Clash with teacher and principal over .... textbooks. AIBU? Help meeting tomorrow!

[TheAussieProject]

I have reached an impasse with my son's teacher and principal and I honestly don't know if I AIBU or not, so before our meeting tomorrow, give me some thoughts. I am truly lost.

We moved to Australia from Spain 18 months ago. Before coming here, my son spoke 4 languages but none of these was English (our previous posts were in Spain, Italy and Switzerland ). He started with 2 months of Y2, and I knew from the teacher that he didn't understand a word but was happy and trying.

January last year , he started Y3, during all the year I was told he was doing fine, improving , learning, lovely boy , bla bla . I could only listen to her words, as the school policy forbids bringing textbooks home so I had no clue about school work and achievements. Mid year report was good. Teacher was praising him.

So on my happy pink cloud until December when my son brings home all his textbooks. Big massive shock. Phrases which makes no sense, incomplete works , messy texts, illegible pages. A complete difference from what the textbooks he had in the previous years. His level has worsen, handwriting has turned a disaster when mixing the European cursive with the Australian print and even the drawings are senseless .

This January, I asked the Y4 teacher if I could have my son's textbooks home from time to time to help identify all the gaps he still had in English and help him get organized by going through his work, have him find his own mistakes, and let him tell me what he founds difficult, and so on. I am French and in France, you learn from very young to spend 10 minutes per day to re-read what has been done in class, finish whatever was left incomplete , so you consolidate what you have learned that day.

Big clash and total refusal to let me see my son’s textbooks. They tell me I can see them in the class but whenever I ask to (3 times since January) , there are excuses or meetings in the principal office, never in the class where the textbooks are. Meanwhile the teacher has changed her attitude towards my son (even if I haven’t commented on this with her) and she tells me I need to work with him, he doesn’t get the English phonics, and more and more critics. I am more than happy to help, when I requested to provide a plan, I was told it will be discussed at the next meeting.

So now I get to the point: is it a cultural clash? No access to textbooks is normal and whatever request considered an offence? My wish has nothing to do with judging the teacher, her teaching or the class. I just want to help my son because a student that struggles in Y4 will struggle in Y9 if nothing is done. I want to see what he writes, challenge him to write more articulate sentences than “they did lots of cool stuff” and understands his weaknesses such as its and it’s, force him to keep nice textbooks until (hopefully it becomes an habit) , ...

I am a nightmare mother? A true pian in the A… ? Should I back off? I am getting nowhere and only achieving an hatred .
What am I doing wrong and what should I do?
Thanks in advance

[PolkadotsAndMoonbeams]

I'm shocked that books don't go home - mine always did! We'd have them in a desk/locker at school and whatever was needed would go home and back again. This was inEngland, not that long ago, but a private school.

Anyway, I think it is probably culture clash (and I did have one or two teachers like your French ones OP - corrections could be longer than the original piece of work!).

For the writing, could a pen friend help? It would be a way of doing some extra writing that wasn't work. You could also do a mix of shorter letters, longer letters and postcards, so he didn't have to write loads if he didn't want to.

[kesstrel]

OP - Here's an article about the maths algorithms issue from Canada, that might interest you. Quote:

"There are even parents we are hearing from in Ontario saying 'I taught my child how to add down columns and the teacher sent a note home saying please stop teaching the old algorithms to the students because it's harming them,'" he said....

But Craigen rejects [this]. That sort of skill "is an important benchmark in the development of an overall conception of how numbers and arithmetic work, in preparation for algebra, which is the gateway in high school to the higher mathematical disciplines they will see in college," he says.

"It's long been settled that the establishment of basic facts, in memory, and the development of automatic skills for the most basic tasks is really of fundamental importance in developing long-term skills."​

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/math-scores-students-canada-basics-discovery-1.3526188

[user789653241]

After reading kesstrels's post, it made me wonder. In my ds's school, there is very rigid system. Column method was not taught in KS1. Book levels only goes up to lime in KS1. What do actual teacher think about those systems? If the school made a policy about it, can't it be changed according to each child?
My ds was never taught column method, and I didn't teach him because I listened to school. But In yr2, he was suddenly given lots of worksheet to do using column method, and I end up teaching him. but I had a big help from learning website. Otherwise, I might have been worried if I'm teaching him right. I really felt "???????"

[kesstrel]

That's really interesting, Irvine. Do you suppose they meant him to use some other method than column addition? Or maybe there was a disagreement between teachers on methods? Anyway, you've taught him now, which I certainly believe is a good thing!

