Sorry this is lengthy...
My DS1 has fallen behind each year at school with reading, writing and maths despite appearing very bright and happy at the outset. He is at a faith school which we choose because we liked the head at the time - however she retired in his first term and was replaced by a new younger head. Subsequently a number of experienced teachers left the school to be replaced with NQTs. In foundation yr there was lots of chaos with one experienced teacher leaving before the final summer term to be replaced with a trainee gaining her last term of experience; in yr 1 DS1 had a male NQT who struggled to even make eye contact with parents and we also had to deal with the school about an incident of hitting/bulling (we also know there were other incidents of bullying too and the school at the time had no policy on bullying).
DS is now in yr 2 and has a young teacher with some experience but who seems to have very low expectations in terms of targets for him. I have met with the teacher to discuss my concerns on a number of occassions but feel that I have not been listened to and my concerns have been dismissed - her expectation is that we should meet again in 6 weeks to discuss DS1s progress!. Also it is difficult to gain from her any objective assessment of where DS1 is in order that we can help him progress. We get woolly statements that he is a little behind his peers - not he needs to do X in reading, Y in maths, Z in writing etc. I know from DS1 that his teacher is out of the class often 1 - 2 days a week at meetings/course etc with other supply teachers filling in and I worry that she does not know him at all and all this is affecting his self esteem. I understand that the school's target for reading is for the teacher to hear them read every 2 weeks but his reading log has not been completed since November 2009.
At home we find DS is very unmotivated and finds it hard to concentrate on anything to do with school reading, writing or homework. Throughout the last few years we have consistently supported DS at home with reading, writing and maths with little success. For a number of reasons I gave up working at Christmas to support him more and we have invested in the ORT series at home (expensive but worth it) as the school reading books are completely random and follow no particular scheme. Finally in little over a month his reading has gone from level 4 to level 6 because he is interested in the books (which I am pleased about although I know other children in the class are on level 12).
I know that other parents are worried about the children not being motivated and several parents removed children last term - including some in year 6!. Worryingly three parents withdrewn children from DS1s class at the end of yr1/start of yr2 because they were unhappy with progress in reading, writing and maths as well as the disruptive class dynamic. They also had concerns about the leadership of the new head. DS1 is a large class with several children with significant special needs and this aspect does not seem to be adequately resourced by the school (class of 28 with teacher plus one teaching assistant). Parents who have been in the class report chaos, lots of noise and distractions. DS1's school friendships are also with some children who have a poor attitude to trying and learning and I think this is also not helping.
I want to move schools and an in reactive mode but my husband thinks we should work for longer with the teacher/head before we react - I think he is concerned that a move to a new school will also be traumatic. Also our DS2 (who is nearly 4) is due to start Foundation at the school in Sept 2010 so we would have to find school places for both. Also - planning ahead the Yr 3 teacher is also new to the school (first year of teaching this year...)
Any advice greatly appreciated.