Just been hauled into HT office !!!!!! I'm so mad !

[alisonmc]

Hi all,
I hate my DS school! At my DS school I am probably the only parent that actively tries to help DS with his work. We read every night, he likes doing sums and other spelling activities...........so what is the problem - here goes:
a) We as parents "we are working against the school" by showing DS different methods of addition and subtraction, etc (see previous posts);
b) HT is worried about DS socially "does he do any activities outside school, has he got any friends, etc, are we putting too much pressure on him" - felt like saying FO!
c) HT is "very cross that I have obtained past SATs papers and DS has done them - well I might add!"
d) HT had DS in office on Monday for an incident "but was sorted out at the time, so no need to tell you about it" - until today that is !!!!
e) HT wants a meeting with DH & myself "to put us back on the right track!"

How ludicrous can this be ? There are thousands of children that get no help or support with their work, have severe home lives, etc - but a child who has loving and caring parents, great social life and home life is getting all this........

I am absolutely livid !

Must say I'm glad I don't have a clue what SATS is and will probably never have to be confronted by it. Sounds mega stressful whatever it is!

because of the way my husband's contracts work, we have had to book a holiday during term time (or do without, didnt go on holiday at all last year).

As this period falls in May I went and asked ds's teacher if it would cause a problem if he missed SATS.
Her response was very dismissive, as in "don't worry about it, KS1 SATS really are not that important, we know his capabilities, it's more important that you all get a holiday"

So that put the whole idea of SATS into context for me.

clumsymum, what a LOVELY teacher!

ss, I think that sats are peanuts compared with what we are going through in germany. dd (a year ago she spoke not a word of german, now she participates fully in the class) is just about to be written off from going to university, aged 10. Well thats her future settled then. If I let them do what they want with her.

I also think people are being rather hard on the OP!

alisonmc - you say you have another appointment with the head at some point. I would arrange this and go back and aks ofr more clarification, some concrete examples of why these things are an issue and what the HT and the class teacher really think. Explain that the HT discussion contradicts the glowing report your child recieved at parent's evening. And then listen. But after that, if there are still issues - ask for a constructive action plan to be devised.

I don't think it is wrong to show your child alternative ways of doing things. You mention that he founf the class way difficult or confusing(?) - so giving him an alternative method that he can understand to me sound sgood, and to be honest that is what the school should have done. All teachers now that different children learn in different ways and that there is no one magic way of doing things like Maths.

Reading regularly is vital so I would stick with that.

Don't restrict your child's activities if that is what he wants to do. Many children love clubs out of school; it gives them lots of benefits inc chance to see their friends and to get fit and healthy too. Follow your son's lead here and let him decide.

Try not to compare yourself with other people. Some of your comments sound like you are being dismissive of other parents and their lifestyles. Forget about that bit. What other's do aren't relevant. And really such comments will only reflect badly on yoursaelf.

I would leave off the SATs papers unless there is a reason why you need your child to do particularly well - entrance exams or something??? On the whole SATs are there as a measure of a school's performance not a childs. If your child loves learning out of school and doing such things, find other fn things on this line instead - there are loads of websites and little fun activity books about.

I don't think it sounds like you are over pushing your child and trying to live your life through him. You do sound like a very supportive parent who wants the best for their child, and there is nothing wrong with that. You know whether he is gettig a good balance of activities in his life - follow your own instincts there!

Alison, I understand you want to do the best for the son. You say that the school has told the children they've got an important time coming up in May, for the SATs, and you wanted to get him a paper to reassure him a bout them. I can see where you're coming from, in that by seeing the papers and practising them he'll be reassured that he can do OK. An alternative approach though might just have been to say oh yes, they're not important (which as everyone has said, they're really not) - it'll just be like a quiz, you'll probably know the answers to some questions and not others, but it really doesn't matter. I'm just wondering if, as it is, you're adding to the pressure by giving him the message that you expect him to do well in the tests - OK, you're not doing that by saying "do well or else", but rather by expressing confidence in his abilities and showing him that he can do well on the practice ones, but the message still seems to be very clear that doing well is the important thing, being able to answer all the questions is the good outcome, and getting them wrong is the outcome you all want to avoid.

I was another high achiever at school and did end up very handicapped by a fear of getting things wrong stopping me trying new things. In fact I turned down the chance to do an extra A level in a subject I was interested in, purely because I was afraid of not doing well enough in the exam. So I had the chance to have two years of free tuition (at a good independent school), in a subject I liked (but didn't need the exam pass for for university, so needn't have felt pressured), but I turned it down because I thought the only thing that mattered was doing well in the exam at the end. At that time, I just didn't 'get' the idea that it was the learning that was the important bit - I really wish now my parents had argued with me, rather than agreeing with me that there was no point if I might not do well in the exam.

