if your DC does school-type work at home do you send it into school?

[workatemylife]

Just wondering really. The class teacher suggested at parents evening that there were some things that would help DC creative writing improve. We have talked about this at home and have a few pieces of written stories etc that look like they might be heading in the right direction. We have given lots of praise and encouragement at home but would you send these things into school for the teacher to read? I don't want to seem too demanding - do teachers only really care about what they see children doing in class? If everybody brought stuff in from home then the poor woman would be deluged! But if DC has put the effort in, maybe it would be nice for her to show the teacher? WWYD?

If its something the teacher has suggested and DC has made progress then i might send in a piece of particularly good work but not every piece.

Maybe a piece of show and tell but not really no unless she/he has requested it.

I do. My DD's class are doing about writing instructions at the moment, and off her own bat she wrote a lovely piece about how to turn school socks pink by washing them with a red towel. She was desperate to show her teacher so I handed it over with a 'please don't judge my laundry skills' apology...

I would if it was specifically related to something they are looking at in school (probably for show and tell) or if I wanted to get the teacher's opinion ("you know that thing we were talking about at parents' evening - is this a good example ...").

DD wants to bring in everything she does at home, and it really wouldn't be practical if every child did that!

In this case I'd ask in a "can you guide me?" way.

I'd say along the lines of "We've been practicing the writing , as you suggested at parents' evening. Dd has done some stuff that I think is better, could you have a look at it and see if she's going along the right lines and if you have any ideas how I can help further".

I would imagine she'll praise your dd, but it won't end up with 30 or 29 and the one like my ds all bringing in stuff they've done at home and want to show.

Teacher's viewpoint:
It's great when a child brings in something they did at home (e.g. a number game they played with dad or a story they made up) and I might share it with the class -although not if they brought something in everyday. Also fantastic if it's something linked to the topic e.g. a study of hedgehogs!

However I wouldn't use this for assessment as I don't know how much input the parents had. I couldn't say the child had used lots of descriptive language as the story might have just been copied out by the child from something a parent wrote. I would however be looking to see an impact of this work in their school work.

Thanks very much for the advice. I don't think we can send this kind of thing in as 'show and tell' because the teacher has a rota for the term which I think is a clear message that she doesn't want the DCs bringing in random crap creative masterpieces to share with the whole class.

But given that the writing was in part a response to the teacher's advice, I might take up the suggestion of taking in one piece to check whether what we've done is the right kind of thing. And - thanks Jenny - then we can tell DC that this needs to be replicated during class writing activities. I can see exactly why work from home wouldn't count towards any formal assessment - I certainly didn't write things out for DC to copy, but we talked a bit before she put pencil to paper about what the teacher wanted her to be thinking about, so yes, she does need to remember to do this on her own in class.

stalebread I'm waiting for the time that one of my DCs writes a vivid account of my poor parenting / domestic skills. Only a matter of time, and in my case it would be true

Totally true in my case as well. Twice. Just found out that the teacher got her to do corrections with a dictionary, write it up neatly and illustrate it. It's up on the wall now. Sigh.

Don't worry about the laundry just say it's from peppa pig.