DH and I are currently struggling with the decision whether to stick with DD's current primary school, or whether to put her name on a waiting list for a different school and just take the leap and move her.
She's in her 1st term of Foundation 2 (reception) and has come on so much with reading, writing and maths in just 1 term, but there are only a handful of kids who are at the same stage - they have time away from their classroom for this. The rest of the kids are nowhere near the same level. I'm impressed that they make provisions for the brighter kids, but there are a lot of kids with behavioural problems and SEN in her class, and some who are just plain naughty, and it seems as though a lot of the teacher's time is taken up with this. Going forward how will they continue making provisions for the kids who can do the work? They can't take every year group to the library for special tutoring - what will happen when all of the kids are expected to do actual work?
The school is in a very deprived area and the Head and her staff are very dedicated to making it a good school, but some of the kids are bad news: DD's behaviour at home has deteriorated massively since September, although her behaviour in school is very good.
Is it worth speaking to her teacher about our concerns? How do you say nicely that her time seems to be spent managing other children's behaviour and issues? She's always distracted and frazzled, with half a dozen or more kids playing up at any given time. Also, if the kids are working to widely different levels in later year-groups how is this managed?
I don't think we're being overly precious, but there are a couple of kids who give me cause for concern, and I'm not too happy at the thought of DD being with them for the next 6 years. She seems to be clever but she doesn't grasp the social side of things and she's drawn to these kids even though they treat her like shit (I'm talking about the ones who are just plain nasty and ill-behaved rather than lumping all of the children in her class with behavioural/SEN in with this by the way)
This is really long, sorry! Just trying to organise my thoughts - DH is overly pessimistic and only sees the bad side of everything. I try to be more balanced but while some aspects of the school are very good, DD's class in particular worry me greatly.