To think you as a parent are responsible for your child’s education.

You should have sold your house to pay for private OP. That was your first fail

Well, for a start I’d recommend leaving paragraph construction to the school OP

😂

Exactly!! And let’s hope the school teaches them about checking your privilege, and about empathy, and being humble.

In other news, are we able to use smiley faces now which are not on the MN smiley face list? Being able to use 😂 would be very useful to date me as an older millennial, and I have greatly missed the 🙄🙄🙄 emoji which neatly sums up about 90% of the sentences I say these days.

@Spudlet read my post again and read my latest one. Your being sensitive.

@Clymene

In no way am I saying that parents of children with SEN are lazy?! Where in my post did I imply this? I am a parent of three kids with SEN. I said that teachers (I'm not a teacher) put blame on parents if a child is not doing X- it doesn't mean I agree with them!

When it comes to children with SEN, including dyslexia, specific learning difficulties, language disorders, etc etc. You cannot rely on the school to help your child. I'm sorry. You cannot. Time and time again, it's these children that I see fall through the cracks- especially the quiet children who are very compliant. The teachers have 30 plus kids to worry about about, the system is very unfair. I had a couple of year 10 children, with needs, who couldn't spell basic words and could not formulate sentences (I am not blaming the kids, or passing judgement) but not once have those children been referred to an educational psychologist or other services to support them with their writing skills (e.g. using alternative means like assistive technology, scriber, touch typing). These children have been failed through primary and secondary and they leave school angry, frustrated, low mental health. I've seen this time and time again.

Ah OP ... if you were as bright as you think you are, you'd know that learning a language to native-level fluency is very difficult and most people who bring up children bilingually speak their own native language to the child. It's called a mother tongue for a reason.

Maybe instead of focusing on schools in nice areas you should have moved abroad instead and spoken English at home and they could have learned the country's language (Spain/South America/China based on your preferences, I guess)? It's not too late...

OP You come across as a bit smug, as few people can afford to move to a good catchment.

Reading/phonics should be done by parents. There is no way that one teacher can teach a class of 30 (including AN) to teach. It's just not possible. So I agree there.

Once your child can read, you can stop with the school stuff unless they are having a specific difficulty with a tricky concept that they have failed to resolve independently in their own time.

OP, you're trying to hothouse your child. Your intentions are good, but you're investing more time and energy into your child's learning than them. All you're going to produce is a dullard with clean hair and good orthodontics. A bloody times tables CD? I don't think so. This is a prime example of over-investing time and energy into a basic skill. You'd be better off making your kid learn the things themself and grill them every now and again. issuing scorn and praise as necessary.

Make your child competitive, resilient and do not fawn over mediocre actions. Do not answer a question for your child that they should be able to work out themselves. Make them strive for your praise.

Teach your child to teach itself the academic stuff, then you can spend time doing more interesting and challenging stuff with them.

Bloody times table CD indeed.

There’s something unbearably smug about this pos

Yep. OPs child is obviously doing quite well atm. Let's hope they do well in their gcse's , if not, it will all be on OP.

I get some of where you’re coming from OP.
I took the school choice very seriously and if I wasn’t happy with any local choice I would have considered moving. If I didn’t get my first choice I would have gone private - I recognise this is privileged though, not everyone has this choice.

I think it’s important to work with the school but I see my job as raising my child to be a good person, emotionally balanced, confident and happy. With good manners, ensuring they learn life skills such as learning to swim, ride a bike etc. I am not delivering a formal education to my child, that is primarily for school with me helping with reading etc around it.

Not all of us are equipped, one way or another, to teach fractions. If privileged parents get comfortable with the idea that school learning is a luxury extra then we are
(a) massively letting the government off the hook
(b) condemning the children of those with less privilege to a minimal education and
(c) condemning our own children to a pretty horrible week. If school isn't for learning, then how awful to make them sit in classrooms for so many hours a day in the name of what would in your version be primarily just childcare (or training for future as a low grade office worker?) in between the all-important socialisation.

Whilst I think that schools are primarily responsible for delivering academic education, I think many parents underestimate the size of their support role. Don't forget that generally high levels of education benefits the country as a whole, so it isn't all down to parents.

With a dc who fell down the cracks at school remaining uneducated until year 3 o totally agree.

I think parents should be encouraged far more to get involved get in on the curriculum etc to keep up. Some/ many dc won't need further extra support but those like mine that do it will be a life line.
As teachers keep saying there is only so much they can do in a class of 30 and they don't get trained in sen

Totally agree about the middle ground.
We made an effort to teach the basics and fully support DSs education by a trained professional. Reading is something we prioritise and encourage as that is really important.

However, the best school isn't always the right school. We live in a village with a lovely school which is rated good by ofsted. There is an outstanding school in a nearby village which some parents in our village choose to sr d their kids.

We choose the nearest school rather than the outstanding school because we can walk to it and most of the village kids go there so from a socialising perspective it's far better for DS. Life would be much harder if we had chosen the other school.

