Worried about my meeting with school

[mrsshears]

I have a meeting coming up with my 5yr old dd's school to discuss her recent IQ test results,i'm really not looking forward to it
School have been very defensive and basically have me down as a nightmare pushy mother,despite the fact dd1 went to the same school and i never went in to see the teachers in all her time there,in fact i bet some of the teachers wouldn'nt have even known who i was back then!
I'm really looking for any help or advice anyone has as to how i should handle this meeting,i know they have done some sats papers with dd over the last couple of weeks which whilst i'm glad they are doing something it kind of defeates the object imo as i'm sure they will have been full of things dd has'nt yet been taught (with the exception of the reading one) so i can't imagine she will have done too well,but then the cynic in me thinks that this is why they have done them.
What i want to say is that i just want dd to be challenged at her own level,not pushed but challenged,but i'm unsure as to how i can get this across without making myself look even worse?
On a positive note dd has been moved up a couple of book bands which has already boosted her confidence which i'm really pleased about.
Maybe i'm looking at this meeting far too pessimistically(sorry about my spelling) but after all we have been through i can't help it.
I would be really greatful for any advice any of you have.

joyn, I hope you can make more sense of them than I can. what the hell is biblographic knowledge? you wander off from a profession for a few years and everything changes. oh well, it will all come in useful when i have to go back in a couple of years! if I was not a teacher, I would be quite happy to leave the bits I don't understand to the teacher, the problem is, I ought to understand it.

Have you had that meeting yet, mrsshears ?

No,i was told to expect a call last week and the meeting would be this week.
my mother seems to think they are waiting for info from somewhere to come through,i can't believe that they are just ignoring it as they know from past experience that i'm not just going to drop the matter.
I'm planning to casually say to dd's teacher when i drop off in the morning that i hope i have'nt missed their calls or anything and see what she says.
I'm also contemplating putting the feelers out around some local independants regarding scholarships/bursaries but i had'nt really wanted to do that until i had had the meeting with school.

Without feeling like the bringer of doom, you do know that bursaries are usually only about 10% of fees, don't you?

(Runs off and hides...)

Well it won't hurt to enquire,if you don't ask you don't get,i have heard of people being offered alot more than 10%.

just popping back in as it dropped off my active list.

ds1's teacher is big on carol dweck, adoptmama. we keep getting little excerpts and pep talks sent home in the book bag. i've been planning to read mindset for some time as it looks really interesting, but haven't got round to it yet... too much else going on!

what a pita, mrss. do you think they are deliberately stalling?

you need to make sure you consider the independants quite carefully i think, particulary if dd is a little under confident or not certain of her abilities. you would need a nurturing environment rather than a competitive academic one, i think, to make sure she reaches her potential? do yours locally have entrance interviews for selection etc? it can be v intimidating, i think? maybe make some enquiries and ponder a while before putting dd up for inspection? (not that that's what you will be doing, lol!)

madwoman if you don't have the book yet, check out the 'brainology' web site for more info on her work. Brainology is the (naffly named) programme they developed for schools to help motivate children who are afraid of challenge. Gets very good feedback and results apparently (will be test driving it soon at work).

brainology? that's dreadful! it makes me think of maureen lipman! (showing my age)

will have a look though. the jury is still out on ds1, testing next month. in theory he has huge potential, but he's quirky in the extreme and no-one can quite rootle out what's going on, hence the full psycho-ed stuff. he's quite anxious with some odd phobic and sensory stuff, but we've also had add/hd/asd flags along the way, so it's time we got a comprehensive picture according to the paed.

thanks for tip though, will def have a look.

oooh he's got an ology ;)

(got DD evaluated because of her quirkiness too with sensory issues and that little niggling worry that my offhand comments about her being 'on the spectrum' were becoming more a genuine possibility. it's good to get answers, even when you aren't sure what your questions were in the first place!)

"Grandma, I failed."

see, we're all old gimmers, really.

yy, agree with not quite knowing what the questions are but hoping for some answers, anyway. slightly alarmed by what the answers might be, but to actually have some will be a bonus, i'm sure!

speak for yourself mwita!

mrs s have you heard from school yet? do you think they are tryng to put it off?

