SPELLING AND HOME LEARNING
TESTING ISN’T TEACHING. Goal orientated learning is destructive because it doesn’t reward effort.
Too much! I would like less maybe more relevant to child’s ability. Some is way too difficult.
Stop Spelling please. Leaving my child feel a failure. If you do continue feedback on what they got wrong so can work on it.
Home learning- for year 1 more maths work sheets.
Home learning- mid week/end of week rather than week ends
Home learning- Clear targets and encouraging targets making a huge difference (well done Mrs Housley!) where this is
lacking , little progress is made.
Home learning- it would be good to have this communicated earlier (currently this is on s Friday) and know when it needs
to completed by. Can’t it be communicated by parent, rather than just the web?
Home learning is a thankless task without feedback from the teacher. My children are much more enthusiastic about home
learning if they have had constructive feedback from the previous task. Then the child moves forward. Going over the same
list again and again is boring as a parent let alone as a child.
Can we have alternative maths and literacy homework?
Spelling feedback comments shown tonight did not appear divided . All seemed to be positive with just 2 querying the
volume per week.
Spellings need to be weekly not monthly.
Definitely not weekly
Home learning
-Thursdays
-via parent mail
More explanation/context
-more feedback from teacher about general progress- things to work
There is too much emphasis on spelling by the use of these tests- perhaps to the detriment of the other aspects of the
curriculum.
Home learning- please communicate this earlier if possible
Keep up the good work on spelling test. Maybe evolve to times tables tests too!
Fully support the spellathon exercise. For KS 2 would prefer to see a weekly or bi- weekly spelling list as it exercises both
writing and spellings.
If there have to be tests at least make them be age appropriate and progressive ie different each week/month and if the
children get 4 out of 5 that’s ok- the spellings spelt incorrect should be corrected and the child allowed to move on.
I think the spelling challenge should be every 2 weeks as every 4 weeks is too infrequent.
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I don’t think it is suitable in its current format as there are loads more words that children need to learn that aren’t on the
lists.
Fewer words more often and needs to be cumulative so words are not forgotten after learnt for specific tests.
A good compromise for spelling in teh lower years would be fewer words for each test, testing once a week or fortnight
and the tests going up in gradual increments of difficulty (so success more achievable).
10 spellings a week (x6 responses) appropriate to age/class. In a book so parents can see the score’, this is what most UK
primary schools do. 1x timestable a week from year 2 onwards. I have spoken to lots of people in this school and others
and this is simple and consistent. It is really not a subject which needs much debate.
10 spellings once a week in a book where we can see which ones have gone wrong.
10 words given on a Monday for a test on Friday. Frequent shows child how important it is and becomes part of routine.
Fewer but more frequent
Spelling book
More closely related to reading books
More explanation about National Standards the school is aiming to achieve.
Spelling excellent idea to give information about work/spelling patterns being covered in class. Why not link these to
spelling tests?
Lower the 100% pass rate as it’s so boring doing the same 20 words for 2+ months. 17 or 18 words right- move up to next
level.
Home learning up on the website on a Wednesday or Thursday if it’s to be handed in on a Monday as it is currently in year
1.
If a child gets 1 or 2 wrong from their list don’t wait another month to keep them on the same level. Very demoralising. Put
them up to the next level and the words they couldn’t do last time.
Keep spelling certificates. Do spellings about 3 weekly but not after a holiday. Allow at least one error.
Recognise and reward improvement as well as 100% pass rate.
Spellings- flawed- clearly if there is no room for error at all some children will not move on- this affects confidence. Suggest
10% error rate. Can’t see why this is a difficult decision.
Why not just do 10 spellings every week coming back to frequently wrongly spelt words. Keep it simple.
PARENT FORUM/ PARENT COUNCIL / HT SURGERY
PARENT FORUM
More general discussion – from parents – would be welcome
Could offer house points for every child who bring s completed questionnaire in to encourage a better response.
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If you would like help (technical) with future questionnaires online, I may be able to help as I work in market research –
Annette Wright
I like the current format but would suggest questionnaires go in book bags.
External speaker are very welcome and have lead to discussions and feedback – Bishop Jacob
Twice a Year term 2 and 5
Twice per year please as once doesn’t give much time to track progress on ideas
Send questionnaires home in bags (paper) version to increase response rate
Please try parent survey again – make things easy for parents to do
Smaller workshops on information in advance (on academic processes) at a parental level not in a vague way via learning
journals
Introduce an area of live debate – would have been useful for spellings tonight
N to parent Forums, all parents should have opportunities to come along.
Specialised workshops may have poor take up because of diary issues / narrow focus.
Parent forums 2/3 times a year with more time for parental discussion. No to Parent council
HT Surgery with booked appointments Yes!
Todays forum format was good - one a term would enable us to keep in touch more closely
Really like use of sheets to air ideas feels muchj more productive. Due to small % of attendees @ forum feel a debate
would not reflect wider held views necessarily.
