To mention this to the teacher re parent volunteer

[Saladeeta]

I don't know what is the protocol with parent volunteers but I felt unhappy with the following situation.

Parent of dds friend volunteers and checks some of her work- its a reading test. Parent texts me to say she thought dd had memorised all words, not reading them. She put it nicely, but I found it a bit odd. She then wrote a comment about having completed the task in the home school communication book. Which means she has read all through the numerous communications between me and her teacher. All friendly, nothing embarrassing, but I felt uncomfortable. Is this th I norm with parent volunteers or should I mention it to the teAcher, that o would prefer only staff to use the book?

At our school you aren't allowed to help out in your own child's year group.

You also have to sign a confidentiality agreement before you even get to the stage of having a DBS check.

It's possible that the volunteer in the OP might have been told to write in the communication book but there is no way that she should have been sending texts about what goes on in the classroom.

I would speak to the teacher.

Its innappropriate. As a teacher, i would be very annoyed! She is there to help on a task, not check through children's work then text to and make a comment about that child's learning. Its totally not on. I think the school have to know about that. She will not be asked to help again.

She was wrong to text you, I never comment on any of the children I listen to read to the parents. One parent said to me once that did I think her son was a lovely reader, I avoided actually answering. I do rewrite in the reading diaries when I listen to children read, that way parents know that they have read at school and what page they read to. We do not have seperate home/school books any problems are either put in a letter or spoken directly to the teacher.

I agree the text is a bit odd, can't see the point of her sending it, but are you sure she's been given any guidance or confidentiality policy? I have started volunteering to listen to children read in DS1's class recently and I have had no guidance or anything like that. I listen to the child read, chat to them briefly about something in the book to see if they have understood what they have read and then write a (positive) comment in the reading journal. I have once mentioned t someone that I had listened to their child read, but only to say I was really impressed by her as her reading was so good. it sounds like the volunteer was perhaps just getting a bit carried away with her role. I would ignore tbh as your child still gets the benefit of reading, even if she is a bit power-hungry.

The issue isn't that the "kind volunteer gave up her time to read".

The issue is that the "kind volunteer" decided to speak to a parent without consultation with the teacher, which means she either didn't feed back the issue to the teacher or did, but decided she knew better.

Just because someone volunteers doesn't mean they can just ride roughshod over the rules.

And just because someone volunteers doesn't mean they do it out of the kindness of their hearts. Some do it because it benefits them (experience, references etc).

Also this time it's "just" a comment about reading. What other parts of the confidentiality rules has she decided doesn't apply to her?

There seems to be 100% agreement that she shouldn't have texted you, OP.

What surprises me is that the majority of posters give no weight to the parent volunteer's public spiritedness in helping other people's children learn to read. Even the text, albeit misguided, shows she is making a real effort to add value.

When I used to volunteer to help in class (not my DC's class btw), some parents didn't listen to their children when they were learning to read. Teachers are too busy. TA's can't give enough time either. So, without parent volunteers I don't know what would happen to those children. Yet everyone is just so hung up on the mistake this volunteer made rather than acknowledging the good she does and working out how to quietly arrange for her to be reminded (or have explained for the first time) what the boundaries are.

To be honest, i think its a form of self-entitlement.

I don't care what her reasons are for helping out. She could be public spirited, she could be bored, want to be a TA or just be really nosy. Her motivation is irrelevant. It's simply not her role to feed back anything to the parents of the children she hears read - good or bad.

Yes she's public spirited but in the same way that volunteer drivers for hospital are checked and have rules about their conduct, so do they! We have to have rules

She clearly doesn't understand the boundaries that go with this voluntary role which means she either hasn't had adequate training or is choosing to ignore her training. In either case, the school needs to be informed.

I don't really care about her motives for helping out - that's her decision and doing something voluntarily doesn't give you the right to overstep the mark in any direction whatsoever.

She clearly doesn't understand the boundaries that go with this voluntary role which means she either hasn't had adequate training or is choosing to ignore her training. In either case, the school needs to be informed.

I don't really care about her motives for helping out - that's her decision and doing something voluntarily doesn't give you the right to overstep the mark in any direction whatsoever.

