Disappointed with school this year

[Summerluvin1]

My daughter is 8 and in year 4. Her primary school was a lovely little school, her older sibling also went there, never had a problem. We got told before they broke up in July that the school was turning into an academy. No problem with that as older siblings attends an academy secondary school and it's brilliant. Well what a shock we've had. They stopped all the homework they used to get, which wasn't a lot but basic spellings and maths, they've got rid of the learning journal and replaced it with a reading logbook which has not been checked once by the teacher, we used to get a lovely newsletter saying what all the kids had done with photos and stars of the week and value winners which was motivating for the kids, they've scrapped it all. I'm so disappointed, it's not the school it was, are most academy primary schools this lax? It just seems like they've given up putting the effort in.

But all of those things you’ve mentioned cost money. Paper planners? Ridiculously expensive. Log book? Cheaper.

I’m assuming the lovely newsletter was a paper copy. In colour. A) the cost of staff time = huge but also the cost of producing that, for every child, weekly, is massive!

they don’t have the cash (which is probably why they’ve become an academy) and they can’t afford the extras any more.

The newsletters are rarely motivating for the kids.

comes under the heading of a “nice to have” rather than core business which is education.

There is a fair amount of evidence to show that homework for primary age children is a waste of time.
What was the point of the learning journal?
Weekly newsletters sound time consuming and expensive. Kids don’t need a newsletter to know who was star of the week etc.. they can be told in class.
The newsletter was for the parents not the kids.
Has the head changed!
As a primary teacher myself and a parent I don’t think any of these changes are that big a deal.

No tbh the newsletter was by email so that seems just lazy that they've stopped that. I agree it's for my own preference but why stop the spellings etc? I've started setting her my own now.

Yes head has changed, and not for the better!

Our primary school is in an academy and has homework, log books, newsletter, stars of the week etc.

Looks like it varies.

I do agree that homework is a waste of time however and research shows that it does not improve outcomes. I hate ours and wish the school would do away with it.

A lot of the research evidence is that learning spellings doesn’t seem to actually help kids spell properly.

my school (secondary) recently got rid of all homework for year 7 and 8 except maths and MFL which are via websites and automatically marked and moved to reading logbooks.

the thinking behind this is that reading a lot of one of the best ways to improve vocabulary and expression and as a school we’d rather focus on that and make sure kids are reading than have other homeworks.

it was popular with both students and teachers.

I think a weekly school newsletter, DIGITAL, is appropriate for elementary kids, and middle/high school a newsletter from the school is much more realistic. Not getting one at all when the kid is so young is kind of strange.

The teacher not checking her log book? Teacher is probably busy with 30+ other students. As long as your child is doing the reading, that's all that matters. Don't complain about that.

If you want more involvement, do it yourself. Don't expect the school to do it all for you.

Presumably getting rid of the newsletter has taken a job off somebody’s plate. Aside from these minor things what makes the new head a poor change?

No tbh the newsletter was by email so that seems just lazy that they've stopped that.

It takes staff precious time to put newsletters together on top of their teaching week, no matter if they are printed or emailed out.

I'd rather they were focusing on teaching than writing stuff for the newsletter.

As a teacher, I’d say these sound like measures designed to cut back on teacher workload, so they can concentrate on the important thing: teaching. Believe me, schools are rarely ‘lax’. More likely the new head came in and found teachers crumbling under the weight of admin, and has helpfully removed some faffy elements. The quality of the experience in the classroom and the playground is what matters. Please also be assured that reading with your primary age children, having conversations with them, doing interesting things together, are excellent home learning - reading being the most important - regardless of whether or not it is recorded in a log book (and then checked/data entered by the teacher).

I really don't think that homework at primary school is beneficial, so I'd be happy with that. I'm also not a fan personally of stars of the week etc.

But you are not being unreasonable if you feel you aren't being communicated with about the changes as a parent, or have a feeling that the school's caring ethos has changed- can you talk to the class teacher? Have class teachers changed/do they seem happy?

All of the things you’ve mentioned take teacher time, time to contribute to newsletter, set and mark homework etc

Most primary teachers are run ragged. I guess the theory is this will free up time to better plan lessons.

Why do you think teachers should be taking photos, writing news articles and putting it all into a newsletter format? Do you really consider that an important use of our time? What could we be doing, to the benefit of your child, instead of that?

A lot of academies focus on trying to foster intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic. Everything you mentioned is an extrinsic motivator.

There’s limited evidence that homework is all that beneficial at primary school. Most schools will tell you they set it because parents expect it.

I don’t see how either of these things makes a school less academic.

Our head sends newsletters by email but weekly is a big ask (ours are roughly once a month).

I do think its poor to cut all home school comms though.