parents evening yr1

[whathaveiforgottentoday]

I've got parents evening soon. Last parents evening we came away not really having any information.
My question is, if I ask a direct question such as 'what are her current levels in Maths?' Does the year 1 teacher have to reply or can she refuse?

The teacher is very cagey and I'd like some decent feedback other than a vague she's doing fine.

I'm a secondary teacher and would be expected to know what level each student is working at, what their predicted grades are and would be expected to share this with parents (in fact, the students should be aware of what level they are too.)

Is the curriculum public knowledge? Surely the teacher is willing to tell you which parts of it she's covering at the moment. (Wouldn't it be odd if she tried to hide what she was teaching?) Then you can quiz your daughter on what she knows and figure out her competencies to your own satisfaction.

We have to ask, but if we do the teacher hunts for ages through a pile of papers and reads you the levels for each subject. I wish we didn't have to ask, why can't it be provided up front? By the way, I don't ask for KS1 as I don't care at this stage, but I do for KS2, where it gives an indication of what's going on. On the whole I trust the school. I would ask if I was concerned about progress, apart from yr r, where the numbering system up to 9 simply confuses me! But I do have a clear idea about what the DCs are doing and how they are progressing so I am not as relaxed about it as I may appear, I think NC levels are more for the school than something to worry about at an individual child level.

whathaveiforgottentoday

It sounds like you actually want the NC Levels for reading/writing and maths. My suggestion would be to e-mail the school and inform them that at this parent/teacher meeting you would like to receive this information so that you can discuss your DCs performance and what you can be doing to help at home. This means that they have to make a decision - provide info or explain why they aren't providing information.

Our school spent ages trying to avoid openly discussing achievement in any sort of substantive way - but with so many people asking for the information and with OFSTED looking to see that this information is known to both pupil and parents, they caved in at long last. As a community, we're now all much happier.

It isn't easy to learn your DC is behind or needs to get motivated, but frankly not talking about it doesn't help either. In many cases the parents get proactive and really work with their child to make up lost ground, so at our school at least, it has been a positive thing to be open.

HTH

thanks for the replies. I didn't want to come across as pushy but out of curiosity, I'd just like to know and obviously I understand levels and their limitations so I don't see why I shouldn't haven't the information - she is my daughter after all! Plus when information is withheld it makes me wonder why and makes me more curious.

Perhaps I am just a pushy mum but those who know me wouldn't say that!

I'll let you know if she tells me. I've got my direct question lined up so she will either have to say or refuse!

If I were you I would put a note in your DD's book bag/diary a few days beforehand asking for the levels to be available to you at P.E; IME they do not have them readily to hand in infants and so would probably not be able to tell you if you asked on the night.

I agree with you about having a right to know. It's not the official secret's act.

Our school has recently changed regarding discussing levels, mainly due to new head and Ofsted concerns about tracking children I think.
Previously nothing was given apart from very vague 'she's doing well, she's a pleasure to teach', etc.
This time round we were given DD (Yr4) and DS (Yr1) current levels, their expected levels at the end of the year and their expected levels at the end of Yr6 - slightly premature in DS's case I feel :)
Neither of us are teachers but MN has educated us well and we knew what the teachers were going on about.

I would definitely ask if I were you - I asked for all of DD's levels from Yr1 onwards last term and although it took a few days the teacher was happy to find them for me.

We were explicitely told to not discuss exact levels with parents. I might have come across as vague when I said "DC is doing fine", but it's all I was allowed to do.

Why do NC grades matter if your DC IS doing fine?

juniper904 - problem was that everything about school was vague and at times I haven't trusted what I have been told.
Rightly as it turns out as previous head was awful and left under a cloud and we have just gone into special measures partly because of the inability to assess and track children effectively.

I do feel they have gone slightly too far the other way but I would rather have a really close eye on how my children are doing at the moment because DD especially has had a pretty raw deal from her education so far.

If I had trusted the school then vagueness would be fine :)

junior904

I had a similar experience to feetheart. In fact I was told constantly DD1 was working 'to expected levels' - and thought that meant expected NC Levels, but since discovered that's code for working to the level the school expects for her, which in this case was below NC Levels. This was clearly a policy amongst staff - tell parents what they want to hear.

