Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 12 13

Original poster

DCs starting a new school after half term...what do I take? Should I mention G&T?

301 replies

FishfingersAreOK · 30/05/2013 22:42

Due to a move my DC (YR & Y2) are starting at a new primary school on Monday. When we left their old school on Friday I was given all of their work/folders/old reading records etc.

Not so worried about YR stuff but should I take Y2 literacy/numeracy/handwriting stuff in with us for the first day for the new school. Or would that look...er....I don't know...unnecessary? Would it be useful or just a pain?

Also, Y2 is on the Gifted and Talented register for her reading. Not sure how this has actually benefitted her tbh. She doesn't know she is on the register. We are not that bothered in many ways. We were happy she was being stretched at her old school - and she was happy and thriving. So again, is there any need to mention it? The new school is bigger, and one of the appeals of it is there will be more peers for DD (Y2) of a similar academic ability - rather than her being pulled into Y3/Y4 classes. If I don't mention it will it seem odd? If I do will I seem pushy? Does the G&T transfer to a new school IYSWIM or will it just be dependent on the others in her year.

These are probably all questions I should have asked the school(s) last week but we only found out they had places on Thursday and everyone agreed beginning of the half term was the sensible time to start....but has left me with very little time to get my head around it!

Not sure if posting in correct area....Oh....blasted half term

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

learnandsay · 02/06/2013 14:41

I suppose you don't need to know in order to express an opinion. But in order to evaluate my daughter's reading needs you would have to read with her.

mrz · 02/06/2013 14:43

You numerous posts on the subject are a clue L&S. The teacher obviously doesn't share your views or she/he would have moved your daughter through the book bands.

teacherwith2kids · 02/06/2013 14:44

L&S, I cannot - without sitting down and reading with your daughter. However, your posts in the past, combined with a general almost wilful misunderstanding of many of the ways in which education, including learning to read, ACTUALLY works (as opposed to the way you think it OUGHT to work), and the fact that I know no teacher who would ignore a child's actual ability to read to the extent that you suggest is happening in your case [even in the rigid-scheme school of my acquaintance] point me in that direction....

How is her independent feeding going, btw?

mrz · 02/06/2013 14:46

fortunately L&S I will never have that pleasure

learnandsay · 02/06/2013 14:48

The teacher doesn't know my views unless she reads mumsnet. I haven't spoken to her about them. The only conversation we've had about promotion was about six months ago when she said she would do what she has done.

At the beginning it would have helped if she had shown an interest in our non school books which she refused to do and asked me not to mention them. I think that was a mistake.

mrz · 02/06/2013 14:53

So when you went in and asked for the old Ginn books from storage she didn't realise why? When you wrote comments in your daughter's reading record she didn't understand? When you listed the books you read at home she didn't have a clue what you were hinting at?

learnandsay · 02/06/2013 14:54

How would the teacher know the child's actual ability if she was reading a Boff & Chopper book?

mrz · 02/06/2013 14:55

The same way as if the child was reading Wind in the Willows or War and Peace

learnandsay · 02/06/2013 14:58

Yes, I told her my daughter was reading the Boff & Chopper books upside down and back to front. Could we have more Zoom Set Es? She laughed and called my daughter a silly sausage and said she'd get more Zooms from Y1 because they're rare and old. (Which she did.) But another teacher often teaches this class and she gives out Boff & Chopper.

The teaching assistant took a Boff & Chopper from my daughter explaining that it was too easy for her. So the old teacher and the TA both know the books are too easy. But they keep coming home.

teacherwith2kids · 02/06/2013 14:58

Well, if a child is reading a book fluently, decoding unknown worrds easily, and is able to discuss it at an appropriate level with the teacher, ORT books are as good as any for assessing reading [well, tbh, decent phonic readers are better, but as you claim she is a look and say reader then in fact Biff and Chip will show off her reading to best advantage] - and if your DD is doing all those things well and independently, then the teacher will move her up the book bands (obviously combined with observations of her 'incidental' reading, her reading in phonics, her appreciation of book and story structure from reading sessions, her ability to re-tell stories that she knows in role play etc etc etc)

teacherwith2kids · 02/06/2013 14:59

How often does your child read with the teacher, btw (individual or guided reading, also in Phonics)?

