to beleive that getting a lower mark in a school assessment does not require sanctions?

[OrmRenewed]

Am a bit taken aback by this.

Colleague at work was chatting about his eldest boy at school. He does to the same school as DS1 but is a year behind. He's very bright and has always done well academically. Apparently this year he got a 6c in a science assesment just before Christmas but only a 5a for the last one. Dad insists that must be because he isn't trying hard enough and has taken his laptop away from him and given him a long and angry lecture about working hard (he told me this as if it was a good thing ). Now he hasn't had the child's report yet - on that they give them marks for effort and attitude amongst other things, as well as the final level they have reached. He's just worried his latest level will be too low and the boy will go down a set.

AIBU to think that 'effort' is what should be rewarded or punished, not results, and that he should at least have waited till he'd seen the report and spoken to the teacher to see why this might have happened, instead of assuming the child had just not tried?

But if a teacher can't tell how much effort a child is making, how can anyone else. Surely it's good to acknowledge that a child is trying and has the right attitude and behaviour, especially when that doesn't translate in to good marks. If a child is never late, always pays attention, gets hw in on time, you can tell that they are 'making an effort' however you choose to term it.

[somewhat molified]

But I respect cory.

Cory is indeed splendid and if I disagree with her I fret a little. Just a little.

Oh stop it you lot! It's getting embarrassing.

I love Orm as well.

I think about her just before I go to sleep.

"But if a teacher can't tell how much effort a child is making, how can anyone else."

Well, exactly Orm, that's my point- nobody can accurately judge how much effort anybody else is making. For some children, arriving to school at all is a huge effort- yet they may arrive late every morning having had to make breakfast and take a younger sibling to school. They have already made more effort than the child who is given a lift to school every morning, yet they are thought of as having made less effort due to their poor punctuality. You could apply the same to paying attention and handing in HWK. Surely it would be better to give a grade for punctuality, homework or on task behaviour, all of which are measurable (although on task behaviour is more difficult to measure in mainstream school)?

Well DS1 gets marked on those seperately as well. HW, puncuality, behaviour. But I see your point - tis a bit ephemeral.

I would, but I don't trust you to turn up.

hully - I am very much afraid that you are a bit of a tart

I have a big heart and a lorra love to give, darlin'.

Fair point well made, Hully.

I'm not sure I could trust myself.

What about if we all got a room and invited that man who buys special man-knickers to come along? Could be fun.

As long as we don't get effort grades, I'm in.

i agree about effort grades being rather arbitrary. i used to get really low effort and attainment grades in my reports for PE, which is bollocks because i always tried really hard, but i just wasn't any good at it.
i agree that effrot grades can be seen as compensation for a crap grade. however, in this case, i can see them being a useful tool, as the dad obviously has no clue what his son is actually doing in school, and a few high effort grades might make him reflect a bit.
it'd also be quite useful if the teacher made a ransom, throw-away comment about the son being under pressure and feeling the strain and worrying about failure. but unless the teacher is reading this thread, that's unlikely to happen!

nickle - yes, but more importantly how do you feel about coming along for a bit of a do with man-knicker man?

we could have a big get together and do some member bashing.

we could give each other grades for effort and knickers and stuff.

Get your colleague to read this - research that shows telling children they're "smart" discourages them from attempting anything where they might not succeed...

Just to get back to the original bit about the laptop - could it be that the child was spending ages on the vista of hell that is Facebook or on games instead of working? I have been driven to distraction by DD doing this!

Also, back to something about doing all homework in school - how do they do that? Aren't they in lessons? OK, lunchtime and maybe after school clubs, but DD always has far more homework than could be done then, and they need some sort of a break to eat and run around...

Yes it could be that. But that is a different issue. If he was messing about on FB the sanction should be for that.

Lunchtimes, break times, after school. Must admit that so far DS hasn't had too much.

Your colleague sounds like an arsehole and hopefully his son will have already realised this.

I guess DD is in Year 10 so lots more pressure and c/w than in Yr8, but even so - she certainly didn't get any h/w in Yr8 that could be done in a 15 minute break (not done properly, anyway).

I got some of those workbooks you get in WHSmiths and used to tell her that if she had no homework she could do an hour's worth of those - it was amazing how much homework she would suddenly remember she had!

If it was me it would make me very resentful-by that age the DC should be working for themselves-not to please a parent.

sorry Hully, i totally neglected to RSVP!

i'd love to see the man-knicker man - sounds like jolly good fun!