PARENT COUNCIL
It will not help
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offer more meetings or surgery option
This forum has been very good
No Parent Council – it puts too much pressure on council members to represent others views.
Yes please – 2 reps per year group. Most at end of 2nd, 4th and 6th terms also governors represented.
Really in favour of Parent Council or increased roll for PTA
NOT a parents council, too much pressure on parents selected – continue with forums structure
This parent forum is too reactive – I favour a parent council to enable parent discussion to share issues and reach
consensus – perhaps the PTA could be more politically active? Or elect a class rep for dealing specifically with parent
concerns and issues?
Like the idea of a parent council possibly linked to the PTA. Anything to increase the communication flow.
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Questionnaires and forums provide an excellent opportunity for parents to share opinions. Well publicised and made
available to all. Worried that having reps might make having views discussed fairly will be difficult. Any easier for them to
get representative view than inviting all as currently do?
GOVERNORS
More visibility and accessibility
2 formal reports per year least
Link to Parent council i.e. governors represented there.
CHARITY DONATIONS / COST OF TRIPS and EVENTS
CHARITY DONATIONS
Happy to be asked but I don’t like ‘mandatory’ charity donations (via sponsored events, etc)
Charity initiatives are very prevalent in our communities, we should limit this more thru’ school activities – it gets too
much……!!
Perhaps the school council could nominate one charity to support each year.
Some year groups seem to do more trips than others – why is this?
People will continue to contribute generously as long as they can see it benefitting the school and children.
Suggest more children focused and appropriate – harvest festival – should surely include more relevance to the local
farming area as well as the wider community could each class choose a charity each year to support and work out on a
smaller scale how raise money.
Current level is very high but OK if we can pick and choose.
Cost of trips – fine
TRIPS
If parents could pay for trips in instalments then it would ease the burden
Keep school trips as they are
Keep charity links
More exciting “London” type trips rg Imperial War Museum, National History.
Cost of trips OK provided they aren’t clustered together
School trips great
Too many charity
School trips are highly desirable, so the school should keep on with them even in the face of rising costs. I’m sure that the
school attempts to minimise the costs for parents as far as possible.
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COMMENTS ON RECENT CHANGES
Consolidate comms via Parent Mail to at least max 1 per day….. ideally 2 per week!!
Excellent progress since last forum – Be careful not to focus just on complaints by the minority
// Agreed!
Great to see so many. Perhaps recap and circulate via ParentMail once p.a
Website:- much much better but will only work really well if it is consistently kept up to date by all teachers / incl. calendar
/ diary
ParentMail is a great way of communication and works well now (level of communication is about right)
Seeing regular updates and feedback. Keep it up
Big Maths / Beat That - for some children this is proving a really disheartening and demoralising experience each week!
Assessments – reading assessments / ages – could the results of these be reported to parents please
IDEAS FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
I feel (and so do all the other parents that I have spoken to about it) that the parent – teacher consultations do not give
each parent enough time. 15 minutes would be better. Alternatively, more regular consultations would be very desirable.
Playtime supervision – what efforts are made to facilitate inclusion?
What discipline is in place?
What are the procedures if a child is hurt?
Are children asked / encouraged?
Lunchtime
Is there enough food, what if a child wants more?
Is there enough time to eat or are they rushed?
Does anyone check that the children have eaten?
Class Contact
Class R was brilliant at inviting parents to come into class and look at kids work – would be great if this applied to whole
school if only once a term.
School Lunches
Needs more organisation
TAs +/or teachers to sit down with the kids x 2 a week (rota)
Quality of food and cost needs looking at
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Cereal bars are not an unreasonable / (truly) unhealthy snack for mid morning
There seems to be quite a “us/them” culture between teachers and parents (which is daft as we all have same goals ie
happy children reaching their full potential etc) How can we work together to improve this???
15 minutes per child at consultations (10 mins not long enough)
Could we involve local farmers in our Harvest Festival celebrations?
The school desserts do not seem, to fit with the school’s healthy eating ethos
Please can the school lunches be improved – my children are coming home hungry because food hasn’t been palatable.
Academic matters to be thought through and communicated more effectively, less defensively and more frequently.
More opportunity to meet the teachers. Open Classroom. 15 minutes once per term to look @ books etc.
Communication should be proactive as much as reactive. Not enough progress comments between reports – information
is only given on request – very reactive.
Give us more “tools” info so we can support learning. I found a website the other day called “Reading Eggs” (brill) I showed
my son and he’s like “Oh yes, I’ve done this at school!!!”
School to retain Class R Nativity Costumes. I don’t think the parents would have a problem; with this, except maybe the
socks. This would save generations of parents the heartache of having to search for white pillowcases to cut up!!
Everytime my son has gone up a reading level (colour) I have had to prompt / request this. Why is he not listened to /
reading aloud every few days / a week.
30 children in a class / 2 classroom assistants, if you did 4 children a day you’d get though the whole class each week. (I
know they do group reading / other reading but this process feels reactive rather than proactive.
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