We had our first Parents Evening at Morgan’s new school earlier this week. A chance for us to meet his form teacher and see how they thought he was settling in. As far as we were concerned he seems to be loving it. Always keen to go to school in the mornings, loving the independence of travelling to and from school with his friends, getting stuck into his work, making new friends and enjoying the challenge of more difficult work and new subjects.<\/p>\n
We’d been told to enter through the rear gates and park in the rear car park as\u00a0that was next to the small hall. That’s what we tried to do, but the gates that we thought were the back gates were locked. They were easy enough to climb over though so rather than walk all the way around that’s what we did. We\u00a0didn’t know where the ‘small hall’ was though so ended up walking all the way around the school building to the front\u00a0of the school anyway where we entered through the only entrance we knew. We then asked for directions once we were inside. There weren’t any signs anywhere and we’ve barely been to the school before so didn’t have a clue as to where we were or where we should be. After gaining directions we then had to walk all the way through the deserted corridors of the school to the far end where we were offered tea and biscuits were welcomed by a ‘pastoral care manager’ and then led into the hall where we sat and waited to talk to Morgan’s Form Teacher.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t very busy so we didn’t have long to wait. We introduced ourselves to her, sat down and explained that we were the parents of Morgan Cole. She then said something along the lines of Hmm, Morgan, yes, he’s been late quite a few times. This took us aback a bit as he catches the school bus with a few of his friends. The bus drops him off inside the school grounds and we’re fairly sure he’s never been late. She then said that he’s late back after lunch as well. Again we said that surprised us but obviously we\u00a0couldn’t be 100% sure that he doesn’t pfaff about with his friends at lunch time and get back a few minutes late – we doubted it but obviously couldn’t be sure.<\/p>\n
She then told us that we need to sign his homework book every week and review his work. Now, we review his homework book and his homework every day and have definitely signed his book so we told her this, but still she told us to make sure we do actually sign it every week. We told her plenty of times that we do but she\u00a0didn’t seem to believe us. By now I was convinced she was talking about the wrong person or had Morgan muddled up with someone else.<\/p>\n
Anna then asked what the stickers in the front of his books were that have been filled out with A*’s.<\/p>\n
As we had kind of guessed these are the grades Morgan should be aiming for, in a way the grades expected of him throughout and a way of keeping him on track and aiming for them. However when we asked her about them she said “A*? – That can’t be right he\u00a0wouldn’t have A*’s”<\/p>\n
Well, he has, and that’s what we would expect of him so we started to be a little more assertive. Once again mentioning Morgan Cole’s name, saying that he definitely has A*’s on these little forms in each of his books, telling her that his homework book has definitely been signed and that we’d be surprised if he had ever been late as he’d hate to be told off for such things. We had already asked if she was talking about the right boy, we couldn’t keep saying that. I think finally she twigged that she’s been talking about the wrong person though and said somewhat sheepishly “Hang on, Morgan? Has he got short black hair”<\/p>\n
Nope! Most definitely not – Very long, very blonde hair. She thought for a bit and then said “Ah yes, I think I know him… Yes, he’s doing fine, he\u00a0hasn’t been brought to my attention for anything so he must be”. And that was about it, parent’s evening over!<\/p>\n
Not a very good impression really. I can understand that it’s early in the year and she may not yet have remembered every single child in her form, but if that’s the case, surely she should have had some notes on each of them or a file with their details in so that she could at least look them up and talk about them. It was the school who organised and invited us to a parents evening after all, we didn’t just turn up and surprise her.<\/p>\n
As it was, we found out a hell of lot about another boy and very little about how Morgan was settling in. Probably not ideal from a confidentiality point of view let alone from our point of view. It seemed as though she barely knew him. That in itself is a bit of a problem as pupils that are doing what they should be doing, going where they should be going, working hard and getting on well simply don’t get any recognition for this. Those that are doing well seem to be anonymous. Maybe that’s our fault for not being at the school all the time making sure they know who Morgan is, but we would like to think that the school has procedures in place to make sure each child is treated fairly and gets the attention they deserve. Again, it’s very early into his first year so we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully by the next parents evening the teachers and form teacher will all know who he is, but we will be a little more assertive next time and\u00a0won’t let them get away with it if they don’t.<\/p>\n
Everyone thinks we should complain about it to the school, but\u00a0I’m not sure that would do any good at this stage. It won’t help Morgan in any way and we\u00a0wouldn’t want any of the teachers to have anything against him so we’ll leave it for now but we will be making sure he gets the time and attention that he deserves. It wouldn’t have taken much, just a little planning, some notes on each child and maybe some signs showing us how to get into the small hall! We left through a door that led us straight to the locked gate that we had clambered over earlier!<\/p>\n
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We had our first Parents Evening at Morgan’s new school earlier this week. A chance for us to meet his form teacher and see how they thought he was settling in. As far as we were concerned he seems to be loving it. Always keen to go to school in the mornings, loving the independence...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1312,"featured_media":23012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,1494],"tags":[734],"class_list":["post-23011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-school","tag-school"],"yoast_head":"\n