[user789653241]

It was printed worksheet, so it was definitely column method. I never thought of disagreement between teachers, but it might have been the case. The teacher left school end of the year.(which was a real shame, she was one of the best.)

[TheAussieProject]

Thank you all for your post, books suggestions and links.
And CookieDoughKid I think you are doing the right thing!

What I wonder is how do parents in the English/Australian system know and follow how things are going at school. You see no books (all included text, exercises ,...), no grades, a random parent teacher evening.

I believe it is quite normal to help or explain a concept again at home if it isn't clear. I remember my eldest crying one afternoon before they had done something "really hard " at school, but he didn't have the name for it. I opened his book and it was the order of operations. So I explained it again and we did 10 examples and he even enjoyed it. He had asked the teacher to explain again, but he felt he couldn't ask a third time because he was embarrassed.

Funny thing is I can't do maths in other languages but French. Counting, calculating sum, division or whatever, I do everything in French. It comes automatically. I don't have to think about 17+8, but in English?!

[CookieDoughKid]

Aussie Then this is something you need to suggest to your school to provide better visibility in what is being taught. My school in Oxfordshire provides these weekly snippets emailed to parents every week! These snippets are created by the class teacher. Here is a REAL example recently received:-

Year 3 - Week Commencing XXXX

The Year 3 children have been learning about:-

• Maths
We have been working on mathematical word problems including topics on time.
We have been working on mental multiplication and division on 3, 6 & 9 timetables.

• English
We have been writing letters to children in a school in Kenya about our home and school lives. We have also been continuing to plan and write our newspaper articles about the Battle of Marathon.

Art In Art we made Ancient Greek theatre masks using white card and collage techniques. We have also been finishing our Herakles books.

(Optional) suggested supplement work at home:
To help your child at home the children could use books and the internet to find out more about Ancient Greek theatre and plays.
-----

Of course, this doesn't tell me anything more individual about my child but I will be able to know the topics and support him at home. I can ask questions and see if my child can write something as short passage in English for me in his current topic (to see his written English and grammar).

I hope this helps and really, you need to need to talk to the school. Other schools like mine do a great job of informing parents on what's happening and what's being taught. I know my school collects a huge amount of data on my child, they can see how my child is performing within his class and year group and they have the data and justification to back up their reasoning. I know as I've seen the folders and data (unusually, the head teacher allowed me to view it as I had some questions particularly).

Also, I can view my children's Class books, every Friday mornings weekly before school officially starts and I can make an appointment with my the teacher to discuss his books and anything else. It's really welcome by my class teacher as they are happy (or they seem happy) that we take an interest.

I should add that my Primary school is ranked comfortably within top 1000 in the UK for SATS results league tables and last year, about 30% achieved level 6 and 70% level 5 and above across all subjects. It's a high achieving state school, our focus is very academic and the school is very, very use to close scrutiny from parents like me. We have lots of other nationalities at our school, many Europeans like French, German, Italian and a lot of white English but we are very middle class and I would say majority of parents are typically working, many are (female) doctors, lawyers or like me, ex-Forbes 100 city professional types.

Given your experience at your school, I would seriously be looking at moving my child but I understand that it is not always possible and maybe your school is actually fine but in comparison to the openess and good communication that can be achieved, I would always ask for more that can be done at your school. I hope this helps.

[TheNewStatesman]

"What I wonder is how do parents in the English/Australian system know and follow how things are going at school."

I wonder about this too. I suppose you have to hunt through the school bag for crumpled bits of paper, or ask "What did you do at school today?" (otherwise known as the world's least productive question).

[TheAussieProject]

Changing school is not really an option. He is fed up of always being the new kid. Too many countries, too many schools, too many goodbyes, And to be honest I am not sure the school around would be very different. Moving to Australia has been very very difficult for him, and now that he has built his friendships I don't want to cause more pain for an uncertain gain.

I don't feel I can receive much support from the teacher, so we will manage on our own and I am curious to see what the tutor says about my son.

TheNewStatesman the only notes I find at the bottom of his bag are excursions or activities. By the way, what is the point of the school bag if the only thing in it is the hat!

[Gryla]

I think my school does a great job in introducing topic and teaching but not much is done to reinforce and provide rigour.

Both DH and I are white British - our parents working class but we'd probably be put in middle now - and we think this too.

They tend to be good at giving out topic work but everyday basics there is very little information are there can be large gaps.

We see teacher's twice a year then get five minutes with all the children books and an end of year report. May get that year work books at end of the year or equally may not. Homework usually time consuming work often craft based not often useful in helping us pick up any problems the children have.

