure this is not mentioned in the school policy and that as long as dresses are blue gingham they're okay. Obviously, I don't want to be sending my daughter in the incorrect uniform. Please could you confirm what the school dress policy is so that we can adhere to it.

Yours blah blah blah.

That way you're just acting as a parent who wishes to get the uniform correct rather than a disgruntled parent trying to make enemies. Whilst innocently dropping your daughters teacher in the crap if she's wrong.

[red]

you have to decide if you are going to be the person who does or does not rock the boat

i was keen not to. and tipped the whole boat over within the first couple of weeks. my son has various disabilities and at the time of starting school was seeing a specialist ENT consultant re his hearing - at school they took my lad off for the standard hearing test, and he freaked out a bit, but.. i thought well i didn't warn them.,.. then 2 weeks later they sent a letter home asking permission to do the test. on enquiry it seems they needed permission.. but liked to 'get ahead'

i wrote an extremely stoppy letter to both the school nurse and the headteacher.

I found out that being 'one of those' parents did my son no harm at all.. instead they were very careful. I would love to say we had no other problems during the time he attended school, but of course there were gliches, but I was known to the HT - she always saw me and bent over backwards to fix things.

i think its all or nothing. either let it go and keep the boat steady or go on guns blazing and be prepared to do it all through your kids attendance there.

[Green Aura]

The simplest (in terms of least aggro ) would be to put a small peter pan collar on the dress. It would look just as lovely and then they'd surely have to run out of excuses for why she can't wear it. If they find something else to complain about then you'd have more ammo to get the lot of 'em.

[Nomada]

I then said to her, 'well that doesn't explain what is wrong with the other one - to which she replied ' oh it's got no collar'. So I then said well it doesn't say that, it just says blue gingham summer dress.

I'd be tempted to add a collar and send her into school with it.

But seriously, that dress is very well made, it doesn't look like it is that different to a shop bought one for it to be obvious so how does she know? Is she checking the backs of the collars for a label? And if so, why?

I think the idea about sending in a letter asking for clarification on the uniform policy is a good one. Quite subtle.

[Nomada]

Green aura already had the idea!

[Lilyfae]

I ditto Green Aura & Nomada - not to ' fit in' but as a final up yours.

From what you say about her language & behaviour I would guess she's had a massive testicleling from the Head for insensitivity and has been ordered to apologise, didn't have the guts in the Morning, was told off again at break/lunch and may have even had someone watching to make sure she did it.

I would perhaps ask a question of a PTA rep to talk about setting clearer uniform rules ie change to 'blue gingham summer dress with collar' and let it be, teachers probably mortified at having to apologise and the depegging act of doing so will have an impact on how she acts at least until the summer when you don't have to worry about her until your son, (if she's still thereby then- turnover in London schools is high) and his needs will outweigh an awkward moment a few years before.

But as I said, put a final up yours with a pretty collar on the dress.