to wonder if everyone elses children really did receive a perfect parents evening report (as posted on facebook)

[grumpalumpgrumped]

Parents evening season and my news feed is full of 'well done little johnny a perfect parents evening'. AIBU to wonder if I'm the only one to get a good but not perfect report for my DS?

Feeling a bit fed up and dare I say it a little disappointed (DS report was not bad at all just honest and I can see what they were saying is about right)

Not sure why it bothers me, just trying to gauge if I'm a terrible mother!

[breatheslowly]

Ludoole - are your FB friends really those closest to you? Mine are a combination of good friends, ex colleagues, people I vaguely knew at university and school friends, most of whom I haven't seen since I left school. No way would I share this stuff on FB. I'd phone my parents and PIL and mention it to my grandparents when I next spoke to them, but that would be it.

[goldenlula]

You see, if I were to say my children had a brilliant school report or parents evening I would be talking relatively , it would not mean that they were top in everything (far from it infact) it would mean that they have been trying their best and behaving well according to the report from the teacher. I never get why, on here, someone being proud of their child must be because they have got the best marks or are pretending they have got the best marks. I am very pleased with ds1 as he has moved up on his reading books today, he is nearly 8 and he has had to work very hard to get to where he is. Some of his peers are reading Roald Dahl, he has just started on books with 10 or so lines on a page and 32 page books. I am proud because he deserves me to be, not because he is some brain of Britain.

[Ludoole]

Breatheslowly

Yes only close family and friends. Im selective!!
And i don't mention actual grades, i just say they've done very well.

[exexpat]

Mine two do almost always get brilliant reports, gushing praise from teachers at parents' evening, and exceed expectations/get As in everything. And precisely because they do, I would never, ever* post anything about their school work on facebook.

My two have always found academic stuff relatively easy, but I know I have friends whose children probably work much harder and will never get the same grades. It's not something I would feel at all comfortable boasting about, so I just tell their grandparents, who are genuinely interested and pleased for them.

[skyofdiamonds]

I had the same post about a perfect parents evening.

The child in question is talks in slang, does not verbally construct sentences correctly (even for a child), gets no academic support from parents, spits in peoples faces, swears, need I say more.

She is the image of her parents. Who speak the same, care not for anything academic, smoke spliffs day and night around them, roll up their spliffs with their kids next to them, kids have low attendance as they frequently cba to take them into school, told the school of their older DD to 'fuck off, she's your problem when in school, we have enough of her at home' when they were concerned about her uniform...

and apparently at the parents evening the child's maths and english is brilliant and the child is perfect

[TwoAndTwoEqualsChaos]

No, BurningBridges IMO just a nicer sort of family/friends ....

Totally, DoubleTrouble.

Anyway, it's not as though DD1 doesn't come home and say who's in the top group or who messes around or who's fastest at running anyway ...... Everyone knows what's what, whatever they post on FB!

[trianglecirclesquare]

I'm with ArbitraryUsername. Thanks to SN and an appalling lack of knowledge from teaching staff, our parent meetings are usually pretty hideous. Our friends and family tell us the school is shite and our DC wonderful. They are right, of course. But I would never lie and say the reports are good... then we wouldn't get the love & support that we all rely on. Aunties tutoring in maths and drama, uncles making them more confident socially, a grandma who teaches them music. If you put the truth on fb, and it's your real friends on there, then you get help and genuine understanding.

[NoComet]

Yes and no
DD2 got truly, cringeworthy, embarrassingly good primary reports and I honestly wished her teacher would find one minor grumble at parents evening.

My dyslexic, social inept, group work allergic and sometimes bullied DD1 lead to rather more interesting and lengthy discussions.

In Y7 DD2's parents evening has ended up discussing DD1 too.

Although this was mainly because DD2 refused to miss gymnastics just to be told what she'd read in her report and without her in tow there was much for the teachers to say.

I should add DD2 is only an angel at school, DD1 is far easier to live with.

As for FB, I don't have an account and I'd only boast if everyone else was.

[NoComet]

Like trianglecirclesquare, many of these interesting discussions would have been unnecessary if they had actually not take until Y6 to a knowledge she was dyslexic.

SN and the old HT was hopeless, the new HT had only ever taught DD2, I did a lot of banging my head on a brick wall.

[trianglecirclesquare]

StarBall, we got the Dx in Y3 - hasn't much improved the parent meetings!

[pointyfangs]

I don't tend to post parent evening results on FB and with reports I'll only post that it was a good one (if it was, obviously) and that we're looking forward to spoiling them a bit in the summer holidays.

A perfect parents' evening to me is one where I get constructive comments - not just buckets of praise, but also concrete suggestions on what the next steps are and how I can support progress at home. So far that's what I've had from both DDs' schools, I know how lucky I am.

