My daughter started school in May 2005. At the recent parent teachers evening I was told she was a model student, no complaints at all. She is well rounded and a well balanced child who is enthusiastic and who learns quickly. She has been advanced for her maths class and has a reading age of 7. It all sounded really pleasing and I was really proud of her. She is my little star.
After mulling all this wonderful feedback about my daughters education I was struck by the fact that she is still in the new entrants class and time was ticking over. She had been there for over a year and if she was "the model student' who "learns quickly" why was she still there? After all she had been moved into the next class for maths.
The teacher of the class in question has been teaching for over 25 years and has certain patience issues. I don't know of one parent who is happy with her style of teaching, nor do I know one parent who is prepared to say anything. She shouts at the children and is generally grumpy. Of course, it could be said that my daughter may not be quite so academic of not for her input and this is perhaps true. On the other hand she has been known to hold children in her class as "helpers". They get to do the running to the office jobs for photocopies and that sort of stuff. She calls them team leaders and when I asked my daughter if there any recognition involved she said no it was just to help the teacher. A few days previous my daughter had approached another teacher to ask why she wasn't in the next class. The response was that her teacher needed good helpers so she would be moved next year. I was appalled at this inappropriate answer.
I have endeavoured to find out the standard of knowledge required for a child to advance from a new entrant class to the next. Seemed simple enough in theory but not so in practice. The Ministry of Education web site has nothing other than to say that each school sets its own curriculum which has to include the Ministries guidelines. This means I need to approach the school. Exactly what I didn't want to do until I had some information. Information I will now ask the Board of Trustees for.
