I think the teacher is wanting to see me about what I said on Facebook...

[TruckLoadOfSubtleGlitter]

Do I have a leg to stand on?

One of the TA's has been disregarding my 7yo DC's hard work and he missed out on 'extra play' despite doing the work asked of him (I can go into more detail if needed).

This is reading that is done at home and written in a book for school.

The TA was counting the reads, in fact totally ignoring most of them.

I bought it up with her, she tried to explain which made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I played it over in my mind for 2 days and did not understand why they weren't counting all of my sons reads and why he was missing out. Reading doesn't come easy to him, he would rather not do it, it's a battle every day. Yet we do it, we record it, but it's not being ticked off by the TA (some is, some is ignored).

Still not understanding why 50% of it is ignored, I went on to the Facebook class page. It's a closed group of 20-30 parents. A closed and private group.

I posted a picture of his book and asked them to help me make sense of it. I don't understand??
Some other parents couldn't understand either.
I said I was really disappointed in the person who marked it. That I would mark it for them and add up his reads and do their job so they could see in black and white what work he had done. I haven't mentioned any names. It's happened to other kids too and they are missing out on 'extra play' as well despite doing the hard work.

DS has been in tears about this several times.

It wasn't an issue for the first 3 years at school and it wasn't a an issue for the 7 years my other DS was at this school. It's an issue now.

Now they have called me in for a meeting at 3pm - I cant make it today but I'm almost certain this is what it's about.
I think someone has reported me being annoyed with them and posting asking for advice about it on Facebook.

But surely I can ask for advice and express my disappointment (the only negative word I used, I was very careful!) no names mentioned?
I need to know if I've done something wrong here.

I'm still seriously fucked off them them so I held back what I really thought and just saved that information for my husband.

AIBU?

Also, who has the time to record every day! I don't get home from work until 6.30, then start cooking tea, bath time etc. My son is lucky if we read twice a week!!

You weren't asking the question and saying you would do the TA's work for her on any old forum, it was specifically that classes parents and even though you never named anyone they all knew who you were berating. This type of negative gossiping doesnt help anyone, especially the children in the class.

Its obvious the issue is you are not jotting down his reading each night and they dont go back and count readings entered late. They have loads of jotters to mark quickly and don't have time to go back over the previous week to see if any parent has retrospectively filled in. It would takes seconds to mark it as read daily so just get into the habit and if it is then still wrong then you have a point to go and see the teacher (not complain publically to all the class parents on FB).

tbh I think you should apologise for the FB posts, the whole situation has occurred because you cant follow a simple request. It is a shame your son is upset and being punished due to your actions.

We always had to record homework every night - I thought that was normal. Sign the homework book to say they've done it and write a comment (eg tried to do sums but couldn't understand x or only read pages 3-7 or didn't understand spellings )

LOL at invoking GDPR 😂

Also, who has the time to record every day! I don't get home from work until 6.30, then start cooking tea, bath time etc. My son is lucky if we read twice a week!!

I think most working parents' schedule is like that...

Nicely - may I suggest doing the reading in the mornings. Your son is the one who will benefit - once or twice a week isn't really enough.

You are being utterly ridiculous and your child is losing out because of your refusal to do what everyone else does. And then bitching about the staff member who is just doing their job on Facebook. Horrible.

JennieP77 home at 6.30 then the first thing you could do is sit down with a cuppa and listen to your child read for max 5mins. Perfect bonding time and homework all rolled into one!! Again not that hard!!

Personally I hate the whole reading record thing full stop. It turns reading into a chore not a pleasure. I have always read with my DCs, we have shelves of books, and they all love reading and ask for books every Christmas and birthday. They love snuggling up of an evening under the duvet and reading a book together.
But filling in a reading record turn it into another job to be done... that’s my personal opinion anyway.
Also as others have pointed out the children with tumultuous home lives get punished as they are highly unlikely to get their reading record filled in.

If you've got time to start a thread or post on Facebook , you've got time to record the reading. It takes 30 seconds.
I do agree the child shouldn't be punished though.

@ninjawarriorsocks

How do you suggest we know whether to give a younger child a new book or not?

Parents and teachers also record words children have struggled with and their thoughts about the book. It helps us perfect our support of the students.

As others have pointed out, it is a life lesson to work within stated deadlines.
The deadline is Thursday, so you or your DC ensures the record is ready for marking on Thursday.
When he's older, he's going to have to hand in homework on an agreed date. He will face consequences if he doesn't hand it in until a week later.
Simple.

@FuckingYuleLog So you have time to write on a whiteboard but not in his book?

This^

Instead of going to write it on a whiteboard so you can re-write it in his book on Saturday, why don't you just write it straight in his book? It can't be that often that he comes home without it. On those occasions, by all means write it in his book the next day. If it means so much to you why not put "Record book did not come home on X day but he did XYZ reading". This way I am sure the TA would understand and tick the boxes.

