Do you know how your child is progressing at school?

[Needmyrootsdoing]

I was hoping for some context from other people’s DC’s schools please:

What do you know about your child’s progress and attainment in their primary class(mainly ks2- particularly years 3-5 as I imagine year 6 might be different with SATS?)

What does your child’s school tell you specifically about how they’re getting on? I feel as though our dd’s school tell us very little- but I’m not sure if this is the norm?

So- my DD gets a report at the end of the school year with some specific comments about each subject and some sort of ‘on/above/ below target’ grade etc.

But other than that there is very little, they have termly ‘book looks’ where parents can go (during the school day) to look at their child’s books and might get a general comment from the teacher such as ‘they’re doing well in English’.

They put these on in place of a parents evening- except they have a small number of parents evening appointments for those who can’t make the book looks- but again only until about 5pm and the one I went to last year was with the teacher who had no data etc in front of her and just gave general comments about how they’re getting on.

So on the whole, no proper whole scale parents evenings.

Then, that is it. There is an online app used for communication for each class but hardly anything is shared through that. Maybe one comment a month about remembering to bring something in.

Dont get me wrong, I don’t want to know details of her day - but I feel like now she is moving up ks2 I would like to know a few more specifics of how she is doing so I can support her at home- eg: reading age? Exactly what is she struggling with in maths? Why has she been given extra intervention in English etc? How is she doing with spellings? Times tables? Will she pass the times tables test?

I don’t doubt the staff work hard but I feel communication is lacking.

Should I just ask if I want this info?

For full disclosure, my questions may come from the fact I am a secondary teacher and I have to do 7 full parents evenings a year- I see many groups of students only 3-5 hours a fortnight and yet I am expected to know (and tell parents) exactly what their strengths are, how they can improve, what their test scores are, (where they sit in the class if asked)- we involve parents heavily through apps in terms of revision resources etc.

So I just wondered what the norm was for primary school? I suppose I just feel that they see my dd for around 30 hours a week so I think we should get a bit more back than ‘doing well in English’ and an end of year report by which point it’s too late for me to give any support she might need.

I do know school is about more than just academic progress - and I’m not a pushy parent but equally, I don’t want her to just coast through and then be pushed like mad in year 6.

thanks for any context of your own dc’s schools you can provide.

We do have 2 x 10 minute parent teacher meetings a year but I've never been told anything negative. I did wonder if they are implying something and I'm missing it (like does "continue to work on" mean they are behind, or simply that's the topic they are currently learning?) are they even allowed to be negative?

I'm pretty involved with primary homeworks - checking and signing every night, getting them to look again at any errors or ask them to explain things to me so I know they fully understand it. By doing that I have a good sense on what needs work. We practice times table/shape facts or whatever randomly through the week.

On the other hand I am not that involved with my high school kid (in her first year) though because it's largely interactive on sites and apps and id need to be sitting beside her every minute to get a sense of it. I'd like to think school would be in touch if there's any major issues. We revise topics together, tbh, she teaches me it because I don't remember it, but id definitely be relying more on teachers comments on wether she's meeting expectations.

We get a parents evening in November. Doesn't discuss any academics, just how they have settled.

We get another parents evening in March.

Both parents evenings are 10 minutes.

We get a pointless, overly positive, report in July. The comments are a drop down menu type. It's always hilarious as reception parents get excited about the lovely headmaster comments not realising it's only ever one of three.

I know more because I ask. I ask for end of term assessment results. I usually get pushback from the school who like to believe they exist in a vacuum.

For a state primary I’d say this is fairly normal. I worked in a prep and we tested reading age, spelling age, and did standardised tests in English, maths and science yearly, plus end of topic tests which the kids would get a % on (and would be visible at parents eve/open book events).

However state schools I’ve worked in haven’t been like that, end of year tests maybe (but not in all schools). IMO targets written in reports are complete nonsense, as a teacher I didn’t find individual targets useful so just used to write fairly random stuff on their reports to fill the gap.

My daughter’s school will give test scores but only if you ask for them (and you have to first know they did the test as they don’t tell us they’re doing them!) Other than that it’s just generally positive verbal comments, though I do push for expected/greater depth at parents evenings. The reports are ok to be fair with levels given for all subjects and comments on maths, English and personal development which I’ve felt are representative of my child, not generic.

