Friday, November 10, 2006

Parent Teacher Interview

I'm sitting here burning the tracks onto CD that me and Steve spent two days choosing and burning, for Hannah and David's engagement party, which is tomorrow night. Hopefully someone will come to it! While I'm sitting here waiting for them to burn onto CD I thought I might use the time to write about Sam's Parent Teacher interview, which was on Wednesday.

I met his teacher for the first time. She was SOOOO different to the old cow he had at primary school, before we started home educating him. She was a bubbly, smiley, enthusiastic and friendly personality. She only had good things to say about Sam. She described him as the boy the we know and love - energetic, bubbly, friendly. The last teacher he had, in P6 at primary school described him as a quiet, introverted daydreamer who had no interest in school. That is not Sam at all, but being in her class made him subdued and robbed him of his self esteem. Hence, we took him out of school. But now we have our happy, confident boy back again.

Mrs M said that Sam's class is a very quiet, academic class in general, and that Sam is like a ray of light in the midst of them! LOL. That's really what she said. She said he is always happy, always smiling, and very enthusiastic about learning. She actually seemed to like him (Mrs B from the old school positively detested him, and any other child that wasn't scoring 100% in everything). This new form teacher told me that she has a soft spot for Sam and that he is such a likable lad, always surrounded by friends. Yes, I knew that already. Anyway, the day before the parent interviews she sat in the various classes watching the kids at work. Apparently every teacher reported on Sam's keenness to learn (is this the same child?) She said that during science most of the kids were quiet and sat yawning, whilst Sam smiled the whole way through the lesson, asked countless questions (they were learning about reptiles and amphibians), and thoroughly enjoyed himself! Well that's great. He really does seem to be enjoying himself.

I guess the teachers may presume that his being home educated has starved him of any opportunity, and that is why he is so keen to learn. I know, however, that primary school sapped away his love of learning, depressed him and stole his self confidence, and during his two years at home he learnt to love both himself and the world around him, again.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to hear Sam is doing well. He's a clever lad -- just like his dad.
I remember one parent-teacher evening when I was at school (yes Hazel they did have teachers in my day -- though they were still working on inventing the wheel admittedly).
Mr.Greene the PE teacher informed my parents how well I was doing, which was quite strange as I'd never been in his class. Teachers eh?

G.G.Dad Peter said...

Thats really wonderful Hazel,we all know theres nothing like a bad, or dis-agreeable teacher to make school a nightmare and a dread. Now Sam will progress in leaps and bounds, I bet, and build on the good foundation you,ve given him.

Anonymous said...

Good blog today. Sam is a wonderfull, blessed kid and its great to see him doing so well.
Visions of Davey doing PE however is very funny! No wonder you had not been to the class, youve got legs like mine! you had shorts on once this summer and i was there, still having counselling!! LOL

Hazel said...

No Steve, your legs are much nicer than Davys.

Anonymous said...

Thanks daddy -- however they weren't shorts -- my trousers had shrunk in the wash.
Hazel -- that was supposed to be our secret.

Lima said...

LOL at the comments page!!

Its great that everything is going so well for Sam, the boys parents evening was a different story (as I'm sure you read at the time). I'm sure that the school thought that J and M hadn't actually done any work in the year they were homed edded so it was absolutely great when J got the highest score in the whole year group on their first SATs testpaper of the year - woo hoo!

Maybe gradually, with our children doing so well, they will get a better view of what HE can offer instead of just seeing the results of when it goes badly wrong.

Lima said...

PS, sorry I haven't been around much this past week or so, i've been trying to stay off the computer (and away from HE blogs too if I am honest), never works though, lol!

Hazel said...

I'm glad to see you are alright Lin. It's a shame your blog has gone, but still I'm happy that you are ok.

Anonymous said...

Just for you...

Well, ok, not *just* for you, but you'll know what I mean when you read it.