Hi susan
No not yet so i spoke to dd's teacher this morning and innocently asked if i had missed a call from them,she looked very embarrassed and said that i had'nt and that she has been trying to pin the head down to a date but had not managed to yet as he is really tied up at the minute but to bear with her and that she would get there.
She said not to worry and that she had been doing lots of information gathering or words to that effect and that she had done lots of observing of dd also.
She seemed very genuine and i get the feeling that the head is digging his heels in a bit(i think he is worried about loosing face).

that sounds positive from the teacher anyway.

could you ring the head to get an appointment?

i think you might need to apply some healing salve to his ego to get him where you want him. any way you can butter him up to speed things along? if he knows you are only interested in moving forward, and not pointing out he's an unprofessional and utterly unintuitive dork, do you think he'll make space in his calendar? it might stick in your throat a bit, but go be nicey nicey in the outer office and smile as though he's your long lost friend when he wanders by...

does he even need to be there? can't you get everything straightened out with the class teacher? (is he the senco? can't remember, sorry)

madwoman DH has just laughed at your description of the head!
Our head is treated like a local celeb by alot of the parents,its a really high performing school and he is very good at all the spiel.
That is a good suggestion,just what he is used to and i think that would go a long way>>grits teeth in preparation

For him to have made you wait this amount of time without even having the courtesy to have scheduled an appointment before the end of term is unprofessional in the extreme.

I'd email the school on Monday and tell them you are surprised and disappointed that you have still not had a reply from them regarding scheduling the meeting. Remind them in the email of how long you have been waiting for them to simply give you a date for a meeting; and tell them you want to know before the end of the school day when he intends to have the meeting to take place. Also state that you expect the meeting to take place before the end of term. If they have previously scheduled and then cancelled the meeting, remind them too of this.

An email gives you a formal, written record of your contact with the school, which is why you should state in it when you first requested the meeting and how many times since then you have had to reapproach the school to ask about it. If he turns out later to be obstructive in meeting DCs needs, then you will have this email as evidence of the difficulties you have had with him.

No matter how busy he is he will know when he has an hour or so free between now and the start of the holidays and should not need this long to simply open his diary (or have his secretary open his diary!) to see when that is. If he is the one saying he needs/wants to be at the meeting then he should get his finger out his arse and schedule it. You've been more than accommodating with your patience to date. If they continue to be uncooperative in scheduling the meeting ask them to provide you with the LEA guidelines on making a complaint.

Hi adoptmama
I agree he has been very unprofessional,as a family we don't really 'play the game' with regards to being 'in' at school and i do wonder sometimes how much of an effect this has.
Its very difficult to know which way to play this,i will certainly start keeping a record of my contact with school for future reference.
I think if i have no date by mid week i will put a date forward myself and see what comes of that.

It's really hard to make suggestions, because so much depends on the personailty of the school and head. If it was DD's school, I'd be pretty confident in putting it down to incompetence and inertia, and going to bang on the door again. But the dynamics of yours seem a bit different (and not much fun to navigate either).

Reading between the lines, it sounds like the head is so used to being told he is wonderful by parents, that he's rather lost the knack of knowing what to do in any other situation. But calling a spade a spade (my default option) may not be the best solution in this case. I think you might need to do the 'I am sure this is just a mistake but...' line, while taking copious notes of all interactions from now on.

Whether you are in at school should make precisely no difference in this case. And it certainly won't make any difference should you need to take it to the governors.

I have no idea where you are, but is there any way you can find who is in charge of g&t for your area? I have got the email address of ours for our county as a back up plan; if school continue to be inept, I am going to send a cheeky email asking for best practice, and then tell the school what that is...

are you going to chase up the head this week?

update Dd's teacher spoke to me today and said they had been trying to get hold off me on friday and had left messages
but anyhow i can go into the office tomorrow and pick a date that suits,better get printing off some research to take in

oh, that's good.
it's amazing how many phone calls we miss, eh?

just finished my background info for ds1 for his assessment, so that's gone off. yay.

Considering how many, many, many crap excuses you hear as a teacher about missing homework, you'd think the teacher could have come up with a more convincing line than this.

Like maybe 'the dog ate my phone and I couldn't call you'.

Glad you are finally getting somewhere with them.