Parents Evening Grief

[NikitaWhoWillNeverKnow]

Why are school giving me and my DS such a guilt trip because I refuse to go to parents eve?

They haven't even asked me why I won't go.

I'm in the playground twice a day. If there was a problem they could approach me then.

I know, more or less, his levels.

But all this talking doesn't help me or DS.

Why do they want me to go to this meeting?

And why are they guilt tripping my DS?

There are lots of reasons why I won't go. All of them to do with me being very unhappy with the school.

The HT has offered me a meeting but I don't want that either.

TT - I think you're probably very close to being right.

The HT wants to reassure me and I don't want that.

I think she's also not used to anyone saying no to her.

DS is of course going to be brought into it; surely he's going to notice he's the only one whose parent isn't going to PE?

You've clearly shut down on terms of positive comms with school. You don't believe anything they do or say can be positive. Your DS doesn't need to know that though. What harm can possibly come from going and showing him that you support him and his achievements at school?

I'm concerned if I talk to the teacher I will do harm. Ie I'll be rude and upset him.

Less concerned about upsetting the HT more concerned about her upsetting me.

Certainly the safest thing is to not talk.

But you guys have convinced me, against my better judgement, to talk to the HT. but I think it will be very painful for me and would've been far better if the HT had left it alone.

It won't achieve anything good or bad for DS. It won't achieve anything.

Nope, I still don't understand why you haven't moved your son to different school if your relationship with the current school is so bad that you are making such a big deal about going to a simple parent teacher night.

You worry you don't have the self-control to just be polite and make an effort with the teacher? That is not the most mature attitude. If things have become so personal for you then I would look very hard at changing schools. It wont be perfect and everything wont be done just your way but some good can come from a fresh start.

If you don't like talking, put it in writing.

"I have repeatedly raised these issues but you have repeatedly failed to address and ......."
I fail to see .......

Atleast then, they won't be able to claim you didn't tell them.

you sound very immature. so the school are putting interventions in place to help your ds. He is making progress in some areas and you can't be polite to the new teacher and attend parents evening?? Why don't you home educate your ds?

I have put my top concerns in writing. And they've said they won't answer me in writing only face to face. but they said this in the past as well and when I have the face to face meeting they still won't answer my questions.

Ihave asked a couple of simple questions in writing and they have refused to answer. Are they really bending over backwards to accomidate me? Or just being obtuse so that the truth isn't put in writing?

DS refuses to be home educated, and I don't see how I can make it work if he doesn't want to do it.

why does he refuse? Does he perhaps enjoy school? If so he must be getting something out of it? You seem to be all about the difficulties and say there is no point talking about the positives. This is wrong. Yes acknowledge the difficulties but you can still celebrate the good things about your ds wth school. If he does a great piece of art or tries hard with something he finds tough then you can say how pleased you are about that or perhaps you cant. Why would you need to be rude to the teacher? My dd has loads of issues as has quite severe and complex SEN. That doesn't mean that I can't be pleasant at school and be pleased about her achievements.

What ideally do you want the school to do that they are not doing now?

They say he is 4b for reading but you say he isn't. Is there any chance he actually performs better in school than at home?

As a teacher I like parents evenings as an opportunity to discuss positives. Negatives we discuss throughout the year, by phone call, letter and email.
Btw I work in a selective school and we've had students come in at Level 3 for English.
Other than this 1:1 support what else do you want the school to do precisely? Being specific may help.

I was all willing to help having been there with school not listening but you actually don't want any do you?

Well, its 7am and I start work in an hour, so need to wake DS up, get ready and then leave. This morning I'll be waiting for a text from my Ddad to say how DS celebration assembly went where he is getting a HT award for a piece of writing. Its a 2b standard piece of writing - the celebration? It's legible and everything has been spelt using plausible phonetic attempts. BTW he's year 5.

School are very positive - what's the point of focussing on his slow achievement? They are doing everything they can - his SN provides a barrier that's proving hard to overcome.

When your calmer re read your posts. single sentences that are blunt and all about you. Not your DS. And also extremely contradictory.

Mind you.
I do have some sympathy with OP.

My school are like this.
I have emailed and written in the past.
I wrote a 16 page letter, including diary of every event.
They refuse to put anything in writing.
They called a meeting. Dh came too. Dh is very good in these situations and pressed HT until she was clearly very uncomfortable. But still, we actually achieved almost bugger all.

I had previously had P2P there, at previous meetings.

Dh and I just gave up. And ride with it. Because ds1 (Yr 5) is fundamentally happy and doing OK - JUST.

Wafer - this is Y6. I've had 6 years if past meetings. In the past I've done everything you suggest. It hasn't helped

EnglishTeacher - there is nothing I want school to do. Which is why I have nothing to say to them.

They never ever discus the negatives. Or rather they never ever see the negatives. He can go a whole year without making any progress and still school won't discuss problems.

If school was prepared to discuss negatives I'd be albeit also discuss positives.

My school is like this.
Always insist that ds is "fine".
It's like talking to someone who has their hands over their ears going -'na, na, na,- na, na, na, ner, ner, ner, ner, na, na na'.
I have had 5 years of it and achieved nothing.

Oblomov - that's basically the situation. After 6 years of doing everything I give up.

If it's so painful for you, they only want to talk about positives, your dh is a 'yes man'. and it would be good for your ds to go and feel supported and hear positive stuff about him.....

Am I the only one who sees the obvious answer.

To be blunt, you sound combative and awkward. I dare say school is not perfect, they rarely are, but I have some sympathy with them as you seem to be unwilling or unable to acknowledge anything good your ds does. Maybe it's your expectations that are awry, of both ds and school.

So basically you're not prepared to let your child hear his teacher talk positively about him to his mother for 10 minutes? How about putting his self esteem first for a change? Doesn't mean you have to give up your opinions about the school, but it might mean the world to him. You seem to have decided nothing will ever make you happy - fair enough (and to have given up completely which you have no right to do as a parent), but allow him some respite from all this "he can't do it" stuff.

Grrrr. It's only now, 6 pages in, people are telling me the point of PE is for DS listen to the teacher be positive.

I had no idea that was the point of it! I thought it was about discussing targets and progress and IEPs

I had some parents like this. I would tell them how well their son was doing. The reply, 'Well, he never reads at home so that can't be true.' All said in front of him.
He got an A* at A Level. And still holds the record for most improved student. His parents, I am happy to say, are now very proud.

Those if you who think I'm childish and awkward and never happy etc. etc. Thats what school think of me.

Which is another huge barrier to me talking to them.

You don't listen when the negatives are pointed out about yourself then.