Supporting your child

[EYFSBen]

Hi all,
I've been a teacher for the last 11 years, and have a 13 year old daughter who I've always been able to support through her school due to my job.
My question would be though, as non-teaching parents, do you feel there is enough support given to you as a parent for you to help your child?
Does the school give you tips of things to try? If not, do you wish they did / do you try and support them?
If your child has just started school, do you feel that they've given you enough support for early reading/counting? (I know how frustrating this stage can be if you're unsure on how to support them!)
I'm just trying to do a research project to help the partnership between schools and home so any ideas are greatly appreciated. Thank you!

My 4 year old has just started and we were actually chatting at the gates last week about how there seems to be a constant assumption that we as parents know what we are doing when in reality it's our first child at school. I do wish there was more support to helping parents knowing how things work to start (ie how to book parents evening which is the current issue) etc.

We have a parents phonics session coming up in a couple of weeks and we get weekly "home learning focus" which is small tasks to do at home.

Thanks @Bugsymalonemumof2 That's really useful.
When you get books home, do they have words? Have you been given any guidance on what to do?
The 'how things work' is a really important step that I think a lot of schools forget - especially for 'meet the teacher' type evenings where booking can be quite stressful depending on how they do it!

I think if you're well educated and more importantly confident academically it isn't too difficult to support our child academically. My son for example isn't good at handwriting and I don't know anything about cursive but I've found it easy to approach his (lovely) teacher to ask for resources and advice on what to do over the long summer holiday. He's sailed through maths and reading and I feel I have the skills to help him anyway (there are plenty of online resources to show you exactly what the syllabus is and the way it's taught).

I think for some parents the issue isn't that they're unintelligent but they're not confident academically, due to their own experiences at school. Some feel nervous approaching teachers as they'll feel judged for not already knowing, they don't feel confident looking up and using information they've found online.

What a great topic for a research project!

I have one DD who is now in Y4.

I, like Crips, am the sort of parent to do my own research in order to support DD. For example, I read up on phonics when she showed signs of wanting to learn to read, so I’d be on the same page as school.

However, I don’t think the school have been very good at helping the parents to help their children at home. There has been one parent briefing per year, and no guidance as to how to help them with homework. They are helpful if you ask, but I mostly rely on my own research.

Thank you both for your replies. This is really interesting as, whilst I think it's amazing that you're proactive in supporting your child, for something like phonics, there are so many different ways it can be taught now, that there can almost be too much information out there which isn't always relevant. Maths especially is an area that I feel that schools should really communicate with the parents in a better way.

This is all great food for thought for me, so thanks.

Our school did sessions on phonics and then later on in maths.

The school tried, but found getting parents to attend was difficult.

One of the issues is when is the best time for parents?

In school time? (what if they are working, what about pre-school)
Straight after school (so kids attend too?)
In the evening (what about single parents, and what about the teachers who have already done a long day).
What about the parents who have English as a second language (or not much English)?

One thing school did which may have helped was run/signpost Maths for parents - ostensibly to help the parents with their own maths, but no doubt partly so they could then support their own children.

Generally whatever time the school did any info talks for parents there was a low turn out, and mainly probably didn't 'hit' the parents they most wanted/needed to attend.

@TeenPlusTwenties I agree - I've run phonics sessions for 90 families and only had 1 turn up. There never is a best time I guess - but I always found straight after school with somewhere for the children to go was best.

I think what I find hard with two kids in school now and both parents working full time is fitting everything in. We don't pile home until 6pm and by then everyone is tired and just want to relax. Somewhere we have to fit in two loads of reading, writing, sounds and homework. If it gets left to the weekend, I pretty much spend all my Saturday on it, along with the housework etc. I actually feel like my weekends are spent doing so much school stuff!!

@Fatted I totally get that about the amount of time needed to spend on the homework esp after a day.
When my DD was in Reception and Year 1, I did nothing with her after school - and I taught in Year 1 at her school whilst she was there! (She was in another class). I just couldn't find the energy to do it though! It wasn't until she was a little older and can get on with it more independently with me just offering a few words of encouragement, that did homework really get done!

Looking back now though, the reason I didn't really do anything was because there wasn't really much useful stuff coming home - projects about build this, make that etc, don't really extend the learning unless you really dive into the subject - and that takes a lot of time up!

I'm thinking the focus of my research is going to be helping teachers set focused tasks that either prepare the children for up coming learning - or actually consolidate their learning that they have already covered.

A friend's DC brings home a weekly page of info from the class teacher with the homework, summarising what they've been working on that week, how they've taught it (if a special technique) and what the parents can do at home with their children to consolidate on the week's learning. It's brilliant - little and often is much better than an annual parent briefing (which, as Teen has said, many can't attend).

Last year my DD (at a different primary school) had an NQT who started off doing much the same. I was delighted. It tailed off after about three weeks...

@LetItGoToRuin That's great to hear that it works!
I bet that NQT would have loved to continue it but just found too many other things that they had to do that wouldn't benefit the children as much :-(

I am not a teacher, so I have no clue how us parents meant to be doing things.
But I think school was doing best they can. They do regular sessions for parents to help how to help their children. Phonics/reading/maths, over the years. Out of 90 children in the year, there were always less than 20, sometimes less than 10 parents attending. It is sad.And school have lower than national average results on ks2 sats. I think in the school like this, educating parents means more than having a session to teach how to help children.

