X-Factor shown in DC's Reception class - normal nowadays?

[MurderOfProse]

My oldest DC has just completed her first year of school at the local state primary. We have been pretty happy with the standard of teaching generally.

At home we don't watch a lot of TV, at least not when the DCs are up. It's not a judgemental "TV IS BAD" choice, it's just how we roll - the DCs are happy doing non-TV stuff. Lately my oldest has become obsessed with Justin Bieber and One Direction - not something she's been exposed to at home.

I expect a certain amount of exposure from her peer group both at school and her friends outside of school. I assumed that was where it was coming from at first. But it seems the origin of this new obsession is actually from the classroom as her teacher has actually (not heresay, she told us herself) been showing clips from X-Factor and presumably other shows.

Leaving aside all issues of taste (I appreciate trying to control a child's taste in anything has a snowflake's chance in hell!) it doesn't feel right to me that a school should be essentially validating and encouraging a love of reality TV shows like X-Factor by showing them. What message is this giving out about role models? Surely this is outside of school stuff? What else are they watching that I don't know about?

Is this normal in schools nowadays, to show X-Factor and the like? I feel like an old fuddy duddy!! It Wasn't Like This in My Day! My old teachers would be horrified I am sure

I'm in two minds on this. We don't watch a lot of TV either and the DDs have never watched X-factor or similar. But DD2's reception class had an X-factor studio in their home corner for a while, and she and her friends had an absolute whale of a time dancing and singing to each other. It was a fun experience for her and helped her make friends with other girls that were into that sort of thing.

She's 7 now and shows no sign of becoming celebrity-obsessed. She still likes to boogie and has opinions about music that she likes. But no signs of warped body image or anything that you might associate with the whole celeb culture.

I think a lot depends on your home values. If you have a healthy disrespect for the reality TV culture, and make sure your children pick up on your attitude, they won't come to much harm.

I would be incandescent. Utterly inappropriate and a truly depressing lack of aspiration. Not what school is for. Ooh, I feel really quite angry on your behalf.

Yep, they had an X-Factor style competition at her school too - she loved it and I had no issue with it in that context as I'm all in favour of a bit of friendly competition in schools! I can only assume that the actual X-Factor was shown to the children as a part of this possibly, I have no idea. But even so, they could easily have had the competition without showing the TV programme. Thinking about it, it was a "DD's School's Got Talent" competition rather than X-Factor, so no, it doesn't tie in. Hmm.

The TV is often on showing cartoons or similar when I pick her up. I don't get why this is necessary either, but I am not a reception class teacher.

DD of course will get guidance from us on these sorts of things, but I feel for the children who possibly won't.. and by seeing it at school they'll think that as the school has sanctioned it, it must be okay to aspire to this.

I can't imagine they're short of things to teach in schools

I'd be annoyed at that. It might be ok for a bit of fun on a family Saturday evening (although we don't watch it and I don't want to introduce it at this age) but not at all fine for school to introduce it at such a young age. So much wrong with that (the laughing at the contestants, the poor role models esp for girls).

Yes, that's exactly my feelings on it too. I have no issue if other families want to watch it with their children on a Saturday night either, but the whole ethos is entirely against what schools should be promoting e.g. anti-bullying, self-acceptance etc.

I'd actually be more worried about "the TV is often on when I pick her up". At my kids' school, every class sits and is read a story just before pick-up time. Much more appropriate.

An X-factor clip might be entirely fine, in context, to grab the attention of those who watch it and introduce some sort of related topic. But TV on every day just sounds lazy.

I'd be decidedly unimpressed too. Which isn't to criticise the people who do watch it but I agree with the drjohnsons cat that we'd rather have the choice about when and if to start to watch it.

I have a similar problem with cartoons at the end of day; it happened in DD's reception class too but as I had other things to be the parent from hell about mention to the teacher, I never said anything.

Yeah, I don't see what is wrong with a story either! There is one teacher and two TAs, so plenty to go round.

According to DD, she saw X-Factor a few times in class. It wasn't the whole show (thankfully!) but it was at least a couple of songs. I wonder if it included the jeering and so on.. I'd like to credit the teacher with the benefit of the doubt but I am not so sure. I can't see how any part of the show is relevant to teaching at all. There is plenty of time for popular culture outside of school!

I agree with you entirely.

They plonk kids in front of a dvd's at my dd's school (year 2). They do not even ask any questions afterwards to explore the story. It's not good, in my opinion.

It's part of the 'lowest common denominator' approach they have in schools these says - sad but true. Just "undo" it the best you can at home.

i'd be absolutely horrified and complain to the headmistress straight away. It sounds to me like a very lazy teacher who instead of teaching the kids (reading stories, singing songs etc) just puts on the TV. Many kids already watch a lot of TV at home and school should counterbalance that. If it is an exception on the last day of the year or ahead of xmas you could maybe say it's acceptable (although a story would still be more appropriate) but in general I think it stands for a lot that is wrong with the teacher's own level of education and understanding of her role. i am probably very old school but i would run to the headteacher to complain immediately.