OP can you please, for the love of Christ, stop using "reads" as a noun?

However - criticising school staff on FB (even anonymously, even in a closed group, even if the staff member has done something wrong) is never a good idea.

Also how had it not occured to you before not to just note it down ON THE DAY HE READS? Surely that is the most obvious and reliable thing to do?

They probably want to resolve it since you’ve escalated it to the fb page. As a teacher, I’d really hate this and would never ignore parents until they felt they had no option but to fb post about it.... but as a parent I know not all teachers are like me and some are not willing to work reasonably with parents (thankfully none of my children’s teachers but some I have worked with!).

So I think it was a nuclear move and only you can know whether you had spoken sufficiently beforehand to the teacher to justify it.

It being on a private page is better than posting all over the shop but still makes the teacher look bad. That might be unfair if they don’t know anything about this and the TA hasn’t told them.

You should never have made this public on Facebook and escalated it this way. I feel sorry for you DC who’ll suffer for your actions. You did the wrong thing.

i think the teacher is wanting to see me about what I said on Facebook

Sorry, but this made me laugh. I was pleased to later read you’re not cowering in the corner afraid of being in trouble 🤣

To be honest, in your situation I’d be furious, on two counts. Firstly that anyone with half a brain can see, at a glance, that he’s done enough reading for the MONTH to deserve the reward and secondly that instead of applying some logic to the marking at the time then asking you to do it differently (whatever weirdness they want you to comply with) they deprived a 7 yo of his treat. Nasty, pathetic, pedantic and utterly bloody ridiculous.

...oh and about being asked in to see the teacher without any explanation, you’re not 7.

Of course, it might not be about this, but it’s a great opportunity to address it! Let us know how you get on...

Gosh even I get why you haven't got the marks - she is ticking the books your son has read since she last marked ie in the week prior to marking - if you write down readings from previous weeks (that have already been summed up) they won't be counted. Why is that so hard for you to understand? We all have to do it and we all have jobs and other children - it's really not hard

He's not being punished though, he's just not being rewarded.

OP could you try it this way: child gets hold of reading book, and you write the date and the title (or dittos) while they're doing that. Then they read for the suggested length of time (or number of pages). Meanwhile, you put on your signature and the page he started on. At the end, you complete the record with the page number he stopped on.

Job done. Takes no extra time at all.

We have a similar system in our school. 25 entries equals a new colour band, so the more reading sessions your child does the sooner they will move onto the next. The reward is a certificate showing which colour they now are, which is probably not as attractive as extra playtime, but there you are. In the meantime, your child gets better at reading and spelling, adds new words to their vocabulary and learns better comprehensive skills from written text. Everyone's a winner!

And I don't believe your child doesn't know what day the record gets counted. Ds takes his in to school every day but he knows it's Monday they get checked and new certificates issued. If he didn't, it would have been obvious after the first week's records had been counted. Like: "Ah, I see this has been marked. I expect it will get counted again on the same day next week." It wouldn't take me months to get my head round that, and I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer by any means.

Posting on FB about it: YABU
Not asking CT to clarify: YABU
Expecting TA to mark it retrospectively: YABU
Hearing dc read daily: YANBU, especially as he doesn't like it

If it is a closed FB group I would question data protection and how they came to have knowledge of your post. It’s a 2-way Street and you are entitled to your privacy.

We have a similar system at school.

It doesn't actually matter what day the book is marked.

The books are checked, ticked and counted. The next time, the books are checked, ticked and counted from the last count.

It's no good filling in bits from before the count, because then it looks like you aren't doing the reading but are just writing anything down. Especially when you read every day. Believe it or not, some parents will write that their child read one page a day instead of saying that they read 7 pages on one day, because the system counts DAYS of reading, not pages or minutes. So if you fill in that your child read every day, but you're backfilling from before the last count, it's very suspicious.

It could be worse- one of my children has a Christmas based reading reward that needs to be filled in EVERY DAY, if it's not filled in or not handed in one day then you can't say you forgot and write it in after- the pressure is getting to me! But at least it's one way of making sure you check your child's bag every day and get the reading reward thing out, and if you've remembered to do that then you'll probably remember to read with your child too!

well on the one hand its entirely ridiculous that a grown adult (the TA) can't just add in the previous weeks reading to the scores for that week once the information is updated.

On the other hand school is ALL about enforcing pointless rules and teaching the population to act like sheep if they don't want to lose their playtime. Apparently this extends not only to students but parents too.

So very very glad we operate outside the UK school system in an educational environment where the actual progress of the student is held as more important than the box checking abilities of the parent.

@user1457017537

Haha. Love it.

Tell us more about the data protection. Who should be questioned? Facebook?

Private group. Members only. Not set to “Public”. Shouldn’t be sharing third party information. Take your pick.