| Smart Education - Parent Teacher Meetings |
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How to make the most of the parent teacher meeting Parent - teacher meetings, both formal and informal are a regular feature of primary school life. Parent-teacher meetings are also a great opportunity to build communication and understanding between the home and school. While this may be one of the most important avenues of information exchange between parents and teachers, these meetings can also be quite stressful for many parents. Some parents may be worried about what they might learn about their child’s performance, development or behaviour.
Don’t allow parent-teacher meetings to stress you out. If you go into the meeting with the right attitude and expectations and feel prepared with questions you will go a long way in strengthening the parent-teacher team responsible for the educational needs of your child. The questions below will act as a guideline of what to ask your child’s teacher so you can get an insight into how you child is getting on in school.
For Primary School children: How is my child progressing?
Does my child do really well in some areas that I can reinforce at home? Does my child need special help with anything Does my child make friends easily? Does my child participate in group activities? What is my child like during the day? What can I do to continue the learning process at home? Also remember to try to stick to the allotted time as the teacher has to see all the parents and if you need more time make a follow up appointment.Remember that teachers all want to work in the best interests of your child and will welcome your comments.
Inform teacher about homework So how long should your child spend doing his/her homework? For primary school children, most schools print the recommended times in the school journal. The following times are recommended:
Junior/senior infants- no formal homework, perhaps some colouring or word cards but not much more.
1st & 2nd class- 20 minutes
3rd & 4th class- 30 minutes
5th & 6th class- maximum of 1 hour
It is important to let the teacher know if homework is taking longer then the recommended time or if it is ending in tears. Also ask the teacher what you can do at home to help
You will also receive a written report from your child's school at some point(s) during the year. This report will give you information on your child's progress and achievement in school in four key areas. These are:
your child as a learner
your child's social and personal development your child's learning across the curriculum your key role in supporting your child's learning Owner of SMART Mary O Dowd Commented; ‘The written school report should give parents a good breakdown of their child’s progress on the basic skills such as reading, maths, spelling etc. However what does ‘good’, ‘fair’ etc mean in terms of where your child is placed compared to all the other children of the same age? This is where standardised testing is important and parents need to ask the teachers for these results’.
Examples of these tests are Drumcondra tests, Micra T and Sigma T tests. The results of these tests enable the parent to see where their child is placed in relation to all the other children of the same age in Ireland, e.g. children on the 90th percentile in maths would be in the top 10% of children. A percentile score of 13 would mean that your child will be offered extra help in school. Sometimes teachers may give a Sten score, a sten of 8 – 10 means that your child is above average, 4 -7 is the mid range with approx 66% of students falling into this section, Sten scores of 1 – 3 are low or below average indicating that your child needs extra help. A Sten of 5 is the average score. It is important to keep note of these results from year to year but remember that a drop in a few percentile points is not always significant as children can be unwell and these tests are a view of your child on a given time of a given day.
If your child is not doing as well in school as they have the potential to, either through behavioral problems or performance they may have a learning difficulty. SMART Education, an after school education centre, located in Moycullen, Co. Galway may help to resolve some these problems or indeed screen students to establish what may be hindering the students learning process. The centre offers a basic child friendly consultation and assessment options include a full written report that can then be referred onto occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and educational psychologists if required.
SMART Education was the first independent learning centre in Dublin and due to the demand of the service, a purpose built centre was opened in Galway in September 2009.The centre is owned and managed by Mary O’Dowd, who has over 25 years teaching experience.
Recent research proved that children with reading,language difficulties, attention deficit disorder and dyslexia, have improved their skills through use of the SMART Education program. The centre offers assistance to children in national and secondary schools, alleviating problem areas in fine and gross motor skills, behaviour, maths, literacy and writing. Recent research in a Dublin based school suggested that use of the SMART Education products strengthened the students’ foundational skills, allowing them to benefit more from the classroom curriculum. The results of using the SMART Education program not only benefit the child from the learning process but present a marked improvement in the Childs self esteem. The entire SMART Education program is available online for students in remote areas and the use of their reporting system insures each child is monitored closely.
To find out more information please contact SMART Education on Tel: 091 555230 or 087 9295635 Email: info@smarteducation.ie Log onto: www.smarteducation.ie |