Have had many times experience of being told in one meeting an area isn't a problem only to be told it's a massive issue in next meeting few months later and vice versa.

We resorted to on-line maths program - in our case mathsfactor- as we'd be warned off teaching the DC wrongly so were worried about helping despite very strong maths backgrounds ourselves.

Then also top up with bbc bite sized stuff at time as well.

I've been looking for something similar for secondary - found
www.conquermaths.com/ it's originally Australian so should have Aus version so if maths is a problem could be a place to start.

Though
www.khanacademy.org/ is free and overs many subjects but is US based.

If reading and spelling are in English are issues [[http://www.spelfabet.com.au/ ]] is an Australian English phonics program it might help expand vocabulary as well.

We try and expand topic work with book, tv programs, visits or home projects then do our own thing with the basics - reading, writing, spelling, grammar and maths. Find this board and many of the teacher's who post here a huge source of good advice.

[Gryla]

I was also told one of mine has no imagination or creativity by a few teachers. This surprised us.

However over next year to 18 months we helped our child overcome the many different problems they had with writing and all the teachers subsequently have commented on the the huge creativity they display in their writing.

I think before the were using all the time and thinking power to just keep up when that stopped they had more space to demonstrate the creativity.

So IMO it's perfectly possible that lack of creativity is a product of struggling to get to grips with English and all the other changes.

[TheNewStatesman]

With regard to doing extra work with kids at home... just wanted to put a word in for doing history, geography and science at primary level, not just maths and language arts.

I feel that these days, it is rare for a state primary school to have a proper syllabus of systematic teaching for each of these areas.

In SO many state schools, it's like... you get maths, you get literacy, and then everything else gets collapsed into this kind of vague "topic" work. No systematic framework for getting kids through a basic ball-park chronology of history, or actually covering basic geography comprehensively. My nieces' school is like this. The only "history" they are learning is this hodge-podge of random bits and pieces in no order whatsoever. Is it any wonder kids are leaving primary schools with such massive gaps in their knowledge? As parents, I think we have little choice other than to try and fill the gaps at home.

[seemslikeonlyyesterday]

Sorry to hear of your difficulties. When you move somewhere new it takes a while to get used to the system, it is especially difficult when you think maybe that the system is as good as the one you came from. Firstly this sounds basic and I'm sure it's all been checked but is your son in the correct school year. The Australian year runs differently to Europe and they tend to be more flexible on which year group a child is in, i.e if they are on the cusp they can go 'up' or 'down' depending on what will suit the child better.

If the school won't allow workbooks home then I think you could possibly get around this by voicing your concerns and saying that each week or fortnight you want to go into school to review the work that has been done. Approached as a 'I'm concerned about him/the language' and with a focus on working with the school to support him, they can't really refuse.

We are in NZ and it is very different here, I think Australia is a bit the same. My experience, which may help, is that years 7 and 8 are a bit of a waste of time. Here it is classed as 'Intermediate' and is generally referred by many parents as the 'holding pen' i.e. the couple of years of doing not much before they go to High School for year 9. I definitely found it to be like that and have been so disappointed with the content covered, the standards and the lack of expectation of the children to move to a different level with their work. re Maths, I became sick and tired of the different maths strategies which seemed to be all over the place with lots of questions marked incorrectly because the right strategy wasn't used. They have recently admitted that the changes to the maths curriculum hasn't worked and it will be changed again. Mathletics is used a lot, too much imo, although both mine now have lots of other maths homework with Mathletics used to supplement. Lastly and probably the biggest thing for me has been the complete lack of writing, in any subject. There is little or no emphasis on handwriting and grammar.

What I'm getting at is that it is very different, much more laid back and in state schools I've found it not as open as it was in the UK. Anyway good luck, I hope it improves for your son.

[NotCitrus]

I totally disagree, New Statesman! We could debate for hours what should be in "basic" knowledge of history, but with topics there is no reason why children won't get a general grasp of prehistory, early humans, classical civilisations mainly Egyptians and Romans, Norman Conquest, world exploration and Tudors and civil war etc, Industrial revolution and Victorian period and empire, WWI and II and recent history. Probably more so than when I was at school and would do max one of the above in a year. Teaching kids to recite Willy, Willy, Harry, Ste is way less important.