We get 2 x 10 minute parents evening a year. Just had them this week in fact. Normally we’re asked if there’s anything we want to discuss first, then we got told how they’re doing for maths/English/reading. DD is y6 so we chatted quite a bit about her high school choice. DS is y3, we spoke about his struggle to concentrate, how he has great potential but isn’t doing as well as she thinks he could and some strategies they might try to help with it. She also recognised how much he’s improved in terms of actually going into school.
We also get to go into the classroom to see the books twice during the year (in addition to seeing them at parents evening). If I had any specific concerns I would have no issue requesting a meeting with either the teacher or head/deputy as appropriate.

Thanks all- that’s really helpful. Maybe I should just ask for more then if I want it and see what they come back with .

@Needmyrootsdoing I would - don’t ask, don’t get is my motto!

I'm a primary teacher. We do two 2 min appointments (October and March) and 2 opportunities for you to come and look at the books.
We dont routinely give test scores (unless asked) but we would tell you working towards, exp or greater depth.

My kids are in private school. We get a progress update everyday for all subjects including extracurriculars. If there are personal / social issues we get told immediately. So sometimes the parents evening just ends up being a way for the teacher to big up the child, raise new issues, or talk about long term concerns from both sides.

We have two parents evenings and a report at the end of the year. The report has details but it's difficult to find anything useful as it's very glowing and I suspect the same phrases are used across different reports.

Parents evening they will generally tell you if your child is meeting expected levels or needs to work on anything. We can also look through their books to see their work. It would be nice to have more direct and timely feedback but it all feels fairly opaque.

State primaries usually do one report with end of year “results” so expected/below/greater depth etc.
minimum of one parents evening. Variable when this is.
phonics test results reported in year 1 (and year 2 if resat then)
times tables test reported year 4.

to be honest in r/y1/y2 phonics and maths are the most important and schools mostly expect parents to be involved with this through reading every day and probably knowing what book band they are on and what sounds to practice.

ks2 obviously a bit different but again English and maths are the focus.

also, I’m an ex secondary teacher.

secondaries are so, so much more data driven than primaries. When I was teaching I’d typically have five or six classes of 30 each which is 180 kids.
no way I can hold the info in my head for each of those kids of where they are and what they need to do next etc so secondaries have to be much more test and assessment driven.

primaries really are not, certainly until end of year 5/beginning of year 6.

the teachers do know the children so much better than secondary teachers do.

@Octavia64 Having been a junior school governor, a good primary must have accurate assessment data. Ours was input into a computer programme and we saw anonymised results of ongoing assessment. Six times a year usually. No surprises was the motto. Every child in every class had work assessed and samples cross assessed by another teacher (usually teaching the same age dc). It was an important tool to check progress and we had pages and pages (and pages!) of data on dc. No idea of any names and it was each year group, pp children, boys, girls: the data could be interrogated. We had this info to identify strengths and weaknesses of the school and address them.

Parents were given assessment data twice a year. Then there was an end of year report. We also had curriculum evenings for each class, including tips for parents to augment learning, assessment evenings for parents when assessment was explained, sats evening for parents and we have the 11 plus, so that was explained too.

Our school was very data driven and any school that does not have data on dc is unlikely to do the best job teaching them. If they have data they can easily tell parents where gaps in learning are.

I've never worked in a state school that doesn't do end of term testing and data submissions. In fact, now we even do end of unit assessments for most subjects so maths might have three or four mini assessments over 12 weeks then a three paper assessment at the end of term. Assessment was very big in the last Ofsted framework (IE the one in place up until this academic year) so I'd be surprised if many schools weren't doing similar for the past 6 or so years.

I tell parents whether their child is working towards/expected/greater depth at parent evening but can see if a child was expected across the board, and had been throughout their primary school journey, how a teacher could frame that as 'progressing fine' as they where tracking both where they should be for ages expectations and their own targets. If you want clarity, you just need to ask whether they are working above/at/below year group objectives.

OP, you describe my primary experience. There were definitely some smoke and mirrors, almost like teachers were told to sugar coat anything which might be seen as a criticism so that every parent felt their child was doing brilliantly! All very positive and lovely. I have two very different DC in terms of ability and the reports differed but the parents mtgs were much the same.

@TrampolineAs a governor, I knew exactly the assessment profile of each class. It’s how we monitored the school! Of course parents were broadly informed how dc were doing, and of course good things were mentioned, but parents were given info on how they might help dc and whet dc needed to do to improve. It’s basic stuff really.

Aware that teachers and governors have the full detail - my point is that limited info was given to parents at the 10min mtgs. Children meeting or exceeding are "doing well" or "doing fine". I agree with the approach in general but it made it difficult to know whether a child was doing "really well" or "okay" as the conversations were so broad and vague. That's the only point I'm making.