If you took this to the head, what would you expect him to do/say?

[Quckstart]

I had a very distressing parent's evening for Ds2 this week. (yr6)

Teacher's opening line was "well he hasn't made any progress this year, in any subject". Full stop, no suggestions as to what we can do to change that. She went on "I'm glad he's not in my maths set or I'd be worried about my teaching"

In addition, his report card had his reading age as 7.1 and she talked a bit about how disappointing that is - it is, his reading age has always been ahead of his actual age. I know reading age in itself isn't a significant figure (just reading words) but surely a teacher who's had a child for almost a year should have known that couldn't be right. When pressed she checked and it's actually 12.3!

He was 5c for maths and reading at the end of year 5 and still is and is inconsistent in his writing and she still has him scored at 3a (which was also where he was a the end of yr5). She puts the poor writing score down to lack of concentration and has given his neighbour permission to poke him with her pencil when she thinks he's not listening.

Finally, almost begrudgingly she said "he's very interested in science and topic and has loads of good ideas" but I got the impression that, as they're not tested on that, it doesn't count.

Anyway I was upset and worried and after chatting it over with some friends in education I went to see the head. What would you have expected from him?

Accurate information (levels etc) and a plan for going forward.

When I raised concerns that my Y6 child had made no progress in a year the HT told me if I was unhappy I should move schools.

So basically I would expect your HT to a) protect her staff b) not care c) do nothing and d) be annoyed with you for mentioning it.

An assurance that it will be looked into. All data should be moderated by the senior leadership team. The phase leader at the very least should know where your son is at- his strengths and weaknesses- and should be holding his teacher to account with regards to his progress.

Yes, I was expecting him to be defensive TBH but he was brilliant.

Went straight down to his maths set to get the result of the latest tests (done this week) to discover DS scored 96% across 3 papers making him a comfortable 5A (I resisted the urge to ask about level 6!) Apparently his maths teacher is very pleased with him after a slow start and the data the class teacher had was out of date. He went up a whole level in yr5, so perhaps expected that there would be a period of consolidation. HT said he's going to have a think about how he can get parents in front of maths teachers in future - ATM you only meet the class teacher ( who should have info from the maths set) but only meet the maths teacher if your child in in their class.

DS has been doing some one to one with another teacher because of his low writing scores and that teacher thinks he's great, full of ideas and confident he will do well in the tests. It's is true he only produces good work when interested in the subject and is lazy when not motivated by the work set. I told the HT I understood this must be very frustrating for the teacher and he said "it's her job to sort that out". Anyway HT and booster group teacher (and DS) both feel that the tests themselves will be sufficient motivation to get DS's best work from him regardless of the subject (fingers crossed and time will tell)

HT parting shot was that the pencil thing was completely inappropriate, teacher needs to make sure she has better information and to communicate it in a more constructive way.

I felt much better when I left his office, but I don't think I'd be very happy with the lack of support if I was the teacher, in her third year of teaching and has been at the school since her NQT year.

I do think the class teacher has been inappropriate here plus poor communication perhaps to the class teacher from others not helping.
The Head needs to get a grip with communication of information at the school plus look at the way the teachers communicates information to parents.

I think, ideally, the HT should have listened to your concerns, informed you that s/he would have a chat with the class teacher/maths teacher to establish what the current situation is, then invite you to return for a joint meeting with him/her and the teacher to dicuss.

That way he s/he can support the teacher in putting right the error s/he has made.

tbh I would be concerned that maybe the HT has told you what he thinks you want to hear ie everything is great and actually data was wrong and he is doing great. This tends to be what they do actually. If class teacher is seeing his literacy work across the board her view of what he actually does on a day to day basis is more likely to be accurate. I would be wary that he is doing a public relations job on you.

By the way 'full of ideas' is usually what teachers say to be positive when the actual writing is not good. Lots of children have great ideas, the issue is getting the ideas down in sentences that make sense and follow on from each other sequentially. I am not saying these things to upset you but I think you need to be aware of what might be going on here.

Not being able to see the teacher who teachers your child maths if they're not also in their class is ridiculous! I hope they review this in light of your experience.m

Had you had any indications about his progress earlier in the year? I think I'd be a bit concerned to get to the end of the Easter term and only then be told he wasn't making any progress anywhere - I'd have liked that to have been raised with me earlier (though reading on, it's not correct anyway.)

I certainly think the head needs to be looking at communication.

I'd find it concerning that the teacher accepted the 7.1 reading age, to my mind at this stage of the year, she should have known immediately that 7.1 was an error, she should simply know your son's ability to read better than this.

NCTTB, I think it's probably quite common to only see your child's class teacher, if the children are setted for maths e.g. in two form entry one teacher takes higher ability, the other takes lower, the maths teacher passes info on to the class teacher.

Not in my experience...