to think this is probably institutional racism.

[chocolatecosmos]

Sorry , I am a lurker who comes on when I have a problem and right now I am shaking with anger.

The background is my mixed race(Jamaican/English) son is just finishing reception. He just told me tonight that he has been doing numeracy and litracy in a seperate group and he is level 3. I asked who was in level 4 group and he listed basically every white child in reception ( the intake is mainly Asian with about 10% white, the area is basically gentrifying and the white children are from middleclass professional families).

Every parents evening we have had to tell the teachers what he is capable of. In nursery they thought he could not count, when he could count objects up to 20. They looked again and told us a week later that he ''had shown what he could do.'' At the last parents evening they showed us a list of level 3 words ans said he could read about 4 out of 20. I called him over and he read 1 out of 20. I have been concerned about this underestimation of his abilities but have left it up till now as I asked if there was streaming and was told that there was no streaming until year 1. I thought he would be receiving the same education and was intending to question more when he reached year 1 as I wanted to show some faith in the school. I could go on but will probably bore everyone ( ignoring the reading books that he has read on a first try and providing him with more challenging material but now finding out other children have been put through to higher stage books etc ..)

I am currently in the middle of a part time 2 year P.G.C.E. and have spent time in reception, so I am pretty sure I am not way off the mark in assessment of his reading and numeracy. Something is going badly wrong.I am starting to think assumptions are being made as he is a very boisterous boy, who if given a choice between sitting at a table or running around the play area will always choose the play area. I am also well aware of the statistics concerning black boys and the education system.

I feel really sick, let down and angry.

I will talk to the teacher tommorow to check the facts ( although the regular teacher is off sick) and will probably ask for a meeting with the head teacher. Has anyone else dealt with anything similar? What are my options?

I don't have experience of this but wanted to reply. I think you should ask to see his work and establish how it compares to the other children in his class. I wouldn't be accusatory at this point, but you are well within your rights to express your concerns and ask for some clear strategies as to how they will address these.

I think that if you reposted this in Primary Education you would get the teachers who post on MN to give you help and advice; I don't often see them on AIBU

Meant to add that the replacement teacher may not know the abilities of the children at present and the groups may have been sorted out by the previous teacher. In the meantime, your child may have progressed academically, but not been moved up because teacher is temporary and either doesn't know or is waiting for other teacher to return. You are right to question it though

my son is also finishing reception. i suspect they're also very much underestimating him according to the report and general feedback. but their goals for him aren't really his strengths, so i am confident they do know what they're doing.

he's only 5 and has done so much in the seven months he'd been there. i can remember pretending not to be able to read aged 7 because nobody else could.

i am white and in east london, sounds as though you are in a similar demographic. how is the school generally?

BALD is quite right ; the Primary Education section is very helpful. If you re- post there, you should find you will have a positive/informative response.
I find the teaching staff who post on there very helpful. HTH

The school is rated as outstanding and in other ways i.e. social development I am pretty happy. I think there is an issue maybe with him not showing what he can do, being in a hurry to go back to playing maybe- but I think we have flagged this at this point and they have not really listened. The groups would have been sorted a while ago as he says he has been going to this group for awhile ( hard to know how long till I talk to the school). Thanks for the replies- a good suggestion Karma believer.

"...At the last parents evening they showed us a list of level 3 words ans said he could read about 4 out of 20. I called him over and he read 1 out of 20. I have been concerned about this underestimation of his abilities..."
EErm... this is overestimation, no?

How is your child at school?

At home my son does loads of stuff that he won't do at pre-school. He can recognise numbers, count objects etc but will do none of it when asked. For him, I think reception will be about growing the confidence to show and use what he knows outside the safe environment of home.

@Rollmops, I think the opening post missed a digit. In any case this happened to a friend of mine who is a teacher and has a son (black) in another primary school. She pays a lot of attention to his education and noticed that the teachers kept seriously under-estimating her sons abilities.

On one occasion, she attended a parents evening and asked her son's teacher how she thought he was getting on. The teacher replied that 'he was well behaved'. She was shocked because she was asking how he was getting on academically but the teacher assumed that it was enough if a little black boy was well behaved and that is a very low standard of expectation. She's looking at changing schools as she doesn't want her son to be disadvantaged or be a victim of self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm mixed race and I had a similar issue with one teacher but its too long to explain here. Some teachers have a stereotype as to which type of children will do well and which ones won't and act accordingly so every parent needs to be vigilant regarding their childs education. Its not just a race thing either, it's often a class thing as I noticed, in secondary school, that a couple of teachers didn't expect much from and therefore didn't bother to push a few of the louder white working class boys even though they were quite bright (one now has a successful business). In fact I remember the maths teacher handing a couple of them comics instead of making them revise for the maths GCSE as she said she wasn't entering them for the exam. They thought it was great but basically they were being shafted to protect the schools grade average as she thought they couldn't pass so didn't bother to teach them.

All this said I've been lucky to have some very inspirational teachers who helped me achieve. Its just unfortunate that you only need one negative teacher or school to spoil your childs life chances.

My mixed race brother had this problem in school 11 years ago. I'm saddened that things haven't changed much till now! He was naturally boisterous and many teachers wrote him off because of that, whereas he is very bright. He has a natural talent for numbers but instead of challenging him, the teachers made him repeat the same exercises over and over...which made him disruptive due to boredom, which confirmed their opinion of him! Vicious cycle He is an actuary now and if he bumps into one of his teachers, they always look so surprised that he's a professional! It does my head in

Like others have said, please do repost in Primary Education so that you get some helpful advice from teachers (IME AIBU is for venting, not really for support or advice)

I would be very wary of suggesting that it is racism at work.

