Tuesday, May 10, 2005

not teacher's pet

O has 2 class teachers, who teach half a week each. One of them has gone on maternity leave. Since she went off there have been supply teachers covering the class, and now we have a 'permanent' (til the end of term) replacement.

Each week the kids have a reading book to take home, and letters or words to learn. O's reading day is Monday, when he's supposed to have his reading heard, his spellings tested, get a new book and new words, and generally (so I thought) have an opportunity for someone to spend a bit of one-to-one time assessing his progress.

Since his teacher went off to have her baby, his reading has been heard (when someone remembers or we remind them) not by the supply teacher, not by the teaching assistant, but by the learning assistant who is there primarily to support a child with special needs. Well OK, things were a bit up in the air but I assumed once the replacement teacher was in place, the teacher or teaching assistant would hear the reading. But no. So I asked the teacher about it and she seems to intend to carry on with having this support worker doing the reading, because there isn't time for her to do it and run the class.

Well how did the last teacher manage? And how can the teacher know how my child is doing if she spends no one-to-one time with him in the course of the school week? So now the first-half-of-week teacher doesn't like me for being too stroppy, and I am scouring websites and wondering if I should take it up with the second-half-of-week teacher or even with the head.

I'm cross and frustrated and don't know what to do for the best. Apart from the issue of how she can know how my child is doing, I also find it frustrating that hearing the children read is something to be fitted in where you can and devolved to the lowliest adult in the classroom - how does that help children value reading, and feel valued for work they have put in on their reading and spellings at home? I feel like saying if she can't be @rsed to hear his homework then I can't be @rsed to do it with him. Obv I'm not going to do that, it would be counter productive, but I'm just so peed off with the situation. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Here in New Zealand, there is a roster of parents who go into the class to hear the kids read. The teacher gets to hear them every few weeks when they do assessments of reading level. I'm OK with this method because all the kids really need is a lot of 'Mileage' and the best way they can it is reading to an adult. A parent at home, parent at school or whatever. When the teacher has to listen to 30 + kids reading it takes them away from all the other activities that are going on in the class at the same time.
Assessments are staggered so they don't all get assessed on the same day, and then the kids are moved up to harder books or move into different reading groups depending on what level they are at.