To object to this policy?

[Skullyton]

This year the school have introduced a policy that if the children don't read at home at least 3 times a week they will lose their play time!

Now, i read to my two every night, and they always take turns to read me a page of whatever story we've picked, but i can be forgetful about remembering to record it in their reading diaries, DS has significant disabilities and SEN and remembering to write what he read that night is really somewhat low on my list of priorities, and he cant write it in himself.

AIBU to think this policy is unfair. The school know me, he's in yr 4 now, they KNOW we read EVERY night (part of his routine so i couldn't stop if i wanted) and his reading level, despite his SEN is actually 2yrs ahead of his peers!

He also has it in his IEP that they are not allowed to remove his break time or they have to offer an alternative movement break.

DD (yr2) is not covered by that, but is equally at risk of me not writing in her planner.

I really object to this policy, its not fair to punish the children for their parents failures!

Something for doing x

Not sobering sorry

What a ridiculous policy. Kids who have parents who care will read, kids whose parents don't give a shit will have another shitty element added to their life.

I'd have had no break time with this policy. My father would rather drink and/or shout at us (on a good day) and my mother couldn't read so that would have been our playtimes.

Get a stamp that says 'Fred read well tonight' (I have a
Trodat Printy 4.0 Typo 4911 but can't link to website - google it)
And stamp it on every line of the reading record. Then add in dates from here until Christmas

stupidity. punishing children for having parents that work fulltime/don't care/ill parents/siblings with disabilities/children with disabilities/insert any other reason that is not the child's fault.

Lie

Is it actually a punishment?

Ie what do they do during this missed playtime? If they are just kept in to stare at the rules then - yes - I disagree with it. But if they are kept in for 5 mins at the beginning / end of playtime in order to read to the teacher (with lots of praise about how well they are doing) then it seems a sensible thing in order to give them the 1:1 reading attention that they don't get at home.

tbh, i feel like just writing
"WE READ EVERY SINGLE NIGHT" in red felt tip across the page.

Hi again Skully

Ofsted have decided all things must be recorded. Schools are trying to get parents to share the burden. It's beyond stupid. I do feel sorry for the teachers who I guess are in it for the joy of supporting learning not the reaching of arbitrary (moving) targets. But not so sorry that I feel I need to document my kids every literary or educational input on their behalf.

My older kids are mostly beyond the stage of reading out loud and read to themselves every night and are happily able to fill in their own reading logs, sometimes with some quite amusing commentary and critique. We also read together as a family a couple of times a week and all enjoy it. When they were little and with DS2 we share/d good books every night. Not the crappy reading scheme ones though as I didn't want to put him off for life. So his book is adorned with similar red pen, an approach which seems to have been accepted.

Schools aren't trying to get parents to 'share the burden', it is both the schools and the parents job to teach the child to read. It's not a burden.

Tbh, I think if the school has brought in a rule like this, then it's likely to be in response to a significant number of parents not reading with their children. A few parents might forget to sign the book, but I can't imagine that a few occasional forgotten signatures across a whole school will have prompted something as drastic as this. The children in the school (as a whole - not digging at you OP) have probably not made enough progress with reading because of a lack of parental support, so they are having to do something to make the parents care and to get the children to have some influence in their learning.

If children will be reading at playtime then it's not really a punishment, it's in their best interests at the end of the day. Many of them will probably enjoy the extra attention.

I agree that teaching a child to read is a responsibility shared by school and parent. TBH I see it more as my job than theirs and thus we do a lot of reading. For the pleasure of it.

The burden that schools are trying to share, IMO, is the documentation. Not the learning. The school has probably not been able to evidence sufficient documentation of parental engagement to satisfy some Ofsted criteria or other.

I was once told that my DD2 who was only able to attend school part time (with support from the relevant professionals), needed to be there more, not in order to learn more, but in order that the teacher could see her performing in all areas and complete the correct records. The teacher actually told me that I was causing her a problem because she couldn't keep complete records.

So sod what was best for my DD. The documentation was the first priority

It is now so ingrained in the education system, some teachers are unaware that they have lost sight of why they are there in the first place.

That's a fair and probably very accurate point MerylStrop!