Poor quality supply teacher ended in a poor report, need help complaining

[violetwishes]

Hi all. This is my first post so please ne gentle. Also it may be long.

My daughter started Y3 last September and all was well. I had just started work so life was hectic till we got into a routine. My husband didn't do much reading at home with her(10 mins required each night) and the teacher sent us a letter home. we got into reading with her and now she's well into it. The teacher was a lovely lady who supported all the children.
Before the first half term holiday her teacher was off ill, she was off again shortly after coming back and hasn't been back since. The class have had 2 teachers for the rest of the year.
Now my complaints are this. There has been no consistency in their class at all. Parents evening didn't happen with the rest of the school and we had a 5 minute chat a month later, my daughter hasn't read a school book since last year, she has been reading Roald Dahl books at home every night and no one has raised a concern with us at all. She has had hardly any homework, in fact she had more in the few weeks after September. She had also had problems with a boy she has to sit next to which I told the teacher about in the 5 minute chat only to be told, I haven't witnessed it but will keep an eye on things, nothing has been done. This boy swears, says he hates my daughter, kicks her and moves the table around so her work is messy. She has received her report today. I expected it to be much better than it is. She has consistant scores and these don't match any of the reports she has had previously. It says her writing needs improving! How can she do that with the boy kicking her and moving the table around? The report looks like she has just ticked all the boxes in a rush and it wouldn't surprise me if the whole class has the same. I am seeing the head teacher and this is where I need help. I need proper back-up as well as my side of things. This lady has a tendancy of be politey patronising so you leave thinking it's your fault and get no result. She passes the blame continuously. This is the first time I have taken her on and need all the help I can get. Any help is greatly appreciated.

i dont think blaming the school will help here....they have obviously had difficulty getting a new teacher in.

Address the bullying issue with the boy with the head but unless you want her to repeat a year, there is little to be gained. Presumably she will have a new teacher next year so can start afresh.

Keep on supporting her at home with her reading and writing.

I think it would be a good idea to ask if you could perhaps see your daughter's writing books and reading records so you are able to better understand the improvements mentioned in the report.

Maybe her writing does need improving given that more is expected as she moves into Y4. I imagine the teacher who wrote the report is thinking of particular aspects of writing such as using ambitious vocabulary or a range of punctuation but that her report lacks these details. I'd encourage you to ask for this detail rather than go in for a general moan - if your daughter has continued to complain about the person she's sitting next to then you should have continued to follow this up instead of waiting for a report and realising a single follow-up was insufficient. Reading Roald Dahl every night at home isn't necessarily the best indicator of how your daughter fares when she's answering questions about a text.

When you go in tomorrow ask for specifics; ask for direction on how precisely to support your daughter at home with her reading and her writing and seek reassurance that next year will be more settled. Speak to your daughter too about raising concerns as and when they arise - her teacher next year may well have them sitting in different places and your daughter will have to learn that some people are easier to work with than others. Likewise she also needs to take responsibility for asking to move elsewhere if someone is actively preventing her from doing her work- make the meeting about positive strategies so you come away with a list of action points.

When teachers say "writing needs improving" they don't usually mean handwriting, the two to us are different, although I know this confuses lots of parents! "Writing" is the content, the structure, punctuation, paragraphs, vocabulary etc. If your daughters work is messy and the letters ill-formed, the report would say "handwriting needs improving" I would check which your teacher is referring to ( although problems with neither are helped by a boy kicking and moving the table around!)