Head informed me after numerous meetings with staff and finally a complaint about maths teaching that what I needed to understand was that my child was just 'dim'.

So yes, on one level you are correct, at that point I didn't need NC Levels, I knew the school was just day care. We do maths at home now, through mathsfactor, and although we do the homeworks, we do our own thing (my DD has happily learned column addition/ subtraction - school won't teach it until Y5 and she's learned times tables to x12, school only teaches to x10 and is content to allow learning times tables to carry on into Y6, school never teachers long division).

For us knowing NC Levels (which by the way the school introduced in advance of OFSTED inspection - having refused to give them for years) was about trying to work out where our DD was at (i.e. asking for a professional opinion) and also trying to work out if they were even monitoring her progress, because anectodely we could see she was way behind her friends from nursery who attend other schools in the area.

My children's first school was a very "vague" one and I remember a friend being in tears because all through infants she'd be told her DS was "doing really well" and then when the SATs results came out his were all L1 with no explanation other than "it's what we expected". I do always say to parents if their children are working above or below "average" expected levels.

We had a similar issue with dd, dh told at parents evening that numeracy was fine, dd told us three days later that she was fed up being on her maths table because the children just chatted about macdonalds. Turns out she was on one of the bottom tables - she had worked this out herself.

She mainly just lacked confidence and a bit of extra support at home turned around her view of herself and her abilities. Teacher then commented on how much she had improved and had been transformed and willing to give maths a go, which she was actually really good at. If we had believed the teacher she would still be discussing macdonalds (which she has decided she hates although she has never been) and would be doing fine.

At DS1's parents evening his teacher had a sheet with the level that they expected the class to reach by the end of Yr1 shaded.
I think it was 1b and 1a that were shaded - would that be the level they are expected to reach nationally or just our school's?
Quite interested because I do want to go into teaching.

Juniper904 - I wanted to know the NC levels as they would tell me how she was doing compared with the very vague 'she's doing fine' that we had at last parents evening.
Thankfully, this parents evening we were provided with excellent feedback on how she was doing. I did ask her levels and her teacher said it wasn't policy to give out the actual levels but could say whether she was working at expected, above or below levels for the different subjects which is what I really wanted to know. I came away more informed. My concerns were that her writing was considerably weaker than her reading and that was confirmed, so now I know what we can do to support my DD.

ChuffingChunt DD's school expects 1b/1a at the end of Y1 (the idea being that they will make a further level of progress in Y2 and get to the "magic" 2b at the end of KS1).

Thanks redskyatnight.

Pastsellbydate, i hope you punchedhim erm, told him off.

I have heard teachers say, 'oh hes made loads of progress, he's where he should be' and I never thought they meant from the schools standard, I thought they had to refer to NC levels. Even when challenged and the parents are saying I can tell from his work books he is behind they still dig their heels in and say he's where he should be.

Having the levels available to us would only help our children in areas of concern and have a better impact of their learning outcomes.

Is there another PE in July, I will be asking for them!

Do quite a few parents not have a clue if their children are bad at reading, writing and arithmetic? (I'm not so concerned about other subjects.) Or are many of these replies suggesting that the parents do suspect that their children are having problems but that at parents evening they are being told that the children are doing "fine"?

What do you do if you continue to suspect something's wrong and continue to be told everything's fine? Do you copy Pastsell and duracell, and do your own thing? Past sell was told her daughter was dim. Presumably most parents don't get this blunt (and in this case inaccurate) feedback.

learnandsay

Regarding parents not having a clue

1. foreign academic in UK
2. husband UK national but seriously dyslexic so only had remedial classes all though primary - couldn't read until 13, never did get the hang of division.

So yes I had a clue. YR went into school and said at schools x & y down the road I know children are doing number bonds to 10 and simple addition with numbers to 10, but you don't seem to be doing this here. Oh what you need to understand Mrs PastSellby is that at XXXX primary we only start maths seriously in year 1. We find we have very good results. You'll see, next year with Mrs. xxxx maths will pick up properly.

