10 things you probably would not expect about primary schools

[meredeux]

Come and help me make a list for all those parents out there who are about to send their children to school for the first time. What did know one tell you but you learned through experience?

Here is my first one:
YOU (the parent) will teach your child to read. The school will provide reading books and someone (probably not the teacher) will listen to your child for a few minutes at a time in the first couple of years maybe once a week but your child will learn to read because you will teach them that (using the school's reading books which the teacher will issue).

Only about half way through but the op was pretty negative.

The biggest shock to me is the paper work & organisation required to fill in surveys, pay for trips/activities, dressing up etc. I really struggle to keep track of it all!

Your son will wear Lily Cranford's PE shorts for the whole of the spring term.

meredeux - what was her particular reason for wanting the school to be a success?

several generations of her family had gone there before her and she loved the idea that her grandchildren would be going too

Our class teddy came home for the weekend before we were due to move house. Was this the teacher's revenge for me telling her that I thought her classy was too noisy?!

The week before we had the teddy he had ben to Argentina. Fecking Argentina! The Dad was a pilot. There was a photo of ted on the airplane dashboard (or whatever it's called in a plane) in a pair of flying glasses!!!

We took him to our local National Trust Woods. Two miles away. He sat forlornly on the sign for our photo.

I left our teddy in the back of the car from the minute we got it till the next morning. My DD wasn't all that fussed about the bear. So I simply made up a super exciting story about all the places it had been and went for the 'Dallas' option of ending with 'it was all a dream'. That way I didn't forget the blinking bear the next morning on the school run and it's experience was a bit more exciting than saying 'it came home, stayed on the floor of the living room till bed time, got dragged upstairs for the night and then was forgotten about till mummy remembered she was meant to bring it back." Not to mention the relief that the bear is now gone as it has probably been vomited on, head lice infested, peed on, dribbled on by a kazillion kids, or else been washed nightly as every parent assumed the same thing!

Kipperandtiger:
"I remember when contemporaries could have parents who were illiterate, from a foreign country or absent (from illness/alcoholism/drug/etc etc issues) who could go to school and do really well because all their educating was done inside a classroom."

My class has a number - a sizeable minority, perhaps almost as many as half given that not all such problems will be 'visible' - of children who come from this type of family. That is perhaps why I KNOW that the main educating is being done inside the classroom - because those children, who have no other source of education, make good progress. There are other children who come from very supportive 'MN-type' families, who also get substanbtial boroadening (not necessarily speeding up) of their education through activities outside school - such as museum trips, holidays, clubs, library visits. They have a breadth of experience that comes out in e.g. a wider expressive vocabulary, a knowledge and understanding of the world - that the other children do not have. However in terms of their 'academic progress', the groups progress similarly...

(Sorry, pressed post too soon): The children from illiterate / subliterate / substance addicted / chaotic homes do, however, often have much lower starting points on arrival at school than those from more fortunate families (children with no spoken language are not uncommon, and extremely few access pre-school education / care settings). Therefore, even though they make good progress in school because we teach them to read, to write, to do maths - and many of this group make accelerated progress - they have to do AMAZINGLY well and work FANTASTICALLY hard to catch up.

IT is perhaps, therefore, not that schools are failing to educate inside the classroom, but that it takes time and effort for schools to close the gap that the presence or absence of 5 years of pre-school 'learning experiences' has created - after all, even if schools educate every single child in school so that every single child makes the same progress, then that gap does not diminish. They have to educate children who are behind up to 2x as well as those who arrive 'on track' to close the gap....

Oh goody, goody, got a reply from someone who teaches - thanks. Thank you teacherwith2kids for your input. I am thinking of 3 families I know personally through others who are in this situation. Their kids have never caught up and never will. Am trying to persuade one of them (she's 20) to return to school and get at least 1 GCSE pass - she writes English beautifully on Facebook (when her friends aren't swearing and getting her to do the same) but she has no GCSE - not in English, not anything! She can't get a job, and there is alcohol in the home (both parents worship the stuff, shall we say) +++. I thought her little sister had a chance but she messaged me on Facebook this month to say she'd dropped out of school too - had started 3 A levels and just gave it up. They live completely on the other side of the country to us, or we'd offer to have them stay with us and go to school in a different environment. I know they want to - they are enthusiastic about the idea of it. But real life takes its toll on them.

I know one chap who came from a non-English speaking, v few educational qualifications, single parent family with lots of kids. He got a few qualifications and went on a vocational course and got his certificates. But that's different - they were poor but I believe his mum encouraged him where she could, even if she couldn't help with homework. FWIW, he was at school when it was still a lot of blackboard stuff, and exams were all at the end of 2 years.

