Are your allowed to see your child's exercise books regularl

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mystery
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Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Are your allowed to see your child's exercise books regularl

Post by mystery »

At your child's state primary school, are you allowed to see your child's exercise books regularly, either by special request, or in the normal course of events?

I would like to see my children's books as it would help me understand what they are covering in school, have meaningful discussions etc at home that linked in with school, and see if there were any weaknesses which I could in some way help my child with.

What are your experiences?
WorriedRuby
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Re: Are your allowed to see your child's exercise books regu

Post by WorriedRuby »

Hello,

In my DS2 school we get a leaflet at the begining of each term explaining what are they going to cover in the term and also I usually go and see the school whenever I have some concerns/questions. i am sure you can go and ask the teacher about the topics/see the books.
mystery
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Re: Are your allowed to see your child's exercise books regu

Post by mystery »

Ruby are you allowed to see your child's exercise books regularly or not? I have asked, and we are not.
mad?
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Re: Are your allowed to see your child's exercise books regu

Post by mad? »

mystery wrote:At your child's state primary school, are you allowed to see your child's exercise books regularly, either by special request, or in the normal course of events?
Yes, at every parent teacher consultation the books were put out for our children to show us what they have been doing (believe me this can take ages!). Occassionally if DC had done somethign they were keen to share I would pop in and see it OR sometimes a teacher would make a playground comment and invite me to come and have a look at something.
mystery wrote:I would like to see my children's books as it would help me understand what they are covering in school, have meaningful discussions etc at home that linked in with school, and see if there were any weaknesses which I could in some way help my child with.
What are your experiences?
I knew what they were covering in school because we got a termly curriculum plan, a monthly update from their year group via the 'weekly' letter, ad hoc letters via parentmail directing us to particular websites etc, they (and we) had access to some of their school work via the MLE and the school website always had all of this information and the websites etc as well. To be honest this quickly became overkill!
mad?
WorriedRuby
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Re: Are your allowed to see your child's exercise books regu

Post by WorriedRuby »

Yes, at every parent teacher consultation the books were put out for our children to show us what they have been doing (believe me this can take ages!).
Yes, Same with my DS2 school.

Also, I was allowed to see my Ds1 maths work in Year 4.
mystery
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Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Are your allowed to see your child's exercise books regu

Post by mystery »

Sounds like you get a lot more info about what is being covered than we do. What is an MLE? Medium to large enterprise?!

How often were your parents' evenings when you saw the actual exercise books?

Now let's imagine that your child was always getting 100% in the spelling test on the fairly easy spelling lists that came home each week for the group that they were in. But you were being told that your child was not that great at spelling, hence in a lowish spelling group, and that words learned for tests were not being used correctly in normal writing (but you do not know which words as you do not see their exercise books). You were also being asked by school to do more at home - e.g. practice all the high frequency words - you test child at home and they spell a lot of them correctly.

Would you want to see their books so that you could see which words they frequently mispell during normal writing? I do.
tiredmum
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Re: Are your allowed to see your child's exercise books regu

Post by tiredmum »

i have replied on the other thread that i think it depends on the individual teacher as to weather you get to see your childs books when you want - within reason - At my dd's primary there were 2 parent eves, per year, when we looked through all books and spoke to the teacher about dd's progress.

When my dd was catching up on her maths i looked at her books more frequently and sometimes she would even bring her maths book home so i could see what topic she was doing. The teacher would also tell me at the beginning of the week what maths topics were being covered. This was only happening for me and my dd as i had requested frm her teacher.

Every 8 weekes we all received home a score sheet of our childs performance in the weekly spelling tests. :)
mad?
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Re: Are your allowed to see your child's exercise books regu

Post by mad? »

mystery wrote:Sounds like you get a lot more info about what is being covered than we do. What is an MLE? Medium to large enterprise?!
managed learnign environment...it (I think) allows them to log on to a part of the schools website and access websites/games etc that have been recommended or that they have used in class. They can also access the work they have been doing in IT or on notepads and update it/show it to you etc.
mystery wrote:How often were your parents' evenings when you saw the actual exercise books?
termly.
mystery wrote:Now let's imagine that your child was always getting 100% in the spelling test on the fairly easy spelling lists that came home each week for the group that they were in. But you were being told that your child was not that great at spelling, hence in a lowish spelling group, and that words learned for tests were not being used correctly in normal writing (but you do not know which words as you do not see their exercise books).
I would not be surprised by this. My DD2 has consistently got 100% throughout her 'spelling test career'. However, she still consistently spells words in correctly when in full flow on a story etc. Essentially I think she can only be bothered to get it right if it is in a test and when writing is full of imagination and so on so not really thinking about accurate spelling.
mystery wrote:You were also being asked by school to do more at home - e.g. practice all the high frequency words - you test child at home and they spell a lot of them correctly.
Depending on the age of the child I'd be really cheesed off if I was asked to do anything at home :oops: but if this happened I would go back to whoever had asked me and explain. In a helpful way I would then ask for their advice about how to help the child to get the words spellt correctly in application rather than in test format. [/quote]
mystery wrote:Would you want to see their books so that you could see which words they frequently mispell during normal writing? I do.
No, I would ask 'helpfully' what particular words these were and would expect the teacher not to know off the top of their head but to refer to some books which tada, you and he/she could then look at. If you feel you are being obstructed despite your best efforts to 'help' (and I get the impression you do) then having done this and not got what you wanted I would go to the head of year/key stage/literacy of whoever the next up the command chain is and ask again, not to see the books, but to understand what the issue is.
Soory mystery, we are fon this on both threads now and I fear I may get lost! :D
mad?
Minesatea
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Re: Are your allowed to see your child's exercise books regu

Post by Minesatea »

We get termly parents evenings when all books are available - my children expect me to have looked at them and often grill me about what I looked at when I return!

All class teachers also have an "at home" day every week when they remain in their classroom for 45mins after school. Any parents (with or without their child) can drop in to look at any of their childs work and/ or chat to the teacher.
mystery
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Re: Are your allowed to see your child's exercise books regu

Post by mystery »

The weekly opportunity sounds great. Is it popular?
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