This year DD2 is in Yr6 and the school has promised it's going to be 'blunt' at parents' evening next week - their first Yr6 cohort failed to make floor target in SATs by a couple of points last year and now it's no more Mr Nice Guy. We'll see if there are any surprises and take whatever comes on the chin - what else can you do?

[Serialdrinker]

I'm glad Facebook wasn't around when I was at school- I would have hated for my parents to be publicising my personal details- good or bad. I don't think they would have bragged or moaned about me or my siblings so publicly anyway.

It's not your information to share is it?

[havingamadmoment]

I went to 4 meetings for 4 children one after the other. 3 were just yes they are doing well the 4th was a list of problems, complaints and issues as long as my arm, the end of it being that he is being moved into a special needs group. So I would say the first three were great but the parents evening as a whole not so fab!

[MotherofBear]

Mine had a good report, but not perfect either. Nothing bad, but not top-of-the-class-can-do-no-wrong either, like some parents' children seem to have had

[SHarri13]

My DS' teacher said he was a 'busy, trier' hahha, wonder what that means?

[TheAngryCheeseCracker]

Who writes status about parents evenings?!

And you are friends with these people?

Back in my day it was roundrobins. They made my dad so angry, he actually sent one out saying how wonderful life was now that his son was out of prison, and how well Zi hot on with my social worker, and SENT it.

My mum was furious btw.

We did not get many roundrobins after that

[Xochiquetzal]

My DC's teachers like to put everything nicely so yeah, eeryone at their schools got perfect reports until you realise that 'talkative and outgoing' means never shuts up, 'energetic' means fidgetty, 'sensitive' means stroppy etc.

[Fleta]

Yes - my daughter got a perfect parent's evening report at the end of last year. Sorry

I put on FB something along the lines of "very proud of X after parent's evening" but I most certainly didn't go into details.

It wouldn't bother me if people did - I like hearing about how my friend's children are getting on!

[LaGuardia]

Lies, damned lies and Facebook.

[DeWe]

I think that the problem of teachers feeling they have to put everything in a "nice positive" way has increased the problem. Occasionally someone has told me proudly "the teacher said XXX about my dc" and I've thought, "have they not realised that what the teacher was trying to say was actually not a particularly good thing."
We had one teacher who said it as it was, and that was absolutely brilliant, because you knew when they said something was good, it was good.

My observation among my friends (some of my friends having very bright children) is that the ones who tend to post that sort of things have the typically middle of the road, never much in trouble, but never much in the limelight type. So if that's their way of having their dc in the limelight for once, that's fine.
Those who really do have children that are excelling in all areas, don't tend to put it that way.

But the positive spin does have it's own problems. I have had parents I know who are convinced that their dc is soaring at the top of the class because the reports etc. are so positive. At some point they get a shock, whether it's at year 6 sats time, discovery of setting groups or later. And actually I don't think that's fair for the dc or the parents.

Theangrycheese I love your dad's style.

[Worried123456]

I have friends who do this-it makes me laugh. Especially when they are suspiciously quiet on certain days-you wonder if things hadn't gone quite to plan!!

[Fleta]

I find it interesting that the assumption seems to be that if you put something nice about your children on FB you must be lying.

[Owllady]

I always get a mixed report for my youngest. He is, dare I say it spirited

It can't be my parenting because my older boy ios an angel of the highest order, never puts a foot wrong, top of de class

[Vagndidit]

I've been dreading parents evening since DS's nursery teacher sat across from us a few years ago with complete cat's bum mouth, exclaiming, "Well, what can I say? He's full of beans and larger than life."

We knew at that moment, we were screwed and have a child that will forever be a teacher's worst nightmare. My sweet, sweet devil snowflake.

[ArbitraryUsername]

I have never encountered at teacher trying to euphemism a report about DS1. Instead they seem intent on telling me how awful he is and correcting any language I use to make sure it's as negative as possible. And they certainly don't want to discuss what they are (or should be) doing to address all the stuff they find wrong with him. No, he's just supposed to become more organised in school all on his own and stop causing them problems.

It's not even that he's disruptive. He really isn't. He's quiet and keeps to himself and increasingly tries to go unnoticed. Yet they're bloody obsessed with disciplining him over an accumulation of petty shit like what colour his fucking socks are in PE (which seems to change utterly arbitrarily; sometimes they're supposed to be white, sometimes blue. And even more brilliantly, his teacher can only tell he hasn't got the right socks by making him pull up his tracksuit bottoms to show him) or his planner getting in to a bit of a mess in his bag and complaining that his handwriting is hard to read (while refusing to let him use a laptop in class).

Got to love a total deficit model of SN approach. I think they're determined to kill off any possible joy he might derive from his compulsory education.

They also schedule their planned meetings during the school day so you have to take annual leave to bang your head against a brick wall. But, hey, ofsted said they were wonderful so everything must be jolly and dandy.