English teacher refused to say what level my year 10 child is at!

[Tiff23]

Morning all!!!
Parent's eve did not go well for my year 10DS!
As parents we have finally peiced the puzzle together and realised DS has dyslexia.
The school have never brought this to our attention, DS has been a master at hiding his struggles.
Recently I requested to see his English book to see if it matched the same low standard of writing in his other work. Clearly his English teacher didn't like this!!!!
At Parents evening, she talked about the class as a whole and how great she is at teaching English! With only 5 mins to chat we were not interested in hearing any of that! My husband and I asked what level our DS is currently at? Her reply and I quote " that wouldn't be fair on you or him to tell you that!" What!!!!!! Of course, I lost it! Most unlike me but after years of teachers failing to detect why DS has a lack of focus and low self esteem, couldn't help it! I said i'd take it up with the head and accused her of covering her own arse! Oops not the best choice of words I admit. So am I write to complain with reagrds to her attitude? Rarely one to complain but can't help my strong sense of fairness! Thanks in advance for any help. Please note DS was not at this appointment as sadly he only went to the first one, think this is because at parent's evening he has had too many negatives over the years! Bless him, at least I have figured out why.

TeenTimesTwo. I don’t think you entirely disagree with me. My point was that parents do often pick up when their child has difficulties. As you did. These days it is usually way before y10. Many dyslexic children are bright but struggle to read and write and this is spotted at primary school. Children who are less bright all round may not be dyslexic. This is why assessment of the child is important so that help is targeted at the problem.

I think the OP has placed too much trust in the school and, as others have demonstrated, parents have to get involved earlier. Few children are not spotted these days due to diligent parents. I would expect the number of adults being dyslexic, and no-one realising, will drop.

When I was working in SEN, some parents would only consider their child to be dyslexic and not grasp that they had much broader learning difficulties. There are differences and not all struggling children are dyslexic.

I don't blame you one bit if you were a bit rude in the moment. I have been there myself many many times. There is nothing worse than sitting in front of a teacher who either doesn't know who your kid is (been there), or can't talk to you about their attainment.

Fortunately my DS (dyslexic who also compensated well) is in an excellent school now but over the primary years especially I despaired of the number of teachers I met who either didn't like children or didn't want to teach or be held accountable.

I lose count of the number of times I made a scene at parents evenings or lost my temper in sheer frustration at being told my DS was either below average or lazy. And this is in spite of my stock line with every teacher I met having always been "What can we as parents be doing to support your teaching?"...

Complain and fight. When you find the right academic home for your child the world will be unrecognizable.

Having been the parent that teachers dreaded walking into reception I am now the one that's air kissing with the head and most importantly... celebrating some excellent exam results. Fight for it. Your DS needs you I his corner. These incompetents that are hiding amongst true educators get away with it because people are too polite.

Bubbles I guess I was reading that you were saying he couldn't be dyslexic because it would have been noticed by now, but perhaps I inferred more than you wrote.

However I think the OP has placed too much trust in the school and, as others have demonstrated, parents have to get involved earlier. Few children are not spotted these days due to diligent parents. If you read the (very long) thread about extra time, I suspect that there are still loads of children getting missed in state schools because their parents don't have the skills or confidence to notice / flag up that there may be an underlying reason why their child is struggling.

I'm a very well educated, highly involved, parent. But school was able to fob me off when I first flagged stuff around my DD1. Even when we went for the (dyspraxia) assessment I was still unaware quite how much it was affecting her, and I was also unaware that she might be so bad she would qualify for extra time. We really only went for the assessment initially to help with transition to 6th form college.

So, sadly, I find it very easy to believe there are kids with SpLD out there now being missed in schools up and down the country.

What is the point of parents' evening at which the teacher refuses to discuss progress with parents. Was the teacher expecting to have a nice chat about what she did in the holiday? Or the weather?

And the above comment is rude as well.

I actually don't agree the OP was rude. She has to be an advocate for her child. What is the point of an individual parent teacher meeting/parent evening appointment if the teacher is only going to talk generally and vaguely about the class

The teacher was rude and your response whilst robust was absolutely appropriate. Sounds exactly like she had very little use a of what level he was/who he was, totally unacceptable well done.

With the state of the English GCSE marking last year I would agree that it would be hard to predict!

Remarks where people go up
1,2, 3 and even 4 grades doesn't strike me a fair system...

Hesburger That's as maybe. But even giving around 1-4 or 4-6 or 6-9 would have been helpful for the OP!

It is tricky for current y10, due to the changes!

My DS in y10 has a grade he is working at, at the moment, as well as a predicted GCSE grade

But a lot of it is guess work for this cohort of guinea pigs, I imagine?

In your shoes I'd apologise to the teacher for your language/attitude

Then ask the HOY/teacher for current and predicted/target grades (what did his school report say?) in a polite manner

I never went to parents' evening with my child - is this a thing now? As for the teacher - she deserved what you said. Nothing worse than a teacher that thinks they are so fucking brilliant that we lesser mortals don't deserve their time. And before anyone accuses me of being anti-teacher, I trained as a teacher and support them doing a crappy job 100%! But there are some and those ones need to be called out.

I'm glad that your DS is getting the help he needs. Sorry if I sound really arsey - I've just had a shit night and feel grumpy and out of sorts.

For what it's worth, I don't think you were rude in the circumstances. As a teacher (whose DC go/went to my school) I have also had a go at a teacher/colleague. In the end, I walked away from the appointment and left it to DH as I thought I might smack the colleague. The Deputy Head was hovering and I made sure he knew exactly what I thought.

I also take the point that after one term, especially with these new GCSEs, it is really hard to give a level. What she could/should have done is to say something like: the essay you wrote on Romeo and Juliet was a level 3 whereas your newspaper article was a 5. Do you understand what you need to do to push these up? In your position OP, I would look at your DS's book and see what sort of constructive advice he has been given. Then request a meeting with the HoY/HoD and move on from there.