I was a volunteer parent reader at a local primary school. I was asked to write a comment either in the reading record or home contact book (which did have parent/teacher notes). I wasn't specifically told but guessed that I shouldnt discuss it with parents (so no texting for sure). But if a child talked to me when they were with their parent I would introduce myself and say that I read with year x and thoroughly enjoyed it. I felt that was better so the parent knew who I was. What annoyed me most though was that I would give up 1/2 day, took it seriously and would provide feedback to the teacher which was then promptly ignored. If you had 6-7 children who were all having the same issue in comprehension, surely you would be pleased as their teacher if a supposedly responsible adult let you know.

Iwantanewcar - I used to volunteer too, and give feedback to the teacher. Maybe only 20 times over four years of half days though. The teacher always responded by checking what i'd told her for herself.

I suspect this is the first sign of whether the teacher is any good at her job or not.

No one told me at first what was expected of me, but it was intuitively obvious that as a parent you wouldn't want another parent telling you about your child, so I didn't.

I wasn't in the class in a professional capacity, and my profession has nothing to do with education, but I brought the same professional standards to the unpaid work I did in the classroom. I suspect most people use their experiences to figure out how to conduct themselves.

Maybe the parent volunteer in the OP doesn't realise its wrong to text a parent and the school should have explained it to her before she started so there was no doubt. However, whatever has gone before, she needs to be told now, but not in a scolding way i.e. not with the opening line "There's been a complaint..."

I totally and utterly agree with var.

Entitled. If anyone read with my child I would be bloody grateful. I find it mindblowingly dull listening to mine read let alone giving up my time to listen to other peoples kids (bad awful mother I know). Then getting sniped at by that child's parents! Just incredible.

This happened at my father school. Lovely French teacher in her own time ran a brilliant exchange programme one parent complained about something daft like the host family had a dog. Teacher so offended she stopped running the scheme. So that was that. Well done that parent.

Kerala - I find it very sad that you find listening to your children reading "mind-blowingly dull", but that's by the by.

The issue is not that this woman is giving of her time to assist in the classroom - that's great. It's the fact that she is raising an issue around the child's learning in a personal text to the parent. This is not appropriate. Now it's probably that she hasn't been given definitive guidelines and protocols to follow, but if there are any issues with the child 9not that it's sounds like there is!) then the class teacher should be raising them with the parent his or herself. It should not be a parent helper, who does not have the training or the experience to make these assessments.

OP - definitely raise it with the teacher, express your concerns, but highlight that you do not want her removed from the role, but just want ot ensure appropriate boundaries are in place.

It is tragic. Very very sad. I think social services should be informed. Obviously I PRETEND to enjoy it. Does everyone really sit there misty eyed and agog as you plod through Biff and his flipping key? Just me then...

Luckily my two are brilliant readers (though rubbish at maths). My friends DD however really struggled and it was the much maligned parent volunteers who worked with her and saw her through a difficult period reading wise enabling her to keep up with her peers - she's flying now.

So if you volunteer you're allowed to do whatever you like - is that really your logic?

Don't be so ridiculous and don't use ridiculous phrases like 'much-maligned reading volunteers'. Let me help you out. Reading volunteers: GOOD. One particular reading volunteer who thinks it's appropriate to make a 'professional' (and WRONG) negative comment about one of the children she's listened to on an unofficial channel outside school: NOT GOOD.

I volunteer in primary school, in my DS' class, and would never text a parent about anything that happened in class. I wouldn't discuss it with them or any other parent either - it's up to the teacher to tell them how their child is doing, not me.

This is really out of order, and unfortunately I do think the odd volunteer does it to have a nosey round their child's class - I know one that admits as much. Most do not - we just have a bit of free time and want to help out.

Definitely tell the school.

Kerala, are you reading any of the responses on this thread? How would you feel about a "kind parent" coming up to you in the playground discussing your child's progress in reading and having access to a book containing comments between you and the teacher? Volunteers are just that - volunteers, not teachers. From where does she get the idea that the OP's daughter is memorising, not reading? If she has concerns, it should be passed to the teacher to deal with.

I volunteer at my DS's school, though not in his class, and I would never contact parents, discuss anything about their children or school, or look through communication books.

I'd definitely bring it up with the teacher, and if no luck with them then the head.

I taught Ds1 to read. There's no way anyone else did because he didn't go to school and I was the only one who spoke English to him and could put a book in his hands. So, I definitely taught him to read.

When I was reading with other people's children in school, I was a parent volunteer not a teacher, but the way I spoke to the children and guided them was identical to what I'd done with Ds1. I think I was teaching them, if teaching means that they were learning through the attention I was giving them, even though I was not The Teacher.

