Poor communication in school

[Tirednorthern78]

We’ve have 3 children at home with us. Eldest is in secondary and communication is surprisingly good. What I’m finding difficult at the moment is the lack of communication for dc primary school.

Years 3&4 both winter children. I get nothing fed back on how they are attaining. No weekly feedback from spelling and times table test that is sent home to us every Friday. We practice regularly with them but despite asking how they are doing nothing is forthcoming.

Is this a common theme amongst primary schools. I don’t remember this being this poor with my eldest whose now in secondary. Always felt that school were great feeding back to us. There’s a fairly new head, and a lot of new staff so don’t know if this is the issue.

Don’t get me wrong they’ll email out a newsletter which is alright but what Im after is how they are doing. After disruption for the last two school years I’m desperate to help them catch up but it feels as if school don’t care when you ask for feedback

Can’t the DC tell you how they did?

How often fo you have ‘parents evening?’
We now have one call a term on zoom to catch up with the teacher: its just 10mins but helps us feel connected

I wouldn't expect feedback from the teacher on weekly spelling and times table tests. I would expect my children to know their own scores for these though - what do your DC say?

Are you saying you've had absolutely no feedback from your DC's teachers about how they are doing since the start of the year in September? Have you had a parents' evening (in person or remotely via video/phone call) or a report?

I would expect something per term, whether it's a parents' evening or a report, but I wouldn't expect more than this, unless your DC are struggling, in which case I'm sure the teacher would have been in touch before now.

We used to have a spelling book that went back and forth between ourselves and school. Our youngest still has this but the eldest class wasn’t given it. So we need to log in and to the online platform and find out what weekly spelling there is. I’d emailed for 3 weeks saying we didn’t have access to this and it took half a term for us to get them (so we had to rely on other parents to share)

I had a very brief parents evening (if you can call it that) just before October half term. This was 5 minutes long virtually and was cut off mid question. When my husband has emailed school we never get an answer, or it’s abrupt as if stop interrupting me. Communication is very poor. Unless it’s a request for money but that’s another story. But no, we’ve had no feedback, no reports, since that settle in parents evening October.

It’s gotten to the stage that we’ve ended up privately tutoring my middle child since January. DC often complains over a child who sits next them, very loud, boisterous and has additional support by all accounts.

I’m just sick of it all. It’s gotten to stage where I’m desperate to move them but wonders if better devil you know and all schools are like this?

I’ve asked DC how they’d done but often they can’t remember 🙈 but how do you work to correct spelling and knowledge of your going in blind?

If you help them with spellings and timetables homework during the week, surely you are getting a sense of what they know. You could always go back over some of the previous weeks homework to see if they have retained information or simply learnt it for the test.

We had a reasonable commute to DS’s school so I used to throw a few spellings and random times tables questions to DS whilst in the car on the way to school

Yeah we do help them with their spellings and times table. Maths doesn’t seem to be an issue in our house, just english. I regularly go over the spelling done previously but my middle child seems to just have loads of issues in school. DS struggles a lot with English, and communication is poor hence why I’m at wits end. Problem is he does fine at home but seems to fall struggle in school and was hoping to close the gap between the two. Keep telling myself I’ve only got to put up with them for 2 more years and then I can get him out of there! Honestly so sorry we sent him there. DH and I have decided to go down route of tutor as we’ve got multiple concerns with his teacher and this is just one of many issues. After speaking to other parents (who have raised same issues as we have) the teacher doesn’t seem to have control of the class.

Have you contacted the teacher? Can you ask for a meeting? I wouldn’t be expecting regular feedback unless the school had raised a concern and were working with you.

Do you know whether your DC have interventions/catch up? What was their last
report/parents evening like?

Last report I had was at end of yr 3, appeared on target across all areas. Nothing since then. I’ve asked teacher via email if they could work with us over DS and spelling and had a patronising email back saying parents evening will be soon.

To be honest, I’m struggling to understand some of the details you’ve written.

“Problem is he does fine at home but seems to fall struggle in school and was hoping to close the gap between the two.”

If his report at the end of Y3 was that he was meeting expectations in all areas, and you’ve not had any feedback so far in Y4, how do you know he struggles in school?

It is great that you are helping your DCs with their spellings and times tables at home, and it is also normal in my experience for a parent to ask another parent for a copy of that week’s spelling list from time to time.

I do think that by Y3 and Y4 you can get a lot of information from your DCs if you ask them a couple of questions every day. If they are not very good at remembering whether they got a reasonable score in a test, or which spellings they got wrong, this is something you can work on with them by asking them each day and encouraging them to remember this information as they should expect you to want to know it when they come home from school.

I consider myself an ‘engaged’ parent but it is very rare that I contact the school – their teacher has 30 children, Covid has meant some are behind – they are busy enough without parents hassling them. I have good conversations with my DC every day, and I have occasionally looked up curriculum expectations for each year from the gov.uk website. Spelling lists and suchlike. It is easy to work out whether they are working on the things you would expect for that year group.

You can also find more activities on BBC Bitesize, Nrich (maths games) as well as some paid sites if you want to do a bit extra, or you could buy the relevant CGP workbooks for their year group and work through them with your DCs at home. You have chosen to engage a tutor for one of your DCs. That’s great if you feel it would be helpful, but it doesn't necessarily follow that, just because that DC is benefitting from extra help, the school is failing him.

