Am I being naive?

[OutDamnSpot]

Or neglectful?

Have 3dc, 2 of which are at school (ks1). I rarely speak to their teachers at pick up, rarely discover what they have been up to at school and never do workbooks, writing (and tbh v little reading) with them.

I see posts on here querying their child's level or asking for work to be levelled. I have no idea what level my DC are at - I assume if there was an issue the school would approach me.

Am I being neglectful or naïve here? I am expecting school to teach my DC and assuming as they haven't said otherwise its going OK. But feel a bit guilty at my lack of awareness - so should I be doing something....

tbh - the school depends on you to do daily/regular reading with your child. If your child likes reading and reads anyway, then it won't make much difference, but at the beginning, if you don't hear them regularly it will definitely effect their education.

apart from that, workbooks, extra writing etc is pretty overrated.
I try to do the homework that is sent home, but at primary level it really doesn't make much difference.

but the reading is pretty important

Lack of reading is not issue with one - v keen, always got nose in book.

Other one is v resistant to reading. I suggest it and we do it if they want to. As school not said they are behind / struggling, I assume is OK. But I could be very wrong I suppose. End of year reports could be a shock.

Wasn't worried until I saw a few threads about stuff I just hadn't considered or wasn't aware of and am now paranoid I am failing in some way. Joys of maternal guilt I guess.

lots of helicopter parenting on mn, so I wouldn't worry about that.

At our old school I wouldn't have known about levels, but at this school the levels are sent home regularly, so it leads to paranoia!

School rarely tells you if they are a bit behind, they only really flag things up if there is a big problem. But there is quite a gap between problem, and doing their best.
On the other hand, primary school is not about striving for excellence all the time, (which would be exhausting) a lot of it is pottering along doing daily stuff

Hello Outdamnspot

I was like you - assumed that if OFSTED rated the school GOOD and previous to my DD1 joining the school 90% of pupils achieved NCL4+ that I could rely upon the school to deliver good things.

My advice is watch how your child plays with other children.

My 'wake-up' call was watching my 7 year old DD play snakes and ladders with two friends from nursery and have to count up her spaces for each roll whilst the others could just add it up instantly.

Later that day I found one of her little friends reading the monopoly chance card to her, because she couldn't and helping her work out her money to buy houses or move her piece around the board because she had difficulty working out her roll of two dice.

My advice is keep a watchful eye. It's not a competition but if you can see everyone at a maths workshop is doing great with times tables and your child is still working them out on their fingers - well you get the idea....

HTH

Its good to keep an eye out on what they are learning though.

A friend sent her son off to secondary happy with what she knew of his progress in Primary (thinking like you- if something is wrong, theyll tell me), and got called in after a few weeks as her son did not know the alphabet.He could read and write, but had no clue at all that these letters had an order, or what that would be. No clue. Eleven years old and doesnt know the alphabet.

At least the alphabet is easy to learn; if you know the letters probably takes about an hour max to learn. Small deficit quickly remedied.

You're Just ordinary OP. Which is fine. I'm always oblivious to reading levels, too. I do ask them about school, though, or rather, about their social lives at school. Best way to tell what's going on in their heads. Especially teenagers!

Honestly? Yes, I think you're quite naive. Not all schools are good, not all schools ensure that every child makes good progress. Some schools will tell you your child is doing fine when, actually, they're not. And this is true even with schools that look good on paper- Ofsted, key stage results etc.

Education is so important... I do find it strange when parents blindly trust the school. I don't think all parents should have an excellent knowledge of the national curriculum or anything. But I think they should know how well their children read, write and whether they can do simple mental maths, times tables etc.

Just re-read my post and realise it sounds quite harsh. I don't blame parents- in an ideal world, schools would all be doing an excellent job, and parents would just need to do a little reading and fill in the general knowledge.

But we''re not there yet, so I think that parents do need to monitor their own children's progress.

lljkk

Learning a mnemonic song about the alphabet is easy to learn (and standard in pre-school environments/ Year R - however I thinkk it is falling out of fashion because it is letter names rather than sounds) but whether they're taught the song or not - I'm not clear whether this also means the child understands the patterns involved in alphabetical ordering (which is ultimately useful).

You may feel that's not an issue but:

finding library books using Dewey decimal system (or derivative) or looking up someone's name on a list will require it.

Using a conventional thesaurus/ dictionary will require it.

Using a glossary of words at the end of a book will require it.

Using an index at the back of a book (even a cookbook) will require it.

often location maps (for instance at hospitals/ universities) have a list of buildings/ wards alphabetically linked to numbers that you then search out on the map.

link to importance of alphabetical ordering here: schools-education.knoji.com/the-importance-of-children-learning-alphabetical-order/

so no - lljkk - I don't condone a child going through primary and not knowing about this.

Not going extra workbooks and not knowing various levels floating around is fine, I agree with the other posters.

Not reading, on the other hand, is not. However, it's hard to say. You mentioned things you don't do, but didn't say what it is you do with the kids.

See - if you are just not pushy academically and let them develop at their own pace, while providing learning opportunities, than it's great. What I mean by that - YOU read a lot to them, discuss things you see/ or things that happen, take them to museums (if there are any around you), talk to them about some current affairs, get them involved in everyday things that use math (weighing veg, counting money and change, figuring out recipes, telling time, etc) And taking to them about school in general, ie if they are happy there, if anyone is bothering them.