I do agree with you in principle but agree only because I am in the privileged position of being educated (and a primary school teacher). It is my responsibility to teach my child manners, kindness, a love of learning, the importance of books, a love for outdoors, some fine motor skills etc to help them be ready for school. I will also teach my child basic phonics (which I'm trained in) so that she learns to read quickly but only because I can. I will try to support her learning as best I can through hearing her read learning spellings, practising her handwriting, talking to her, taking her to interesting places etc. School ofsted ratings can change on a dime so I'm not so bothered about those but then I'm in the privileged position of living in a nice area and knowing she will do well in whatever school she goes to purely due to her first few years.
Your friend is an idiot quite frankly. I come across that type every day who believe it's my responsibility to teach and support their child in all areas of education and life. Newsflash- the best readers get heard read at home regularly, that's just a fact. The best maths kids practise their tables and number facts at home. You don't need to be super a parent and you certainly don't need to be hammering it at home but some responsibility is needed.
After a child attacked me when I was 8 months pregnant I was told by the parent to 'do my effing job' and teach him how to behave. That is NOT my responsibility.

Take your kids swimming from babies for goodness sake it isn't expensive and really important Why do people expect so much from the system

Don't know where you live, but it's fairly privileged to say swimming doesn't cost much.
To take a baby swimming, you need a baby swim suit (replaced every 6 months as they grow), an adult swim suit, baby swim nappies, pool entrance and to pay for transport there and back. It may not be much for you, but that's a lot for many people, even before accounting for lesson cost. And people with less money are also less likely to know how to swim themselves and therefore be confident teaching their DCs beyond the basics.

I'm a bit of both, I believe in sending kids to nearby schools, and don't believe they have to go to the very best schools because they get a rich educational home life

I preferred my DC to be educated by those who have been trained to do so.

My job is, as others have said, to support them in that and teach my children the things school doesn't.

I agree about the middle ground. We should also be aware not everyone has the same educational background but I do think attitude and knowing the importance of parents to education is important. Like has been said reading with the child can help a lot. But then I think if the parent is a reader that also shows kids that you can read for pleasure. Growing up neither of my parents read and so I associated it with a chore. I think that’s the same with lots of skills.

A parent of mine was a teacher and used to complain that some parents would put all the responsibilities onto teachers eg “wait to you start school then you’ll learn how to behave well”.

Some of the parents who the OP thinks are 'failing' will be having to put far more effort in with their child/children than she does or will ever do.

I agree with the premise of supporting your children’s education. However I feel so sorry for them as the subtext here for you being “responsible” for their education is that you are just hugely pushy. They will burn out and resent you.

Man, you really dropped the ball on the Chinese. The kid is screwed now. Will probably just go to jail- even then I read that you need basic Mandarin to be considered for parole these days.

I view any education at school as a bonus, to my mind I want them socialising and learning how to interact with others well when they are there.

I was exactly the opposite. I believed education was the remit of the school system. I believed it was up to school to teach my kids numeracy, literacy, science etc. If there was an issue and a child was struggling or fell behind in any area then we stepped in ourselves to get them up to speed or organised tutoring to achieve this but we certainly didn’t consider ourselves their primary educators in these areas.

Some of my kids went on to do highest level maths, physics etc and believe it or not I left that to the school system. Again, if it looked like they were struggling or behind I would have organised tutoring. Didn’t need it but I certainly didn’t believe it was on me to educate them in these areas, I don’t have the necessary higher level qualification and don’t pretend to! Nor those who wanted to specialise in history and humanities, I’m not an expert, I’m not the educator.

A lot of your post just doesn’t make sense. You don’t believe in schools teaching children anything, it’s your responsibility. Schools are for social skills and peer interaction. Yet you say it’s imperative for people to be in an area with top schools and if they are not they have failed their children. What does it matter if you don’t believe it is up to schools and teachers to educate your children but is your responsibility. It’s like a post that wants some weird smugness award but just fails in the detail.

How old are your children, @washingmachines4?

I do agree that parents play a big part in the learning The teacher has 30 children to try and teach sometimes with no lsa how they get anything done is beyond me. I tried to teach mine to write their name before they went to school and the basic things like alphabet and adding up This really gives them a good start. Reading at home is the best thing you can do to help them before they start and also once they start bringing books home. Even 10 minutes a day will make a big difference. I was quite shocked to read the post yesterday about a mum that blamed the school for her child not being able to swim. That is the parents responsibility. Take your kids swimming from babies for goodness sake it isn't expensive and really important Why do people expect so much from the system

Do you just want a bunch of strangers to confirm your belief that you’re a better parent than your friend…?

@secular39 Also waiting to hear how my child’s SEN are my fault. If only I wasn’t so lazy, my son’s ASD would just have vanished into thin air, is that the gist? I’m fascinated by this idea.

Op, cop onto yourself. Good grief. Unclench and find a balance between learning and getting to relax and unwind a bit at home too, which is just as important as constant cramming.