I am glad to hear you have some success stories - there needs to be some, nay, many out there. Do you and your colleagues feel the old way of educating - reciting from the board, copying out sentences, drills, etc etc work better for these children, or do you feel the new methods are actually better for teaching children who are behind when they arrive at school and have challenging home situations? Who goes through their reading/phonics/number bonds every day when their parent(s) might not even get a hot meal on the table in the evening, let alone go through homework? Do all the teachers take up the slack? Do some not manage to get the help?

wordfactory - I'm sure the teddy loved the woods!! He was probably just a bit tired out with all the excitement by the time it got to photo taking. Bears love woods!!

To go back to the orignal post, now might be a pertinent time to point out that the first thing you might be unaware of regarding schools is that as a parent you cannot choose a school (in the state system). Sometimes it comes as a shock to the unwary!

Ok- here's my attempt.

1. Learning to read is a bit like learning to drive. School provides the lessons- often called "guided reading" -you provide the driving round the block sitting next to your dad. You a not teaching your child to read- the school is doing that. You are providing the practice. Equally important, but different.

1. Some schools are crap. You have to be vigilant. If you were having an extension built, you wouldn't hand over the keys to the house and go away for a year, then come bcd and be amazed and outraged when you discovered you had employed a cowboy and nothing had happened. The same applies to education.

1. If you want to know something or don't understand something, ask the teacher. Give hr a couple of opportunities to explain, then if you're still not happy, go to the Head. You don't have to wait for Parent's evening. You can request a meeting at any time.

1. Don't be dazzled by smart uniforms and amazing facilities, or put off by scruff. Look underneath both.

1. Don't automatically believe everything your child tells you even if you "know he would never lie" He probably won't be lying- but he might have misunderstood or only be telling half the story!

1. Learning tables is incredibly useful and important- the earlier the better. State schools leave this too late. This is especially important if your child has any issues with Maths.

1. Children do not learn on a steady upward trajectory. So don't worry if your child seems to have plateaued temporarily

1. Don't automatically buy into the smaller classes =better. Very small classes can be a disaster, particularly for children who find socialising difficult. And a big class with several adults can be a fantastic buzzy place. Obviously, the reverse also applies!

1. Having difficult children in the class is not necessarily a bad thing. School is not just about the 3Rs. It's also about learningbhow to deal with all sorts of people and situations.

10. Other parents lie. Like troopers. All the time. About everything. So if somebody tells you that their little Johnny is "absolutely loving Great Expectations," that means he is finding it very useful for holding up his copy of Match magazine for reading in bed.

11. If you are asked to give a pound for non uniform day, this is NOT for the teacher's cream cake fund. It is to buy stuff for your children. So pay up and don't moan. Or keep your child home on the of the pantomime.

12. A selective school will almost automatically get better results than a non selective one. And that selection can be by anything- faith, money, academic ability- anything. Because you automatically select out those whose parents don't care enough, or don't know enough to jump through the hoop. If you set up a school where in order to get in , parents had to learn to juggle, it would get better results than the non juggling school next door. You need to look at what value has been added, not what results are got.

13. There are some crap schools and some fantastic, amazing wonderful ones. Most are perfectly fine. Like practically everything else in life, they lie on a bell curve.

Er, well, I've taught my child you read and she's too young to go to school. There's no one size fits all here. Different families will be different. Different children will be different. Different reading experiences will be different. Some dads also teach their children to drive.

But that's how learning to read at school works. Of course some children will leqrn to read before school, and of course some dads teach people to drive. Your post was helpful how?

Different reading experiences will be different. clue 1.

Yes. But my point 1 is how learning to read at school works. at school. Clue 1.

I agree with seekers list with the exception of point 6 think it should say some state schools leave this too late

And, actually, I would rather my child was in a class of 35 taught by mrz than a class of 10 taught by many other teachers I've met!

Damn I have 39 on Monday

but I will have a TA

Reading is not a competitive sport and most definately not a sprint. Even if Johnny is reading Great Expectations, does he really understand it and more importantly is he enjoying it (NO!). It doesn't matter a jot if little Fleur is reading the complete works of Shakespeare and your DD is reading green books as long as it's right for her and she's making good progress. And it doesn't mean my DD won't be reading, understanding and enjoying Great Expectations and Shakespeare in a few years time.
(thumbing my nose at a parent who lords it over me because my DD is only on green books emoticon!)

seeker, I agree with those points.

wish I had known it all before the DC started school though...

being a parent is a steep learning curve

MWB, surely I only tell you that my five year old is reading Remembrances of Things Past just to upset you, right? But, to be honest, my mum really did like to tell us that she read Chekov when she was five.

Was she a late starter learnandsay?