How many Mums are dissatisfied with their DCs primary school?

[CrosswordAddict]

There seem to be a lot of dissatisfied Mums on MN and primary schools seem to be particularly disappointing. Any strong views? And if so, how can Mnetters become a force for change/improvement?

And spelling is part of teaching??

How many questions are raised on Mumsnet about the lack of corrections of spelling.

Schools encourage free writing and want expressive writing to be developed. Many schools do not correct spelling

I correct spellings every day of my working life.

It wasn't one mistake, there are loads! But fair point about not correcting spelling in children's work.

It just grates on me, that's all. I hate bad spelling...and I'm not talking about typos. They are fine.

Thanks jen, yes I see the difference.
We don't have anyone to organise anything to do with trips, although the office staff book the coaches and collect the permission slips and voluntary contributions. We do all our own information letters, IEPs, monthly target sheets for each child, assessments on to e-tracker, referral letters to SALT, etc, most of our worksheet photocopying, number crunching of data for Y2 SATs targets, progress towards these targets (e.g. 86% on track to achieve 2a, 21% on track to exceed their target) and the biggest grip I have is ##### APP! Annotating for every child the three seperate places to find evidence for each #### statement! (excuse my fury! It's taken me all holiday to evidence 14 children's maths so far. So much of our work is practical because they are only 6 or 7 so I don't have it in their maths book or on a worksheet)
Whoops, sorry - whinge over

I apologise then. I have been an uninformed shit.

I hope you spend half term getting pissed and massaged by oiled up men.

Its not a competition about who can write using perfect grammar and language skills.

It's an internet forum where comments are added without thought of correct punctuation.

Yes, correct spelling should be automatic, but many many people who might be great spellers cant type accurately. Not everyone has the perfect brain to be perfect all the times. When you are tired, you can make mistakes (well most people)

And now this is taking over the conversation so should be ended.

Insite, grammer, your and there are not typos. But I agree, it's not highly relevant to the topic. It just put me off my reading

As you were.

Oh Jen I hope you don't think my last post was having a pop at you. I was just venting!
I like the idea of wine and oil though, but my other half is away ...

No not at all, as I said before I am shocked at the difference. Perhaps not shocked as I knew the differences were there, more angered.

jenandberry - I believe you, but I've seen terrible spelling and grammar at DD's school (including 'assembley' and the infamous 'headteachers welcome' on the website...).

I am pedantic, I know - my CM can't spell and she can teach and look after kids (but then she doesn't have a teaching qualification). But to have a head who can't use an apostrophe... It can't be right! [faux anger emoticon]

DS1's junior school I have a few question marks over at the moment (will see what happens next week after half term onc eI've been in to discuss a few issues - not related directly to my DS - general ines)

DS2's infant school - are BLOODY FABULOUS. DS2 is just coming to the end of his 3yrs there, DS3 will (hopefully) start in September, DS1 attended there in previous years. DS1 and 2 both totally different characters and have both thrived and achieved well at the school. I have no doubts that DS3 will do just as well there.

AND (I'm still gushing about this as I still can't quite believe how fabulous they were) they recently went above and beyond their duty of care to my DS2 to help me out.

In terms of staffing, Jen, it is important to remeber that often, primary schools will have one TA across the school. Also, many TAs these days also double up as lunchtime supervisors to bump up their appalling wages so aren't available at lunchtime anyway.

Oh, and we are often in at 7.30 in the primary sector too you know. In fact, as I have taught in both and have no axe to grind I can honestly say I saw far more 'arriving as the kids do' in secondary than I ever saw in primary. In primary, I think the latest anyone arrived was about 8.15 with the vast majority in before 8am for a 9am start.

I also remember how often I tried to contact someone at the local secondary with regards transition and couldn't get hold of them even though it wasn't even 5pm yet!

I'm not playing oneupmanship. As I said, I've worked in both sectors. Far, far more marking in secondary (I taught English) but it was nice to have a change over every hour. Oh and to have free periods! Though the advent of PPA in primary has helped counter that somewhat.

The biggest difference I found was that the kids I was teaching at KS3 were streamed which makes the lesson more effective. It is hard going with a class of 34 Y6s when you are trying to teach some how to use the passive voice and how this can manipulate a sentence whilst you also have one or two others who still don't know what a verb is.

Differentiation and making sure all children are actively included in each lesson is definitely far harder at primary level.

But hey, I'm now happy as can be as a TA. I still get to teach lots, which I love, but I no longer need to have anything to do with the politics or the paperwork. I'm fortunate not to need the money so it's win win for me!

Abigail I'm also enjoying half term with the beloved APP. Took me 6 hours (solid - god's honest truth) to work through 23 literacy books today. Only 6 to do. Did maths yesterday. We have parent interviews next Monday, can you believe?