learnandsay · 02/06/2013 15:03

I don't know if they do guided reading, but I see the teacher's signature in the reading diary about once a fortnight. Of the other thrice-weekly readings they are shared equally by parent helpers and the TA.

learnandsay · 02/06/2013 15:05

She hasn't been a L&S reader since about a month before starting school. She switched to sounding out of her own accord and has been doing so ever since.

teacherwith2kids · 02/06/2013 15:10

So she is reading with a teacher at least once every two weeks, and with an experienced TA at least weekly? If they genuinely thought she should move up book bands, using all the sources of information mentioned above, then they would have done so - if you genuinely believe that she can read better than this, then why do you think that she isn't showing it in school?

teacherwith2kids · 02/06/2013 15:11

(It won't be the quality of the reading matter, btw - if she is reading them 'back to front and upside down' then that will be as obvious to the teacher as it is to you. You and she are assessing your DD's reading totally differently from the same reading matter - why?]

learnandsay · 02/06/2013 15:13

I think she is showing it from the look of the comments in the reading diary.

The teacher has specified that the books have to be read in scheme order.

I'm sure if they gave her books to read five at a time she'd move through the scheme faster.

teacherwith2kids · 02/06/2013 15:19

If the books have to be read in scheme order, then you have my sympathies - though it does seem to contradict the fact that she CAN get some books from Year 1.

(Ponders whether teacher made up the policy on the spot to dissuade L&S from coming in any more - don't know)

learnandsay · 02/06/2013 15:21

Y1 also have blue books. They're the same series, (Ginn Zoom Set E) They're just in short supply.

mrz · 02/06/2013 15:23

If she is displaying those type of reading behaviours I imagine the teacher is concerned.

StarlightMcKenzie · 02/06/2013 15:24

G&T stuff is nuts.

A friends daughter (10yrs old) was not on the G&T register. The HT told assembly: 'All children who aren't G&T can return to their classes now'. She said it made her feel terrible.

She went home and did a power-point presentation on how the HT could have handled it better and how it made her feel, made an appointment with the HT and deputy and presented it in their office.

She was then put on the G&T register.

learnandsay · 02/06/2013 15:26

The teacher wouldn't have known if I hadn't told her. If you give her a proper book she'll read it properly and not muck about. She doesn't find the Zoom books hard, but she does like them. (So do I.) And she doesn't muck about with them.

mrz · 02/06/2013 15:46

So she isn't showing the behaviour in school ... so what are the comments you mentioned?

xylem8 · 02/06/2013 15:48

L&S - you are clearly very unhappy about the books youe dc is reading, but haven't raised it with the teacher.I really think you ought to do so!
A good plan would be for your DD to read an unseen book from a higher level chosen by the teacher, to the two of you together.Then the teacher can either realise she is capable of much more, or can exoplain to you what is wrong with her reading that she is not ready to progress.In the reception class at our school (well there are only 8 of them- the average I would say is yellow band. I don't think anyone is still reading pink

learnandsay · 02/06/2013 15:52

xylen, thanks. Yes. I plan to have the first and only lengthy discussion with the teacher a few weeks before she moved up to Y1. And hopefully the teacher will feel less bound to the scheme order, given that the child is leaving her.

mrz, I had to tell the teacher that my daughter can't take Boff & Chooper books seriously because the situation was becoming unmanageable at home. If we must have blue books then let them be Zoom's because she reads those properly.

xylem8 · 02/06/2013 16:53

I thought the only point of G&T was to identify children who are quite a bjt more able than the average for the class so they can be given slightly more difficult work.It is nothing to do with the 'absolute' ability of the child.I can't see any poiunt in the school telling parents and children whjether their children are on the G&T register because it doesn't mean anything about their absolute ability.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 12 13