That doesn't mean that I would contact the parents to say what I thought. They wouldn't have wanted the conversation and neither would I.

BTW, yes, you can tell if a child is reciting from memory or actually reading. Abd Yes, reciting from memory isn't always a bad thing because it makes it easy to help the child make the link between the words they are saying and what is written on the page.

I am also a parent volunteer and even though I am now allowed to assist in my DD's class, they are a mixed class of two years (Y1 and Y2) and I would never offer to assist any of DD's year. Plus I'm sure I wouldn't be allowed.

I was specifically told that I couldn't discuss ANYTHING that happened at the school and I am extremely friendly with most of the parents, certainly of the DCs in DD's class. All of them know where I stand on confidentiality and so even if I do read with some of their DCs, they wouldn't even ask me how their DC is getting on because they know I would just direct them straight back to the teacher. I would feel uncomfortable being approached about it too and they know that so I just don't think they would. I've been doing this for a year now and no-one has approached me yet.

I do write in the Home Diaries and on occasion have to look back through the book to see what book they've read previously to make sure I don't duplicate. But volunteer or not, I see it as a professional role that I'm doing and I take it very seriously.

This happened at my father school. Lovely French teacher in her own time ran a brilliant exchange programme one parent complained about something daft like the host family had a dog. Teacher so offended she stopped running the scheme. So that was that. Well done that parent.

Odd that you find the parent unfair, rather than seeing the reality that the "lovely" French teacher was so thin skinned, that someone makes one complaint (about something that sounds utterly justifiable. Perhaps the parent was not informed that the host family would have a dog, and their child was frightened of dogs), and she throws a tizz and cancels the whole thing. She sounds childish and spiteful. The parent sounds, well, normal.

I don't like parent volunteers for this reason. I know they're like gold dust but schools too often don't make things clear to them....I had a woman repeatedly talk to me about DD2s progress whilst we were standing in the yard waiting for our older children!

She had no idea of protocol at all!

Some schools (e.g. ours) seem to take it on faith that volunteers will understand about and apply confidentiality rules, without needing to be told what those rules are.
School should be told. I told our school. Nothing happened. So if another parent volunteer at our school breaches confidentiality, I will be mainly cross at the school rather than at the volunteer.

I volunteer too and am currently sitting on an uncomfortable spot. My friend's DC was fine with reading - IMO just about ready to move up a level - until ran out of phonics books at the right level. Was given other books that encourage guessing/contain lots of not-yet-decodable words. Four months later this kid is still on the same level, and is guessing lots (when reading with me at school). TA has also noted and reprimanded the child for guessing. I fed back to teacher that the child was guessing, and aired the thought that perhaps it would help if the child was given books they were actually able to decode - and that maybe they would manage the next level books if they were decodable.
An (estimated) 25 non-decodable books later, nothing has happened (no teacher nor TA has heard the child read) except for the child's mum, my friend, mentioning to me how child was going off reading. I want to tell her so much... suggest her getting some phonics books at the right level and read those instead of the school books; suggest she asks the teacher how they can work on 'not guessing' which might prompt the teacher to take action or at least review the situation; suggest she asks the teacher if they can 'try' the next level up; but am keeping quiet. It's not my place. At the same time I feel like I am letting the poor kid down. Arrgh.

Before I volunteered, a different friend was talking to me about her child's reading (didn't understand why child was told to work on X when in her opinion child was solid on X) and I felt no compunction about advising her to make an appointment to see the teacher, which she did, and teacher reviewed and found that the child was indeed solid on X and moved the child on. Now I volunteer I find it much harder to say anything to anyone because I can't separate what I know from my volunteering, from my general knowledge and understanding of how things work. It's not always easy, this volunteering thing. And perhaps it gets harder the more engaged and involved you are.

Y1 - I feel your pain... Although for me it's a different situation. I have a friend whose youngest DD has just started at the school in YR. She's a really bubbly confident girl, but unfortunately in the classroom this has come across as bossy and consequently the other children don't want to play with her and in the classroom when they are 'learning through play' she is always on her own.

I know as a parent I would want to know that, but as a volunteer I cannot tell the parent and as I am there specifically to work with the readers I can't mention anything to the teacher either. At playtimes she plays with her Y3 sister so it's unlikely to be picked up...