Roll on year 1. Mrs XXXX - we're very concerned about maths. Could you recommend any workbooks or is there a text book you use? Oh at XXXXX primary we don't recommend such things - in fact we think they're very unhelpful. O.K. Well I have been trying to show addition/ subtraction with numbers over 10 to my DD1 using the old fashioned column method and we've.... Let me stop you there Mrs. XXXX at XXXXX primary we don't think children can cope with column addition properly until Year 5. Please just leave maths to us, we are highly trained and are best qualified to teach your DD.

Roll on year 1 March. Mrs. XXXX I'm deeply concerned about our DD1. She still can barely add and cannot even manage to take 1 from 10. Please can you recommend something for us to be doing at home or do you have some worksheets we could do again. Mrs. XXXX then ranted at me and my husband about how busy she was and she doesn't have time for this.

Roll on formal complaint to Head. I stated I couldn't understand why my child can't add/ subtract even numbers to 10 when her peer group from nursery are all able to and I can't see any learning difficulty. Head then tested DD1 for learning issues to find there were none. Head finally confirmed DD1 not performing anywhere near expected levels but handed me the National Curriculum so I could see that they are teaching maths to it (fat lot of help that document was by the way!) and informed my DH and I that what we needed to understand was that our child was just dim.

May 2010 joined Mathsfactor. DD1 can now add, subtract, multiply and divide with remainders. Only 4 other classmates in her Y4 class can do work at that level (all have also had help from parents at home - in 2 cases parents are teachers at other schools). 26 of 30 do not have x1 to x10 tables mastered. 15 are still struggling with subtraction.

entirety of KS1: No homework. No clear explanation to parents as to what they are working on. Endless colouring patterns and claiming that's maths. Endlessly taking the same test over and over and claiming that's teaching multiplication and division isn't teaching. Things changed mid-Year 3 because Ofsted sent letter informing school they'd be inspecting within 1 year (worded no sooner than Sept 2011). Suddenly homework happens and maths homework actually started to included actual sums.

So learnandsay - I wasn't so arrogant as to think I knew best. I asked the alleged professionals for their opinion and got nothing helpful and frankly short-shrift in many cases. To say the least I am livid that I'm working (3/4 time) and then coming home to teach my kids because these professionals so clearly aren't.

My insisting on NC Levels is just my way of ensuring that I understand what I'm doing at home is working - is resulting in improvements.

I also take great glee in watching my DD improve one full NC levels in 4 months this year, because all this hard work over the last 2 years is starting to pay off and things are clicking.

Apologies for rant - hope you're not a teacher - but the point is that if parents have to ask I personally have found that most likely means the school isn't doing their job. And by the way that job is TO TEACH, since some teachers, in my experience, seem to be a bit vague on that point.

Im doing work at home too with ds3 (yr1) and even ds2 (yr6) Im not going to sit around and be told theyre making great progress and then find at the end of stage ks1 and ks2 that we could have done more!

Hi Salsky;

no - no violence. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

I wrote a little note to OFSTED about our concerns regarding maths provision at our school. In particular I challenged them to ascertain how many pupils in Y4 knew all their times tables to x10 or could securely subtract 2 digit number from 2 digit number.

It took 20 drafts and we had advice from some teaching friends.

I don't know if our comments (and subsequent interview) made any difference or not. Ultimately the school wasn't rated outstanding, as they had expected, only GOOD and they were asked to improve maths provision by 2013, which we definitely welcome.

The rant is fine by me, Past. I think there may be an issue with parents getting bogged down in the curriculum details. Old fashioned parents may not know about number bonds, number lines, phonics of any kind and any of the other specifics of how children are being taught ---

---but presumably they do know if their child can't read, can't count and can't add up, subtract, divide or multiply. (Actually, as I read my own words I remember that my parents didn't know that my sister couldn't read. So sadly, though it seems obvious to me that parents should check their children's competencies themselves, I do know from experience that that isn't what always happens.) No wonder I'm already teaching my own daughter! Oh Lord, how sad it all is.

Only to say we had parents evening last night - teacher openly discussed ds's levels in literacy, numeracy and reading - she didn't discuss his peer group only how his levels relate to his and national targets and what we can do to help support him. As far as I'm aware she did this for every child in the year (one form entry) - I agree with OP how are you to know how your dd is doing if the feedback is vague??