Perhaps the issue is not why your boy's abilities are being underestimated, but why he is not showing his true abilities at school. You have already suggested that it is because he is easily distracted - this is nothing to do with race.

Sad that someone has to jump on the race card as soon as something isn't going their way and my sons are mixed race! Yes there may be issues with the school but why does it have to be based on race?

You are also basing this on the word of a 4/5 year old. Amazed that he knows he's 'level 3' and all the white kids are 'level 4'. My DS wouldn't know and what level he was when he finished reception and wouldn't have a clue what level the other kids were (and quite frankly wouldn't care).

My son was also underestimated in reception, but this was mainly because he spent most of his time setting up train tracks.

next year it is more structured and you may see an improvement.

I am sorry OP, and I dont think you are using the "race card". I think its not unreasonable to assume that MAYBE they have lower expectations as he is mixed race.

dont go in guns blazing. but sweetly and assertively get this looked into

Empathising with colditz as I had the train track son too...

We have just had DS 5 school report. On it was written, DS doesn't understand mathmatical problems easily but can now count up to 20.

DS has actually completed 3 harder levels of Mathletics.co.uk and can count backwards from 100 at home.

I think it's distractions (trains, best buddies, goodies and baddies) and a class of 32 kids.

We are moving to a school with only 15 kids in it soon so I'm not replying re this because I am comfortable with his progress at the mo.

Don't think it's a race issue IMO. Have a one to one meeting with the reception teacher?

thank you Capricorn, Lutyens and Porcamiseria for actually recognising that this is an issue. to the posters who suggest I have jumped on the race card, I have been watching this for two years wondering why I have to continually point out what he is capable of, they check and then update. I have been unfailingly polite and although I suspected this might be part of the problem I really did not want to think it was - difficult at this point to find any other reasons. I do work in schools and know the statistics about black and mixed race boys failing in the school system and am shocked to actually see it happening with my own child. seeing all his white friends(literally) streamed as higher level reading, whilst out of school he will help to read words for these same friends.

I did check this morning and the information he gave me is correct. I am meeting with head of foundation on Monday. I don't believe the teachers are deliberately racist and would never accuse anyone of this, but I do believe there is stereotyping- however I am very aware of the need to tread lightly.

P.S. Thank you to the poster who pointed out my typo, rather than jumping on it as evidence of my unreasonableness. Thanks also to the posters who pointed out that I should go to the primary thread. If I have more questions on Monday I will do that.

My son's top table in class was all teacher's children....not racist, don't know what the word is?
Also teacher's children conspicuous at science fairs/concerts/adventure days where only a few children could go.
Also an innocent yr1 child asked one day why the teacher's children didn't have to wear the uniform.....?
Have other people met a lot of this?

PS 3 teachers in my immediate family all shocked by my claims.

That is terrible colliecross!
Unfortunately I do believe it. I suppose there is some comfort in not being alone in this, although the issues may be different.

That is terrible colliecross!
Unfortunately I do believe it. I suppose there is some comfort in not being alone in this, although the issues may be different.

I think it is very, very common for children's abilities to be underestimated when they are in the foundation phase of their education - they get to choose what activities they take part in so the teacher might not get to witness them demonstrating certain skills. Especially with kids who are more drawn to the play area.

What do the other parents in your son's class say? Are they happy with their reports/the way the teacher has assessed their children's skills? I guess the only way to know for sure if your child is being treated differently is to try and find out how the other children are being treated.

I really do hope you ARE being unreasonable because the thought that a small child is being descriminated against like that is incredibly depressing.

To be honest, if the white children are all from "middle class professional families" it's hardly surprising that they're bright is it? Is it not possible that lots of the things you see your DS do at home the teacher doesn't see at school?

"if given a choice between sitting at a table or running around the play area will always choose the play area" - is this maybe why the teacher hasn't seen that much of his abilities?

Institutional racism, as you will know, chocolatecosmos, is particularly difficult to deal with precisely because it is dispersed, through assumptions and practices that implicitly discriminate, rather than being racism with a direct (and conscious) referent.

How good is your school at dealing with this sort of thing? Do you think it's something you could talk about with the head rather than the teacher, so you make it more of a generalised discussion, rather than that awkward thing of someone getting v. defensive?

As I'm sure you also know, a lot of schools are now dealing with this directly, and examining their structures and approach in a very full-on fashion. Often, it takes some time for institutions to become aware of its operation, precisely because it's not about how individuals consciously operate, so only emerges as an issue when they look at statistics over time.

But I'm sure you know that.

I really don't know if that's the case here. It could be a gender thing - you implicitly flag up that there may be an issue about sitting still, being quiet. (Though as another poster says, that can cut both ways).

How about seeing the head, and posing it as a series of questions; is there an issue wrt your child and perception? Could it be addressed?

And it may be that you are wrong, and that he is just in a freakishly high-achieving year.

But even so, the point is that you're working together to reach the potential of all children in the school.

Sorry Gerontius, but that is a bit insulting.

It is a teachers job to assess (amongst many other things). The foundation curriculum mainly involves learning through freeplay, so that is the system they work within; that is that.

I was not aware of any studies showing middle class children to have higher I.Q's.

Anyway I would probably be classed as middle class, with post grad education and working as a trainee teacher. I accept that some children get a lot more input at home. My son would be one of them.