The school has absolutely no business to order you about over what you do with your own child in your own time, and I'd tell them that. However, I agree with Hulababy that putting down other parents will not help you, and that there are better ways to spend your time than doing SATS papers.

One point nobody's mentioned: the KS1 SATS results are not published but the KS2 results are, along with value added results showing improvement since KS1. That gives the school an incentive not to get good results at KS1, which may be behind the OP's school's attitude (and other schools' seemingly laid back attitudes). I'd be very surprised if the pressure weren't full on in Year 6.

I think maybe it's a bit like something like ice-skating - if a child says they don't want to try because they're afraid of falling down, you can take two approaches to reassuring them: (1) you can reassure them that they won't fall down, help them practice the leg movements or whatever at home, show you've got lots of confidence in them that they won't fall down, and so on; or (2) you can help them to see that falling down doesn't matter, and that in fact it probably will happen, but that that's normal for learning new things. The thing with (1) is that although it might make falling down slightly less likely, in the long term it only reinforces the child's fear of the awfulness of falling down. (2), in contrast, is more likely to lead to them going out and having fun, and trying new things courageously, without being constantly worried about falls along the way.

With A levels and so on, not falling down will be important to a child, and it would be wrong to laugh off that fear and say it absolutely doesn't matter at all (though even then you'd want as a parent to be giving the message that it's trying hard that's more important and it's not the end of the world if after all they do fall down). But at the age of seven I do think a child needs mainly not to be afraid of falling down, far more than they need to be confident that they won't do so, or practise things to stop them falling.

slight German detour of the thread here...
Oh no NN, that really is a big situation. You're going to have to fight them over this I suppose. I wouldn't relish that but what else can you do? I find you have to really psyche yourself up for these confrontations though.

Someone here told me that system of recommendations was no longer in use though and that dp could simply register their dc at the school(s) of their choice and sit entrance exams. Perhaps that only applies to Berlin. Are there no German-English bilingual Gymnasia near you? If she's learning some subjects in English, she should manage fine, don't you think?

Mind you, a friend's dd has just started at Gymnasium and her grades have dropped through the floor (average of 5). It's a huge change from primary school apparently (average of 2).

Hi all,

Update to yesterday's post.
I had a word with DS teacher this morning and asked why hadn't I been informed of her concerns regarding DS's apparent lack of social skills. She said that she had not any personally and thinks he is a "wonderful child and a joy to teach".
I then asked why had his work that he had done at home been passed to the HT and she said,"DS is working beyond our remit and we want to do the best for him". So to label the poor child as socially inept is "doing the best for him" I asked - DS teacher said that she had not ever applied this label and I needed to speak to HT about it. (Buck and passing springs to mind here)
I asked DS's teacher about the Monday incident when DS was taken to HT office - she said that she did not know anything about it! Great communication, eh?

I had a good chat with DH last evening regarding this whole episode and he said that maybe DS has outgrown the school and they are finding it difficult to deal with his advancement - so the only way of checking that we are not "hot-housing" DS is to throw in some rubbish about DS socially. It's a thought that he is going to bring to HT's attention this evening when he sees her.

We have agreed to hang in there for the next four months and continue to do the same things with DS as always.

Will keep you updatedx

Hi Alison, not read through all the threads, but imo you have clearly said that you are not pushing your little boy, and everything he does is because he wants to, sounds to me like he's too far ahead at school and they don't have enough work to keep him occupied, thats not your fault, they should be able to find him work to do on the level he is working at, children do work at different levels. i think your a great mum helping him like this, its all i can do to listen to my dd read her book to me!

Sounds like the HT might have a hidden agenda. Do you know if you've upset or offended her in some way?

TBH, I have no idea what is going on. The only thing that could have happened was that back in Sept HT wanted me to do chair of governors role, but declined due to work pressures - other than that, I can't think of anything that I may have done to upset her.

(thread hijack)
ss, I wouldnt mind her going to the realschule for a year if she could jump to the gym. bayern is so rigid though, that everyone says its possible, but they dont know anyone who's done it, without the obligatory losing a year.
its all going pear shaped for us, Im trying to get us out now.
social worker says my children need "erzeiherische hilfe" in other words, to be taught how to obey. I have no choice in this, once she has said it, the entire system will swing behind her, because she is a social worker and Im just the mother. she has been trying to worm her way into our family ever since she realised that Im a single parent. I dont want to be trapped in this inhuman system any longer.

Sent you a long garbled mail, nn! And yes, I agree rigidity is the word.

Let us know what happens at the meeting alison. Maybe she was just having a bad day and took it out on you. It may all be less dramatic than it sounded.