My children are now past school age, but the most memorable meeting that we had at school was just after my DS had started reception. The headmaster handed out a book which was like a first reading book but used a load of symbols instead of letters of the alphabet. So, for example #%\ underneath a picture of a cat, and then #_\ underneath a picture of a cot. And then more symbols so we had to decode the words. It was very difficult and put us straight into the same position that our 4 year olds had with letters at that time. Right at the end of his session - after normal announcements and reminders about PE kit, naming uniform etc. he asked us for the symbol for 't' - was it / or \ He then said - so when you're tired and you're helping your child do not get cross when they write b instead of d - or get the sound wrong when they're reading. Very inspiring !

When my DS was in Reception and the first half of Year 1, the school used to do a ‘family phonics’ session every Friday morning for about 20-30 mins, straight after drop-off. The gist was that parents observed a bit of carpet-based teaching and then had a related activity to do with their children. I thought it was really good - approx half of the class had a parent turn up each week (impressive engagement given the school is in a v deprived, high proportion EAL, in many ways hard-to-reach, area - unfortunately high rates of un/underemployment will definitely have played a part in some families’ availability, but making younger siblings welcome and the school being super proactive and welcoming also really made a difference). Some children who didn’t have a carer attending joined with another family they knew and were happy to, some worked in a group with the nursery nurse/TA.

Halfway through year 1 it was replaced by a ‘reading together’ session, this time midweek just before the end of the school day (trickier time for me personally, but I imagine it worked for some people for whom the start of the day never worked).

DS is now in year 3 and tbh I’ve got no real clue what he’s doing or how to support him, compared with those years. By half term we’ll have had two parents eve appointments, and they tend to do a ‘bring a parent to school’ session every half term or so (mostly topic-based - again, the purpose being to do something with your child in the school environment).

I much preferred learning about how he’s learning by getting to watch/participate, than attending theoretical talks about it. I am a single parent working full-time - I have a degree of flexibility to my work schedule, and as far as possible I make the time to attend things like family phonics, but I definitely wouldn’t bother to rearrange things to attend a talk from the teacher about phonics IYSWIM. (I did attend those sorts of things while on mat leave with DC2, and they had value, but less so than actual participation + also part of the value of participatory sessions was that it’s important to my DC that I be there when I can. I’m a child of a single parent teacher myself, so was always the one for whom no parent could come when I was at school, and it sucked, probably even more so for those kids who believe/know their parents just can’t be bothered - but I think the solution to that has to be handling it sensitively rather than never having parents in.)

FWIW I think homework is really divisive and unhelpful in this context - it’s really unfair on the children who need help but do not have anyone at home able to help them, for whatever reason. I think it’s responsible and constructive for schools to make realistic recommendations of things families can do to support learning, but I would see that as sharing books at home, letting children have a turn paying with coins at the shop, playing games at home, going to the park etc - not worksheets.

@EYFSBen
Hi my son is now in year 1 he had a lot of speech problems when entering reception. We did a single phonics session with the kids at the beginning of reception but he still struggled. He was reffered to speech and language and doing awesome now. The teacher also started a handwriting strengthen group which help loads. He now reads really well and will try and read books himself. My only lets down so far is the teachers don't seem to be given me much feedback but I'm hoping I'll get some when parents evening comes

Dd's school has been great - offering 5pm sessions on phonics, maths and a range of other topics.
There's also info provided on the topics being taught (both termly and weekly).
All of her teachers have been approachable, engaged and helpful.

But even with all of the above, as another poster said, for parents who are less academically confident it can be tricky.
Add to that a lack of time (most children at dd's school have two working parents) and it can be difficult.

Homework that relies on parental support or buying in materials (eg craft based projects etc) can be divisive and thankfully dd's school rarely gives this.
Dd's teachers have always taken the 'have a go if you can and do come and speak to me if any problems' approach with maths/spellings homework. I'm not sure there's much more they can do.
Personally I'm not against homework as for us, its a weekly insight to what dd can do or is struggling with.

The school provides briefing meetings on phonics and sats and a general bit of info about homework for that term. They also provide access to online sites with additional resources. However some things are confusing to me. In reception they had two phonics books home each week plus a book chosen from the library. In year 1 the chosen book has stopped but don't know why. I don't know what they do during the day: topics, themes, what they do each day and week, from the time I drop them off I have no clue what they do all day or how much time is spent on the different subjects. The homework set is very easy for my child, but not sure why (it seems to be repeating work I thought had been done in reception). I have asked one or two questions but feel like I'm being a bit of a pain.?

Yes i also have no idea of times of breaks or lunch or lessons.
I agree with pp i dont mind homework if it tells me they are struggling.
However it seems 1 size fits all. All kids get the same online maths. And it is often very very easy. Imo some kids could probably do next year's work.

Thank you all for your comments so far. I've got so many threads I'm going to be able pull at!

DH and I found Maths for Mums and Dads https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0224086359/ref=cmswwrsmsscapiiiEicODbCG03MHA invaluable. We're both competent at maths, but were completely at sea with the methods and terminology used, particularly in KS1.

The other thing we could have done with guidance on was the terminology around literacy. What is the difference between the Guided Reader, Home Reader and Library Book? Between Letters and Sounds, Phonics, and Guided Reading? What are Story Mountains and Boxing-Ups?

The actual details of the daily timetable were relatively unimportant.

This sounds like a great project, I would love to read it.

No I would love more resources to help understand how to support my child.

The school is great but struggles for time and resources, and I don’t think properly gets what parents need/the understanding gap.

There never is a best time I guess - but I always found straight after school with somewhere for the children to go was best.

Before the caretaker at my dc's school retired, he would run a creche in the Reception classroom for the pre-school siblings and the YR children during all meetings and events aimed at parents. KS1 and older were trusted to sit in the Library, which would have its mobile wall removed for visibility.

After he retired, attendance at these events dropped sharply. Turned out he had been doing it as a volunteer, and the school was not willing/able to pay for someone to take over the creche.