Forums > Social Discussion > School Reports ... A Parents rant

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GothFrogetteBRONZE Member
grumpy poorly froggy
3,999 posts
Location: Nuneaton, United Kingdom


Posted:
Ok so its that time of year again and being a mum thought i would share with you the joys of my kids report and some of the GRRRR's i have about them.
My oldest son aged 12 did fantastic 5 A's 6B's and a C with the comments that most parents get.. needs to improve concentration in class and should work harder with Home work.
That in itself is fine and pretty much what i expected as his concentrationhas always been poor unless its something he is really really intrested in and that stand for most people, not only children but adults that i know aswell.

so why don't they try and make classes a bit more interesting so the kids do not get distracted. This argumnet has been going on since i was a child so is pretty much old hat.

Its my youngests report that i have a real problem with. He is 5 years old and yes i got the same lacks concentration in class

i am going to quote the rest of general teachers comments.

".. is a very friendly boy with a loverly smile and happy personality. He has had alot of support with his studies and has made some progress. However, he does have a rather nonchalant attitude towards his work and it is often with tremendous 'encouragment' that he completes it. He does have the ability but he does not yet appreciate the importance of working hard and he is,i'm affriad to say, rather reluctant. On a more positive note, he is well-behaved and has exemplary manners and this is something to be very proud of. He joins in guided reading sessions with encouragement and has made attempts to learn his spellings and complete homework tasks. I have his sunny personality a real joy and i have loved having him in my class. He just needs to take some responsablilty for his own learning and show us what he is capable of. I hope he works harder next year and begins to complete more work and demonstrate and more dedication to his studies"


the first thing that came out of my mouth was "HE IS 5"
i am so proud of him and to be honest i don't want to see a 5 year old who takes their education seriousley. He's not disrupitve in anyway but just wants to have fun like most kids do.

I have ranted so many times about the amount of pressure they are putting on children, and the fact that it seems that all forms of teaching to help the children have been swapped for teaching children to get them to the national targets. Suicide rates amongst children are growing at a shocking rate.. and when i say children i am refering to school, college and uni students.

I don't know maybe its just me thinking that we should let kids be kids and let them enjoy themselves. there can be a happy medium of fun and learning. I know teachers have a hrad time and work hard but i thought they wanted to become teachers to help the children.I love my boys and don't put pressure on the at home regards school work. My oldest knows if he doesn't do his homework he gets punished at school as i refuse to get into arguments at home about it. And with myyoungest i do not make him do his home work. I ask him when he gets home after school if he wants to, some times i get a yes but most of the time he's far too tired.

I know we have quite a few Parents on the site from all over he world and so i am searching for others experiances, the way their schools do things etc.

Life's too short to worry about where you put your marshmallows


Spike18journeyman
69 posts
Location: Stoke-on-trent (at uni), Ipswich (when at home)


Posted:
Since im procrastinating again from doing work i thought i would reply in here.

The pressure and work in today’s school system is ridicules, I’m still in education though at uni so im not long out of government forced education.

When i was in primary school i rarely had homework other then spellings and extra spellings (since i could never comprehend writing and spelling in general which was mainly because of how i was taught and i hold a huge grudge against my primary school for it but that’s another rant) and reading since i had problems with those areas.

Now since im the oldest child in my family i often help out with my cousins homework and discuss it with them and the amount of work they get a night is actually insane, however i have noticed that it depends on the school. As one of my other cousins goes to a different school and gets even more work often spending most of the night working rather then playing which kids should be doing in primary school the work he got was of a secondary school about not primary.

The way the government now sets targets for schools and pupils means that from the second that a child enters full time education they are forced to work in and out of school. IMO and as has been said before during the primary school years learning should be based in the class room with only extra working being given if and where necessary.

However in high school i think homework should be a given, i went to and extremely rough and dodgy high school and was a self-confessed geek lol. i worked hard to get the grades i wanted and to get into uni. Throughout high school i was given little homework, and although we were meant to get 2hrs a night we barely got 2hrs a week which often meant I had to get assistance from parents and people to ge grades I wanted.

I have heard stories of kids being given soo much work they have little of no life outside of work and situations where kids get little to no homework.

To be honest i think it depends on the teachers and the school. I know of schools where so much pressure is put on kids and so much work is given it is often to much for many kids. However i also know of schools where little to no homework is given.

i was lucky as with my extra work throughout secondary school and despite it being a crap school i still came out with GCSE’s in the range of mainly A's and managed to get into a sixth form which is one of the best in the country and the best in my area. The atmosphere here was soo different not only amongst the sixth form but also in the high school with a lot more emphasis on homework with teachers being extremely controlling in the high school which was just freaky especially coming from the high school i came from.

Sorry for the randomness of the reply lol but overall i think its dependent on the school as to how much homework is given and that the amount of work that is given at primary school level is ridicules in today’s society and that homework shouldn't really start until secondary school.

I still have many yrs of education left but it'll be worth it.
Hugs
Spike

Don't Drink and Drive
Smoke and Fly


polaritySILVER Member
veteran
1,228 posts
Location: on the wrong planet, United Kingdom


Posted:
I seem to remember there being extremes when it came to teachers at high school. The first would have us silently working through endless textbook questions, and would constantly be going off out of the classroom for some unknown reason. They'd be the one's setting loads of homework, again just textbook questions. The second would spend an entire lesson enthusiastically explaining the subject and fielding questions. They'd occasionally set a bit of reading for homework.

Now guess which kind of teacher taught subjects I got A's for and which I had to retake.

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.


wonderloeyenthusiast
255 posts
Location: Melbourne - home of pirates


Posted:
sigh.

I like your two kinds of teacher polarity, but I'd suggest one more.. a kind I didn't meet until I was at university studying education..

The kind that was enthusiastic, but didn't field questions. The kind of teacher that bounced ideas from the class, experimenting with ideas and going down wrong paths until by the end of the class the teacher had brought the class to a deep and thorough understanding of the concept, not by telling them, but by letting them work it out for themselves.

The same teachers that refused to be a fountain of knowledge for their students. Instead of saying "The answer to that is" they would ask "so where do you think we can find the answer to that?"

They would link concepts to practical examples. So, for example, Year 7 Science generally begins with a big unit on Lab Safety, where you learn the equipment and safety requirements of the lab. Important, yes, but incredibly dull. So (this guy) in the first science class of the year, in a class full of excited young things, tosses the traditional path.

He tells the class they are going to do a very dangerous experiment. He talks up the dangers of the lab. They run very carefully for most of the double session through the safety requirements, and the kids are listening carefully because they want to get to the good bit where they play with chemicals. The actual experiment itself takes 15 minutes, and they have listened more to one class on lab safety than most kids starting high school would do in a whole month.

Essentially giving students control over their own learning, not having to see the teacher as the person who is always right, but more as a facilitator towards knowledge. (I hate the word facilitator but in this context its the best I can do.)

The same teachers that would teach students not concepts, but how to learn. I wish I had met one of those teachers in high school.

Would I say that this approach would work well with the majority of learning styles? Absolutely. A huge part of this approach is that students learn to recognise their own learning style and structure their learning accordingly. I've seen kids as young as 5 able to do this.

I believe that that is where the future of education lies.

"You've gone from Loey the Wonder Lesbian to everyone wondering if you are a lesbian." - Shadowman

Yesterday is yesterday. If we try to recapture it, we will only lose tomorrow.


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