To expect my daughters teachers to suggest supportive strategies when they ask to meet with me?

[Bushmillsbabe]

I was called in by my year 5 daughters teachers yesterday, they raised concerns that she isn't doing as well as expected as they feel she isnt always as focused as she should be - she isnt disruptive, just not always 100% on task. Absolutely fair enough, and I thanked them for involving me/updating me. I asked what strategies they could suggest to support her in school to try to bring her up to the expected level, and I would follow these through at home. Their response was 'oh we are far to busy to do anything just for her', we just wanted to tell you.
So I suggested us as parents buying her homework books in line with their curriculum so we could go over what she learnt to help re-enforce it, but could they tell me which pages we should be doing each week - no, they dont have enough time. I suggested we would pay for tutoring but could they email tutor 2 lines each week on which topics they were covering. Nope, not enough time for that either.

Now, I fully appreciate how busy teachers are, but there are only 17 in her class, and there is a teacher, a student teacher and a teaching assistant in there full time. But what on earth is the point in pulling me in to tell me for 45 minutes that my daughter is a bit 'daydreamy' without suggesting a positive way forward.

I of course have spoken with her to say she needs to focus better even if it's a topic which she isn't as interested in, it's still important to her learning and respectful to the teachers to try her best.

But beyond that, I'm at a loss.

What does that have to do with it being a state primary. I wouod be a parent whether my daughter was in private or state, so I dont quite get your point?

I am trying to look at options to support her, but I wish to work with her teachers to do this collaboratively rather than buying random workbooks which may or may not help her. They are the experts, if children could just learn all they needed from workbooks then it devalues the role of a teacher surely? It's like using Google to search your medical symptoms vs seeing an actual Dr, it will give you answers but probably not the right ones for you.

Can't you tell what topics she is covering by looking in her books, and by asking her? Then talk to her about the work and go through anything she's finding difficult or getting poor marks for. A tutor would pretty much know what they will be teaching in school, I would have thought, the curriculums are fairly uniform. Do some extra reading of books she likes, practise spellings and arithmetic if she is willing, but don't make it too much of a chore.

Her books don't come home unfortunately, i have asked if they could send some home on a Friday, maybe maths one weeks, English another etc, but was told no. She does lack confidence in her learning after some really negative experiences with her teacher last year, who was asked to leave by the school, so gets upset when asked what she is struggling with. Prior to that she was really engaged and doing very well in her learning.

We do practice spellings, read together, do sums challenges, but I feel like I'm making it up and it's hard to know if doing the right things as I'm not an expert.
Tutoring we will do definitely

So you have 2 issues

1. lack of focus
2. catching up to recover from lack of focus

Does your school give any curriculum overview, even if only every half term? That could help. Or just CGP books for the right age. Or ask you DD each day what they have done. Or ask the parent of a more focused child to tell you what they have done.

But really the lack of focus needs to be thought about as if that could be understood it could maybe be resolved or adjusted for.

It is a class half the size of normal, with more adults. They should be able to be more helpful somehow.

They share topics, and we do some general stuff around those topics to improve breadth of knowledge, vocabulary etc, some BBC bitesize and oak national academy bits.
But when she talks me through how they have learnt certain maths topics, they don't make much sense to me, it's very different to how I learnt them so am of limited help. I got 10 A's at gcse, 4 A's at A level so I'm reasonably academic but some of the ways they do things seem so counter Intuitive, but they must have a reason and she needs to do it the way they want.

Having read your updates, @Bushmillsbabe, to be honest the school sounds crap, and it sounds like your DD’s experience with her teacher last year has been detrimental to her learning.

I would get a tutor and muddle on through to the end of primary and not bother too much with what the teaching staff have to say. If it was year 3 or 4 I would move her but prob not much point now.