So this week my youngest DD's private prep school has an Ofsted inspection. On the whole, it's a good school and we are generally happy with it.
That said, for most of her time there over the last three years, both she and her friends,(and most of their parents), have all insisted that the school plays favourites with some kids. It's actually blatant to most of us parents too, to be honest in terms of plays, awards, shows etc.
We all suck it up and say nothing - it seems a weakness of primary schools in general that staff actively prefer some kids over others. Ok, our kids just need to suck it up too and move on, right?
But today, our kids had to fill in a form for Ofsted. Several of them wanted to indicate that they didn't feel they were treated fairly and that this impacted on their confidence. But their teacher forced them to change their answers. He watched them do it and refused to move on until they had said what he wanted them to say.
You may remember that I posted a couple of weeks ago about how 10/12 of my daughter's classmates had got prizes at prize giving and only 2 had not (including my DD and her friend), despite having had glowing reports from this male teacher. He shouted at them and told them to stop whinging, said they needed to work even harder if they wanted to get a prize. Thing is, my daughter and her friend are pulling out all the stops as it is and working at their utmost capacity, and their reports testified this. Both of them have additional educational needs which are frankly just not being met. And we are paying for this???
End of the day, I think that kids should be allowed a voice. What kind of message is it to tell kids that they can't speak for themselves about something, but that anything they say is mediated, moderated and distorted through a teacher???