You are now telling us that you have multiple issues with the teacher and this is just one of them, and that the teacher doesn’t seem to have control of the class. The issue with one of your DCs sitting next to someone disruptive is something you can complain about if you feel it has been going on too long and is causing your DC some upset, but has your DC tried talking to the teacher about it first? I always encourage my DD to try to deal with it herself by talking to the teacher. It’s a good experience for her to speak up about an issue – much better than a parent having to ‘complain.’

In brief, I think you might be expecting too much from the school. However, as you clearly feel so strongly about it, maybe it would be better to move your DC to a different school? It sounds like you don’t trust them to do a good job. You may be right – maybe another school would work much better for your family.

You can easily find out how they're doing by using assessments from resources like White Rose maths, the school run and Twinkle. You could also consolidate using these resources. Power Maths books from Pearson's have good practice resources. CPG books let you know what you need to know for sats.

Your involvement is probably more significant than the teaching anyway to be honest, especially if the class is disorderly and your child struggles with whole class teaching.

Spell frame is excellent for showing you the main spelling rules for each year group and offering practice. If you want to go all out to push vocabulary expansion Mrs Wordsmith games and resources are great.

We never had any feedback during primary school other than the annual parents evening.

I would work on your dc talking to you about their school day. Ask leading questions to prompt them to remember what they are learning/being taught and either support at home or if you have concerns speak to the teacher. Usually the school will be in touch outside of parents evening if they have concerns.

For reading, I beg you to read to them extensively or at least daily, check comprehension with why what where how who questions, discuss characters and how you know what they're like, speculate/predict the plot, talk about the setting and how it works to create mood, identify problems that the characters have to resolve and look for new words. See if you can work out the meanings in context and relate to known words. This makes such a difference. Read, read, read.

Thank you for you comments. Sorry if I wasn’t clear, he is struggling with test environment. That was the one thing that was picked up on in yr 3, and when I spoke to school January on totally different issue (another boy threw a chair at him) it was mentioned in passing. I’ve encouraged him to remember what he did, but unless it’s football related he often forgets. I don’t think it’s school per day, I think it’s more the current teacher. My DD in yr 3 has an amazing teacher who works well with all the children. Very engaged and provide lots of feedback regularly (using spelling books per say). We talk regularly as a family at dinner about all our days (they are in after school every night which doesn’t seem to be helping.

I’ll try those websites out and do nose assessments at home.

Ps - we’re big readers in our house which is why I don’t understand why he’s struggling

Is this a common theme amongst primary schools

Sadly, yes. Ours loves to communicate via their app, Seesaw, email, letters, facebook etc and get themselves tied up in knots!

I've been wondering the same thing, the communication is so poor. We have parents evening in the end of each term and weekly newsletter but that's about it. I have a Y2 child who is doing well academically so I can only hope they would tell me if there was something to be worried about. But I have no idea what he's doing at school ! Homework is only English and maths and there's not much of it but I have no idea what else they do, apart from what my child tells me. I wonder if changing schools would help, got another DC who is supposed to start next September and I've got a feeling they'll need more support...

I consider myself a very dedicated teacher, with a small class and good relationships with parents (village community, been there a long time). I don't tell parents weekly spelling results, nor do I give much feedback unless I think someone is struggling. The crux of the matter is that there simply isn't time. I don't have time to write spelling scores in homework diaries during the school day - I am always teaching my class or supporting a child. There is literally never a time when children are working and I'm doing nothing. In all honesty, spelling scores tell you little about how a child is doing in English anyway. I doubt if you moved your child things would be very different elsewhere.

If spelling homework is meaningless, don’t set it! I’m so glad teachers in my DDs schools did feedback info and praised progress in their log books.

Parents cling to things like spelling scores in the absence of better info. Schools are supposed to communicate progress to parents. Everyone is busy but some are more organised than others. Most schools have open evenings where parents see marked with comments for improvement.

I don't have a choice in whether I set spellings - like most people, I have to do what my line manager tells me. I'd much rather discuss children's overall progress in English with parents, and expect Y4 children to remember their mark out of 10 if their parents asked. If a parent ever asked to see their spelling book I'd happily share it with them there and then and have a chat about it. Incidentally, I also practise the spellings with children in school so whilst it's excellent if they do extra at home, they can still do well even if their parents aren't able to support them.

(And I know I shouldn't bite, but my lack of feeding back is nothing to do with lack of organisation. It's an active choice as to what I believe the most productive use of my time is, to help children make the best progress possible. Personally, in my professional experience, I think that time can be better used elsewhere.)

Thank you for your feedback. I ended up having a rather frank discussion with the teacher and asked if it was simply possible to reduce his anxiety, could his spelling book come home with him and we’d ensure it was in his bag. This has been going on the last few weeks and his confidence has grown that we no longer need this to come back (he is a worrier). Overall I’m still slightly dissatisfied with the class teacher (I’m not alone, inevitably she’s off more than she’s in, and there is a lack of consistency in her class compared to my daughters) but hopefully I won’t need to suffer her from September.

thanks again

@Tirednorthern78

Worth having the chat I think. Hope September is better all round.

Also your school must have a homework policy. Look at it for future reference. Then you can see what the school is aiming to do and what feedback should be forthcoming.