To ask the school to send home no more blooming Biff and Chip books

[gaelicsheep]

DS is now on Stage 9 of these bloody things and has gone on reading strike. I've asked to school to read them with him at school if they really must be read, as the darned things continue to be so tedious they are putting DS off reading. We will be reading other things at home with him from now on. He is perfectly capable of reading far more interesting and varied books than this drivel.

If you are a teacher, would you think IBU?

Awww do they still do Biff and Chip? Sorry my DD is 2 so I only remember from my youth....I hated them.

Mostly because my nick-name has always been Biff so I used to get the piss taken constantly at school...

I don't think YABU at all to read other things at home if you want to and DS wants to. As long as he fulfils what the school ask then what else he does is up to him.

My DD (now 17) was a brilliant reader at home, but refused to read any books in primary school because they were really boring. Her teacher was amazed when I told her at parents' eve what she was reading with us/by herself!

My DC love B&C and are on Level 7 and 9. However they get to choose their own books so can avoid any they don't like. I'm surprised they are not able to choose their own books at that level tbh. Perhaps you could ask whether this would be a possibility (as a positive step) rather than 'banning' B&C?

Well of course we read lots of other stuff at home, but the point is really the reading books that the school sends home. We have suffered through so many of these things, they are not getting any better (or any harder to be frank, other than a few more words to a few more pages). They are just getting longer and even more tedious to plod through. I just don't think he should now be stuck on Stage 9 readers unless he ploughs through even more of the darned things, when he is clearly capable of reading more worthwhile things. I can't blame him for saying enough is enough!

Jeesums - Stage 9! We're only at 1+ or something.

I can't bear it! Is there a plus for each level? Is this like some kind of Dante's circle of 18 plus rings if Biff, Chip and Kipper hideousness. The only one I like is Floppy

I think you are being a little bit unreasonable. Regardless of what I think of the work, I have always impressed on DD that if homework is set, it must be completed, and theres to be no fuss about it.

However, we also hated Chip and Biff. You have my sympathies. Do his homework reading (10 mins?) then do other stuff at home.

YADNBU! I hated those books with a passion.

I think DS is holding out for free readers (which I think they get when they reach Stage 12 or something?) and that's been keeping him going, but I think he's lost the will now.

My DD gets those books, omg they are awful. So NBU.

See I won't ever force DS to do homework that is actively working against what it's supposed to achieve. If these books are making reading a chore, then they are the wrong books IMO. And what dreadful dreadful books they are.

Feel pity for me. I teach the ones who struggle (reading support in Primary) and have read every single Oxford Reading Tree book many times over in the past 11 years (15 years if you count when dd was reading them - might have had a 2 year break as she'd finished with them in year1).

If he's on stage 9, then there aren't many left to go. If he is reading well at that level, then a book shouldn't take him much longer than 20 minutes to get through so I'd just get on with it.

We love them here, especially Floppy

DS1 makes me get all the new phonics ones out of the library so that we can get through more than the 3-4 a week that school send home.

We do read other things as well.

I can't force him though, what's the point in that? He's 6, he's hard to reason with.

And really it shouldn't be a rite of passage to be struggled through should it? The aim of school readers, once a child can clearly read - which DS can very well - is surely to instill a love of reading?

God hate them too. Hate the magic key ones especially. It's like they ran out of stories so introduced the magic key so they had licence to print any old tosh. My DD's last one had Biff turn i to a bear and go to some bear convention ffs.

I remember one of the Biff and Chip books featuring Jeremy Beadle Very random.

We got totally fed up with them too.

That was Kipper who turned into a bear and take his teddies to Switzerland - the Kidnappers.

and WHY are they called BIFF, CHIP and KIPPER? These are not names. I can't even see that its some important phonics reason

I love Biff and Chip!

DS1 only had Biff and Chips for the first three years of school. He never once read any of them. He learned to read perfectly well. Very well, in fact.

I'm now trying to remember which book has Beadle in it.

Oh my poor fried brain.

Just a question, those of you who love these books - how many of them have you had to suffer?

I love a bit of Chiff and Bipp. I cried at the one where the mum and dad propose to each other at their 10 year anniversary party.

WAIL!

I suppose the alternative would be to send them back and say he's read them, but that is lying and I told DS (who suggested this) that it is better to be honest and ask for something else instead.

And one of the very first words he learned to read in reception was.... concrete.

If I sent a child into reception in 2013, however, and they came home with Biff and Chip I would be having a word. (with myself for sending them to that school).