Guest Posted March 16, 2004 Posted March 16, 2004 Do you send books home for parents evenings? Had to send them home over the weekend - quite a few parents were obviously not very impressed - lack of work, lack of worksheets to make the work clear to them, lack of beautiful presentation. I go on and on about play as the children's work but still they ask me when the children are going to start doing work!!!! The most annoying thing is that practically in the same breath they're all telling me that they are pleased with the progress the children are making with reading, counting, writing at home etc etc. What to do??? Dianne xxx
Guest Posted March 16, 2004 Posted March 16, 2004 Hi Dianne No we don't send books home - would probably never get them back - but the parents do get to see the work done on a parents eveneing - i put all of the childrens books into thier drawers and wheel out the trolley to the cloakroom where they wait for thier appointment. they are just impressed that thier children enjoy coming to school and have learnet to read and write rather than the work in thier books Sarah
Guest Posted March 16, 2004 Posted March 16, 2004 We keep a portfolio of work over a period of time, drawings, photographs and a limited number of simple pencil control sheets. When we show these to the parents they can see a progression and combined with a verbal report they seem pleased.
Guest Posted March 17, 2004 Posted March 17, 2004 Hi As a whole school policy we never send any books home even if they are complete and at the end of the school year. Apparently it has caused so many problems in the past with parents not understanding the work or the marking in the books! We do show books to parents twice a year during parents evenings and I actively encourage parents to pop in to look at work any time throughout the year, particularly if I want to illustrate a point I am trying to make about a child such as great/lack of progress.
hali Posted March 17, 2004 Posted March 17, 2004 Hi qwe send home thier keyworker file once a term with any work in and thier individual play plans plus any observations. Have lost one ot two but been very lucky really.
Guest Posted March 29, 2004 Posted March 29, 2004 Hi Dianne I sympathise with your situation re the response of parents - wanting to discuss 'work'. The parents at my school confuse 'work' with 'recording'. When I first took over the reception class from a very formal practitioner, the parents could not understand how the children learned without doing worksheets! My class have journals which might include some of the recording they do over the year but I don't get these out at Parents' Evening. Instead I talk to the parents informally about the child's learning across the 6 areas, discussing their strengths and weaknesses. I share the child's profile with them as good evidence of their child's progress, in the hope that the parents will value the experiences the child has more than the odd bit of recording done. After 6 years we still have to work at this with parents because we're overcoming their assumptions based on their own school experiences, but they are beginning to understand that their children are working hard at school and that our observations and records are interesting evidence.
Guest Posted April 11, 2004 Posted April 11, 2004 In our pre-school one of the most effective ways of sharing achievements with parents has been with our photograph book. We take lots of digital photographs showing all areas of the nursery and add captions detailing the learning that is going on. We usually manage to fill one of those folders with the plastic insert pages in a term. At the front we put an outline of our planning for the term, a sheet for the parents to add their comments and where they can also order copies of individual photos (at a cost). The advantages of a digital camera are endless: working parents, grandparents and siblings get to see what goes on in nursery; an anxious mother who has left her child for the first time can see directly from the camera at the end of the session that their child was happy and settled; its great for evidence for senco's, keyworkers etc; it can be loaned to new children as a way of introducing nursery life and helping them settle more quickly. For your scenario I'm sure the most difficult of parents would be happy, and they will pick up on the positive comments that other parents will undoubtedly write in! Good luck!
Guest Posted April 12, 2004 Posted April 12, 2004 We have just got a digital camera for our nursery and I am just getting to grips with it, like Lisa I have also used it to make a photographic record of our day in the nursery and on trips. Rather than do individual photos I make a collage of photos and print off an A4 sheet and laminate it. Children and Parents love to see themselves and we have a record of their achievements. Jonny feeding the goats, Mary stroking the donkey. Parents can also buy copies and the profit from the sale of these is paying for the photo quality paper and ink for our printer. Which the children also use to print out their pictures using colour magic.
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