No sense of where my child is in the class

[Enjoyingmycoffee1981]

I was very anxious about my August born son starting school this year. As it turns out, it has been fine. I am actually gob smacked at his progress. Before school, he knew how handful of letters, no sounds and blotchy counting.

Now he is reading!!!! Not everything obviously, not even close, but if he doesn't recognise the word by sight, he can sound it out and then gets it.

I would love to know how this compares with other children in his class. I want to know if he is doing well for a summer born, or if he is doing well. Period.

I have asked the teacher and she said, yes he is doing very well, but it is a large busy school and that was the sum total of our conversation.

So I would be keen on your thoughts.

He is 4.5, he recognises all letters of the alphabet, he can sound them all out, he can identify a number of words without needing to sound them out e.g. It, is, the, and, go, on, no etc. He can read most 3/4 letter words by sounding them out.

It is this doing ok, or is this just doing ok for a summer born?

Thanks v much

-they might understand that whilst top/bottom in this class, in national terms they are above/below expectations
- they might decide to provide more support as a result of the information, perhaps because they are disappointed about where they are in the class or relation to national expectations
- it might enable them to think more accurately about the future - ie whether to look into Grammar school education or not
- it might make them decide to hire a tutor/get rid of an existing tutor
- it might help them understand why a child has high or low self esteem and think of ways to deal with low self esteem
- it might help them understand or start to understand some of the child's friendship issues

The first four would be answered by comparison to national expectations.

The last two would be better addressed in about a million ways, last of them all being their teacher helpfully pointing out: 'well, she is in the bottom quintile of the class you know, so that might be why she has low self-esteem"

And my comments on statutory information relate to a previous poster's assertion that deciding what to share with a parent wasn't in mrz's 'remit' - it was used to illustrate that some data has to be shared and some does not exist. Every single one of the other things you cite that teachers should share is not related to data, so your outrage there is misplaced.

Given that several teachers have taken the time to explain both why we a)can't give you this information and b) why it won't help your child, i'm not sure why you have chosen to single out mrz. But MN don't allow personal attacks anyway, OP.

Feenie go to mums net and see if they delete.

It wasn't a personal attack. It was a genuine observation. No offensive language no name calling

Feenie did you read in a later post why I wanted the information?

clam :o shh! Don't tell them our secrets.

Yep. It's still not a reason for a teacher telling you about the attainment of everyone else in the class, which would be unprofessional.

Why is MN so full of people with limited comprehension skills? You've completely misunderstood mrz's points.

It's a new day. I'm off to parents evening as a teacher tonight.
I will tell the parents exactly what their children achieved in their mock exams and believe it or not, we will place a list on a board, of all the students in the year with their results IN ORDER. And every single subject will do the same thing for this particular parents evening.
We are extremely professional, top rated in inspection and massively over-subscribed.
And I hope clam, that you don't tell parents at your parents evening that they have limited comprehension skills.

Gosh how awful.

In a state school?

Poor children

Feenie, where did I ask for the attainment of everyone else?!

I will tell the parents exactly what their children achieved in their mock exams and believe it or not, we will place a list on a board, of all the students in the year with their results IN ORDER. And every single subject will do the same thing for this particular parents evening

I think that's dreadful!

Imagine if everyone's latest teaching observation grades were placed on a board in order for everyone to see. Would that spur people on to get an outstanding next time or would it just make people feel crap that everyone knew what they'd got?!

So chocolate, I idly surmise something on an anonymous forum and you think that means I say such things out loud in a professional capacity? Okaaaay.

Chocolate, are you a secondary school teacher? If so of course things are different, our local paper prints the individual GCSE results of pupils so anyone sad enough could work out the 'cleverest' child in town (although again it's really a national comparison isn't it?)

As a parent I have no desire to know my child's 'position' in class, so long as she is reaching her potential and national expectations. Why would I want to know - if the answer was 'she's at the top' I'd be worrying whether she was being stretched enough and if it was 'she's at the bottom' I'd be thinking 'god, has she got some learning difficulty that's being missed'. Whereas when a teacher says my dd is at * national level I know exactly where I stand.

Chocolate wombat a colleague was reprimanded after Ofsted and SIP discovered a board tracking children's progress was visible to others as it breached confidentiality

Feenie go to mums net and see if they delete.

I did, and they did. It was pretty much the exact definition of a personal attack.

Feenie, where did I ask for the attainment of everyone else?!

Discussing your child's position in the class would necessitate discussing where everyone else is.

I will tell the parents exactly what their children achieved in their mock exams and believe it or not, we will place a list on a board, of all the students in the year with their results IN ORDER.

In primary school? I can see why you were so keen to bring up the subject of discussing children's self esteem at parents' evening - you must have to do this often.

OP, I read what you said about/to feenie this morning and was appalled. How can you possibly think that doesn't qualify as a personal attack? Anyway, MN clearly agreed it was unacceptable and removed the post.

And for the record, if I found my child's exam results up on a board for the whole world and his wife to see, I would remove them from the school immediately and make a report to Ofsted. I simply cannot believe that this is deemed good practice by whoever has given your school high inspection grades.

It was about mrz, actually. It wasn't pleasant, I agree.

And what on earth does the school hope to achieve by doing such a thing?

Of course I would expect teachers to relay mock results to the parents of the individual child concerned, (if your point in mentioning that was to portray yourself as open and accountable), but there can be no excuse to discuss other students' results.

So, I asked my son's teacher today, how is he doing? She said very well. I said, well you know my concerns about him being summer born so so it a case that he is doing very well for a summer born? And she said, nope, doing well full stop. I asked what quartile she would place him in within the class, she thought about it and then said, between 50-75%

Bingo!!

Exactly the information I wanted.

I suppose feenie and co would have looked at me blankly and then, in robot voice, said "I do not have the information and so can not answer you question. In any event, there is no valid reason for you to know".