King's Blog

So your child’s doing just fine at school: No problems with grades or homework, seems happy with their friends, no complaints from any of the teaching staff. Do you really need to attend that parent teacher meeting?

Or maybe your child hates school, is always in trouble and you just can’t face seeing their teacher to hear all about it … Again!

So you've been scheduled 10-15 minutes to drill the teacher about your child's performance and well-being at school. You've just received your child's school report and have a number of issues to discuss. How do you make the most of your brief meeting? 

I have the school number programmed into my contacts so that when the school calls I know it’s them. Since my children are humans and not robots,  I will probably get a call from one of their teachers at some stage to chat about some behaviour that needs addressing.

Yesterday, I helped four Year 1 boys research 'toys and games from the past'. Last week I got very competitive playing maths games with Year 4 students. Next week I will be doing some one-on-one work , listening to young children read. I have little friends all over Primary who wave to me and share stories of their weekends, and a sneaky insider's knowledge of day-to-day school life.

Dear Teacher,

I’d love to come to parent teacher interviews, really I would, but I need you to know that I’m scared.I’m unsure of what I’ll hear. I don’t know much about school and I don’t know the right questions to ask. Frankly, I struggle to pack a healthy lunchbox and get through the morning routine without the usual fights about makeup and tidying her room, so I don’t think I’d have any idea what to say about my child’s schoolwork!

I nearly ran over one of my children the other day with the pram.  I was turning left, he was standing there, and low and behold, I ran over his toes…again. “How did that happen!?” I thought to myself and the answer was very obvious:  I didn’t tell him where I was going or what I was thinking. To him, an unreasonable person ran him over. To me, an unreasonable person got in the way.

Sometimes, the parent-teacher relationship is like this; without appropriate communication, one or both parties can get very confused about where they're both headed!