I can't expect my TA to do admin, etc, as she is busy organising and teaching her own Read Write Inc group, doing all the reading assessments for Y2 (RWI and benchmark), taking maths intervention groups and going out with me to Forest School twice a week. She's absolutely brilliant at what she does. (Much more use doing those things than photocopying and entering data.)

Eh???? How did that happen? I posted a message and it has disappeared and instead it has posted a duplicate of one I posted earlier?

Hi Stoatsrevenge
Nice to know I'm not alone! Boy do I hate APP, our old assessments system worked far better but LA says ...
Enjoy your holiday and I'm jealous you've finished your maths, I find it so much harder to APP than writing.

Teachers - do you thik that all the paperwork you do is necessary? As a parent, I am shocked to hear what you are up to during half term. I know that some paperwork is ineviatable (sp??) but it sounds far too much to me!
Personaly, I want a teacher who will inspire and motivate my DC to be the best that they can be.
Some teachers do this better than others, and as a parent, I can tell whether my child is improving, without seeing 'evidence'.
My two DC are very different characters, and go to two different schools as a result of that. I consider each child to be at a school that works for them best.
Teachers - will now consider buying wine for teachers every holiday.

Hello houselikeashed
The short answer to your question is no! We have to do it to keep the local authority and governors happy.
Before APP we had a brilliant system in place. We tracked pupils progress and reacted to their needs. Children made good progress and we had well above national results with an upwards trend year on year. But our local authority, as a whole, are below national average, so they insist we use APP. They think its the magic wand to raise standards. We still achieve well above national in KS1 (we are an infant school so we are judged on KS1 results), but we are kn@ckered from the farce that is APP.

In answer to the OP's question: this mum (and by the way, ds' Dad as well - we take an equal interest ) is happy with ds' primary school.

It's not perfect (especially since they don't have control over the appointment of teachers - they only get to interview the promoted posts - so some poor teachers do slip through). We weren't happy with his class teacher in P3 (= Y2) and again in P5 - but becasue the school does "team teaching", those years weren't totally wasted.

We were also able to go into the school to raise concerns and they did listen.

Ds got plenty of support, given in partnership with us. When he was slow to "get" reading, they gave him loads of extra 1:1 support before suggesting to us that it would be best for him to drop down a group for language to mainitain his confidence. 2+ years later he moved back up to the top group and is now a confident free reader (a 10 year old boy "free reading" :))

The school beleives strongly in the trangle of school-child-home - and becasue they know we are interste - and also support them (not just with ds' own education but more generally with school matters) we have confidence in each other.

jenandberry Tue 22-Feb-11 21:34:51

I suspect the type of paperwork is different in a secondary. Our assistants do displays in some departments, they do all the admin behind running a trip, they collate and check reports, do photocopying, enter marks onto electronic markbooks, sort out rewards.

I'm afraid in primary all of the above and more are done by the class teacher

For things like IEP updates that's down to me as SENCO (while teaching full time) I also arrange reviews for statements and complete all the paperwork write reports for child protection conferences ...

* Collecting money from pupils and parents
* Bulk photocopying
* Typing or making word processed versions or revisions of manuscript material
* Word processing, copying and distributing bulk communications to parents and pupils
* Producing class lists on the basis of information provided by teachers
* Keeping and filing records, including records based on data supplied by teachers
* Preparing, setting up and taking down classroom displays in accordance with decisions taken by teachers
* Producing analyses of examination results
* Collating pupil reports
* Administration of public and internal examinations
* Ordering, setting up and maintaining ICT equipment and software (I was previously ICT coordinator so am still called on to do this)
* Ordering supplies and equipment
* Cataloguing, preparing, issuing and maintaining materials and equipment and stocktaking the same
* Taking verbatim notes or producing formal minutes of meetings
* Co-ordinating and submitting bids (for funding, school status and the like) using contributions from teachers and others
* Transferring manual data about pupils not covered by the above into computerised school management systems

guilty of doing all the above

I do 2 of the above and only because it makes my life easier. Really it is 1 1/2 as I plan displays and then someone puts them up.

I am not criticising but if we try and do as few of the above things as possible the students benefit. I have in previous schools simply refused to do the above tasks. I started as a lone voice of dissent but gradually people joined in and changes were made. Again probably easier in a secondary.

If teachers in primary schools didn't do them they wouldn't get done.

Just goes to show how different primary and secondary are. I suppose I'm as guilty as many others of making assumptions that other teachers' experiences are the same as mine.
I was pleased when were given the list of jobs, as the idea was to improve teachers' workloads, but as you say mrz if we don't do them the children suffer. Last year I could ask a TA to do it, but when we have so limited TA time I'd rather she worked with groups of children or individuals. I do know of primary teachers who use their TA more as an admin assistant to do all these tasks than I do, and contractually it is their right to do so, but it's not the choice I make.