Some schools, whatever the system, are much less good at communicating with parents about what they plan to teach kids that year, what is expected for the kids to have learnt by the end, and what your child needs to concentrate on. Ds's school have diaries so you can put questions in them, but also at least once a half term they put your child's targets for literacy, maths, and other in so you will know what to work on. And each half term you get a cheery letter on how "we are practising our joined-up writing by writing about..." and "please help your child with their 2 and 5 times tables by...", with homework assignments on the back. And failing that, you can say hello to the teacher in a morning or afternoon especially if you alert them you have a concern by writing it in the planner. Though dn's school on paper is similar, but in practise there's a lot more fobbing off with "it's fine" and less willingness to answer queries - much more down to individual teachers and heads than the system, IMO.

[TheNewStatesman]

Your school sounds better than the ones whose schemes of work I took at look at, then!

Most of the state primary schools whose schemes of work I checked out... the history content consisted of a pretty sorry-looking bunch of random bits. Pirates, then the Great Fire of London, then something on the Mayans, then Mary Seacole or something.

No way were kids going to come out of this with a proper understanding of the "sweep" of history or how one thing led into another thing.

I maintain that parents who want their kids to get a really good understanding of geography and history need to get maps and timelines and a globe, and work to build knowledge at home.

[TheAussieProject]

I am not sure I want to push the teacher too much because since I have started asking to see his work, her attitude has changed towards DS2.
What I have explained here to you, I have told her, so she knows about the culture difference, the multilingualism, the systems and so on. And I have always been very nice and polite and in a whole term I haven't been given access to it and th only time I tried during the open classrooms, not only was she there in a second but she told me I had ruined the aim of the open classroom.

History is fundamental to understand the big events of the worlds and today/s challenge I believe. In Europe it is done in a strict chronologic order, from Ancient to contemporary.
What I have seen with my son in High school is that they did Egypt and Greece in y7 and in y8 they started straight with the Middle Ages. And the Romans?? How can you understand the Middle Ages, the raise of the Church and the shift of powers without the Romans??? Because Roman is done in Y11 and 12. We have lots and lots of children history books at home, but I need to buy new one, because they are all in the wrong languages. Not much choice in bookshops here, and we are in Sydney. This is something I miss, taking the kids to these huge bookshops and spent hours in there.

I realise I sound like a bitter woman and I am not. There are many things I like about Australia and even in Australian School.
Such as how a topic is worked through subject. For example in year3 , they did the Rain Forests, so this topics was done in Geography, Science and English.

But it would still be 1000 times easier if I had those bloody workbooks home every week!!! :)

[MidniteScribbler]

I can tell you that sending workbooks home would be a disaster. Trying to teach a class and getting the chorus of 'oh I left it at home', 'the dog ate it', 'my little brother drew on it' is really frustrating and does take up classroom time.

A parent is welcome to make an appointment and come and view the books, but if they wanted to pour over them with a fine tooth comb and criticise every activity, and especially criticise their child's work and make them do a lot of extra pressure work at home, then you can see why the teacher may be wary.

What I have explained here to you, I have told her, so she knows about the culture difference, the multilingualism, the systems and so on.

To be honest, I've had a parent from overseas who has done what you have done and kept telling me how much better their system overseas was. It was very tedious and didn't help matters at all. They were completely closed to the fact that things are done differently in other countries and it can make for quite a hostile relationship to the point that you go on the defensive as you see the parent making a beeline for you every afternoon because you wonder which tale of 'The system in Xxxxxx is so much better than you' that you are going to be regaled with that day.

You need to calm down. 'What can I do at home to support J's learning?' is a much better approach than going in in a combative 'My system in better than yours' approach. You are pushing so hard and trying to make the system in to something that it is not.

[Gremlinsateit]

Areas of the Northern Beaches can be a bit parochial, but there are many excellent bookshops around greater Sydney. If transport is an issue try Dymocks or Booktopia online.

Assuming this is a Northern Beaches public primary I would give up the battle re better home school communication and focus on improving his vocab, handwriting and maths skills with outside activities (remembering one person one language as far as you and French are concerned). Mathletics doesn't particularly follow the curriculum but it is still a useful tool and it's unusual for it to be locked overall ie once he has done the assigned tasks he should be able to do a range of other activities. As mentioned up thread there are plentiful options of workbooks that do follow the local curriculum for both maths and literacy skills, and these are available online as well as in newsagents.

Although NAPLAN and the NAPLAN industry are rightly despised, you can have a look at his results from last year to inform you and the tutor of any obvious weaknesses and the NAPLAN prep books will give you an idea of whether he knows the basics for years 3 and 5.

[TheNewStatesman]

I find that a history timeline (to stick on the wall) a world map, a globe and some children's books on history are a good place to start. Usborne does lots of nice stuff--if you lack bookshop variety, then go online!