Then you would be aware of how your kids are doing and progressing. Levels are not the only way to judge.

If you don't have time to do anything with your older kids - it's not the end if the world and they may still get most of their learning from school - many of us did and turned out OK. But it is a bit of a chance.

Returning to this today slightly more rational (Friday night wine induced panic last night).

We do do things with the children - cooking, helping in garden, shopping, museums, days out etc and yes we talk to them and read to the younger two.

I've done a quick Google this morning of dc2's reading level and is above chronological age. So not going to panic about reading.

There is an open afternoon next week which, for the first time in 3 years, does not fall on a day I work so I can go in and see their work. Guess I'll have to look at other work around the room to see how they are doing comparatively. Of course one is September born and one July so maybe I need to make allowances for that.

Anyway, what I will do is see how I feel after that and if it doesn't raise any concerns then I'll carry on as we are. If I am concerned then I'll talk to teachers before end of term to see if they share view and feel I should do something more.

Thanks for all your thoughts.

Do they not have any parent's evenings?

Hi OP... I do understand what you're saying, that it's the schools job to teach and you're kind of leaving them to it....but my parents had this same attitude and tbh as you get older it does start to have an impact and has stayed with me....everybody else's parents were keen to come to parents evenings, mine only came if I was struggling. I think it's a shame that they didn't have more interest.

Then, when I trained as a teacher I realised that the teachers feel the same way and do feel sorry for those children whose parents never come to open days, parents eves etc. glad to hear you'll be going to the open afternoon, your children will be so excited I'm sure!

I wouldn't worry too much about comparing with other work around the room. What I would be looking for in writing would be any glaring concerns that they need to work on e.g. really poor spellings, handwriting, have they written loads but it's not punctuated correctly?

In maths I would be looking for whether they can answer simple maths questions confidently at an appropriate level.

Our school will also often let working parents come in on a different occasion say for 10 mins after pick up on a day which you don't work. Obviously they don't want you in there every week, but once or twice a year a good school should be willing to let you see their work. Increasingly teachers are available on email too.

Also can your OH go in. Mine for example is on a 3 line whip to leave work 10min early for parents evening. He has worked up some TOIL (he always works over his hours anyway). His work would probably rather that he didn't claim the time but sometimes it is necessary.

MrsKCastle but I don't know what level of handwriting / spelling / punctuation to expect from a 7 & 5 year old.

Should they use speech marks? Commas? Is getting d and b muddled up bad or normal? Is spelling beautiful byootiful OK or not?

As I don't have a frame of reference for these things it brings me back to, unless the teacher tells me different I'll assume things are OK...

Yes. I think you are being naive.

I have learnt (sadly from our experience of reception last year) that you can never assume anything! The trouble is that there is a fairly broad framework of what is normal in achievement and ability and as long as your child is working within these the teacher wouldn't normally say anything. However this doesn't mean that your child is doing "well" they may actually be below average but just not considered to be struggling.

You have said you don't have a frame of reference but it is easy to educate yourself on this. A quick google will generally show you things such as the reading levels expected for their age and the NC levels expected each year and what they should be aiming for.

I actually think it's very important to keep on top of what your child is doing and how they are doing at school. You don't have to hothouse them but a little bit of extra work at home can really push them on especially if there is a subject they are a little behind with.

You should definitely be reading with them every single day and reading to them too as this can make such a difference to them. It also sets a good role model to show them you find education important too.

Also if you know what they are working on at school you can do some enrichment at home too i.e. tailor any museum visits to what they are studing - Romans, Natural History etc. Get some books out of the library on that topic etc it all helps to round out their education.

If I was you I would just book a 10 min meeting with the teacher and has them how your children were doing in line with national expectations and ask them if there were any areas they were struggling in and what you could do to help them.

I do actually think it is slightly negligent to just not take any interest in how they are doing in their education.

OutDamnSpot I know you don't have a detailed knowledge, but honestly if you look at their work, firstly ask yourself if you can read it, if it makes sense. The 7 year old should at least have clear handwriting, on the line, most letters roughly the right size. Lots of correct spellings, especially common words like 'there' 'when' etc. More difficult/unusual words it's ok to get wrong, but should be picked up- if they're consistently spelling the same words incorrectly, that would concern me.

Is the 5 year old in YR or Y1? That will make a big difference, but I would still be looking to see if I could read their writing, are the letters clear, not ridiculously large. Are they spelling words phonetically, so you can read them even if spelled incorrectly? By Y1 they should definitely be using full stops and capitals. By Y2 ideally you would start to see speech marks, not necessarily commas, but you would want to see question marks, exclamation marks.

You can easily find out these things on here or elsewhere, if you wish to.

You can assume everything is ok unless told otherwise, but that places a lot of trust on the teacher- who has 30 children to teach. At the end of the day, no teacher will ever care about your child's education in the same way you do.

Ok. Thanks all for input. Will stop assuming and start paying attention.

Step 1 work out what a Y2 and Y1 child should be able to do and look at open day to see if they can.

Step 2 talk to teacher if concerned after step 1

I agree with everyone else that there's a reasonable space inbetween helicopter parenting and indifference, and it probably involves talking to the teacher about each DC's progress at least once a term.

Your DCs are probably doing absolutely fine, but your plan to educate yourself about what's expected at various levels is a sensible one, just in case the school is missing a trick.