Is it possible that they were shown short clips as inspiration for a piece of work - talking about opinions? preparing for a performance and discussing big voices, eye contact, facing audience?

I'm clutching at straws really, and would also be cross (but would want to double check that there wasn't a good reason before complaining and looking daft).

That reminds me of the trailer for that TV series Bad Education, where the teacher says something like, 'there's one principal in education that is as old as time, if you're out of your depth, stick on a video'
(sorry for paraphrasing it, can't remember exactly)

It's reassuring to hear it's not what people would expect! I thought maybe I was being old-fashioned, so I never said anything at the time.

It's so hard to know from talking to DD what the truth is and the context it was used in. I know the teacher is apparently a fan of One Direction for instance, as DD has told us this, and the teacher is very young as it's her first class. But she's otherwise pretty good, seemingly very conscientious (the report she gave us was really well written, not a copy/paste job at all) and I have no other complaints. And in some ways the fact she is new and young means she probably wouldn't be resorting to the TV just yet unless she genuinely felt it had some educational value. It's just I'm struggling to think what X-Factor could offer in the way of education that a less "trashy" (for want of a better word) TV show wouldn't. Perhaps this was the best way to engage the children? It's a very deprived area, so maybe she felt this was her best bet.

Unfortunately I probably won't see her teacher again in order to ask her, as she'll have a new one for next year. The timing of this post was brought to you by me being fed up of DD singing a One Direction song over and over and over and driving me round the bend, and it occurred to me that perhaps it wasn't the norm for them to have this stuff played in class! She wouldn't have known it otherwise. Having said that, if it wasn't One Direction it would be some other song, I know!

My daughter's year 2 teacher was also very young and used to put CDs on when they were doing some activities. The songs were always pretty innocuous and the children regarded it as a bit of a treat, so I couldn't see any problem.

Perhaps the question to ask it what proportion of the year has been devoted to pop culture? As long as they've also done lots of other stuff, it's probably no great issue. And since she has a different teacher next year, you will probably find that things are different.

I once put on a CD a child brought in from home following a visit to a holiday camp ...it was playing away when my nursery nurse looked at me and we both rushed for the off button now I always listen before putting anything on in class.

My dd says that the teacher played music during choosing time at reception. We don't listen to music at home buy she often came home singing Justin beiber, village people, abba etc

Lots of schools play music throughout the day.

We had an X factor home corner in reception too. We did not show any of the programme, but it was child initiated. So many of the children were pretending with instruments and mics from the music area, we just went with the flow.
The children ended up making up their own bands and even playing/writing their own songs (some imagination required - but in essence ) We let them video their own performances and then watched them back. They loved it!
Surely controlled use of different media to further/enhance education is a good thing? The lazy teacher is the one that uses it as a filler, not a starter.

DD's reception teacher used to put Auntie Mabel come outside off cbeebies on sometimes which they all loved.

In DD's private nursery I walked in one day any they had a pretend x factor set up with buzzers - one little girl told me 'i'm cheryl'. I was

My children listened to music like that at tidy up time. It drove me crazy when I realised that I could sing most of the High School Musical 1/2/3 songs.

I've no issues with music being played. Just a bit as to the actual X-Factor TV show itself being shown. She knows who Simon Cowell is, so I guess she saw more than just the bands playing.

I think it was only restricted to a few times at most (from what DD tells me) but I am still not entirely sure what the point in showing it was, especially as the "DD's School Got Talent" was a term or so later.

I guess with reception children they might need something a bit lighter and more accessible during the day from time to time, but hopefully what they saw wasn't the jeering etc and that she'd edited accordingly.

ds's P3 teacher played music while they brushed their teeth after lunch

she brought in her Bruno Mars CD and played I wanna to be a millionaire for a change

according to ds(8) the teacher "turned it off really quickly" once they all realised he didn't want to be a millionaire so freaking bad like on the radio

It's just a gap-filler in the day - saves having to teach some extra maths, or science, or god forbid get all the little ones dressed and re-dressed for PE.

They laughinly entitle it "learning through play" - just one of the many reasons why private schools can be closed for seven extra weeks a year - on top of the thirteen weeks they all get, and still get far higher grades.

But they saw clips, not the entire programme. Depending on context it could be really useful.

Eg say you are introducing something about not treating people differently because of how they look, but to value them for other things. The clip of SuBo would be perfect. Everyone judged her on how she looked, no one thought she would even be able to hold a tune. She proved them wrong.

Is there something explicitly wrong with using video in the classroom that I'm missing, here?