If you want to go into stuff a bit more seriously, you can take a look at the Galore Park Junior series. It covers stuff in chronological order, and goes into just enough detail to help kids get a good handle on what came after that, how one thing led into another thing and so on.

www.amazon.co.uk/Junior-History-Edward-Lawlor-Brennan/dp/190298496X?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

The lack of basic historical knowledge among teenagers in countries like Britain and Oz is terrifying. The topic approach is just not working.

[Essel]

I'm probably not allowed to suggest this, but have you asked about this on an Australian parenting forum? There is one big one a bit like mumsnet.

[kesstrel]

How can you understand the Middle Ages, the raise of the Church and the shift of powers without the Romans???

Indeed. [laughs sardonically] Unfortunately, just studying the Romans, without teaching an overview of history chronologically, won't solve the problem. My DD2 got an A* in GCSE History. She subsequently asked me how it happened that the Roman Empire became the British Empire (she apparently thought their was no disconnect between the two).

[kesstrel]

Oops, there, not their!

[kesstrel]

Statesman The lack of basic historical knowledge among teenagers in countries like Britain and Oz is terrifying. The topic approach is just not working.

The thing is, the people who dreamt up the topic approach, and who are still promoting it, aren't actually interested in getting children to learn basic historical knowledge. They don't think that's important. What they are aiming for, is to use the study of history primarily as a vehicle for 'developing skills of analysis' and getting children 'to think like historians' (i.e. think creatively and critically).

Unfortunately, the result is huge knowledge gaps and a lot of spoon-feeding of the 'analysis' that the children are supposed to be able to do for themselves, but usually can't. Because they still don't know enough about the topic, and especially because they don't have enough historical background to be able to make comparisons and connections. And possibly because they aren't developmentally ready to do the kind of thinking most of us only really started doing at 17 or 18.

[PolkadotsAndMoonbeams]

But Midnite, people always used to take exercise books home. Surely if it's the expectation then they'd be responsible about it, because it's just the done thing?

I don't really understand how you're meant to consolidate what you've been taught if you don't have what you've done there with you - say it was a language homework, describing yourself, where you've learnt about eyes/hair/height in class. Surely the best way to do that would be to use the notes you've made in the lesson (perhaps plus a dictionary)?

I also don't really understand how homework is done - do you have a separate exercise book for, say, creative writing to be done at home?

I can see how it's wearing having comparisons made (somebody's done it to me before, in a different field and it was really annoying), but the whole not taking books home is so different to how I was taught I'm struggling to get my head around it. I'm English, so I can see how the OP is having even more difficulties!

(Sorry for derailing a bit OP.)

[TheAussieProject]

MidniteScribbler Did you read the whole thread?

Essel thank you for the suggestion and the pm :) . My first port of call is always Mumsnet, I've been here for 10 years but had to change username because of the crazy-hacker-twitter dad, I was on THE list. I will try thank you.

My Y8 son has decided to do an additional History course as a selective for y9 next year, here are the topics in the course description:

Famous Personalities in History eg Alexander the Great
 Film as History eg.” The Great Escape”
 History Mysteries eg. Jack the Ripper
 Revolutions in History eg. Russian Revolution
 Insight into Asian History eg. Feudal Japan
 Mythologies
 Genocide in History eg. Holocaust and Rwanda
 Disasters eg. Titanic, Apollo 13
 Heroes and Villains in History

Exactly as you say, kesstrel topics but out of context. My son loves history so I am happy for him to do it and it will certainly complement the history they will do in the main course. But how can you understand - again I know - the Holocaust, without explaining the birth of the nationalsocialist Germany and the price they had to pay for losing the WWI? And I am really curious to see how they will approach the Russian revolution.

It is like getting a bite of everything, and making it "fun". To a certain extend I agree, because I lost months of my life learning all the names of ALL the French Kings in the Middle Ages, and forgot most of them immediately. And History isn't getting shorter but the hours dedicated to it certainly are. You need to accomodate for new subjects, such as computer science.

So putting this topics in context is a job to be done at home.
Thank you for the book serie suggestion TheNewStatesman

Gremlinsateit my son did the Naplan last year even if he didn't have to as he wasn't coming from an English speaking country and hadn't been in the country for 12 months and when we received the results, he was in the higher band for spelling and reading performing far above the average, and the other topics is was around or slightly above average. I was surprised to receive the letter, because his teacher had told me they wouldn't make him sit the exam but give him a mock test from a previous year so he wouldn't feel left out. Another miscommunication I guess.