Big Boy's Parents Evening

At the moment I would say that I know Big Boy better than he knows himself. We are together so often outside of School, I'm in School a few times a week in either my role as a Parent Governor or as a Parent Helper and of course BB doesn't yet have a filter and so tells me absolutely everything. Sometimes this backfires on me however, not only does he tell me everything about his School friends and his hopes and fears I also get to hear about every episode of passing gas.

Anyway. This of course means I know quite well how BB is doing within School and when it was announced Parents Evening was coming up, I was quite tempted not to put my name down. I mean, what is the point? I know where BB needs to improve, I know where BB is strongest, I know because I'm there and I see it. Guilt got the better of me however and I put my name down for an appointment.

The way the Parents Evenings are set up at BB's School is that you should aim to get there around ten minutes early. This way you can have a good look at your Child's work, read comments that Teachers have left when marking the work and of course prepare yourself for sitting on those tiny chairs that are only good for one butt cheek.

Reading through BB's workbooks, I could see the same comments over and over again.

BB remember to space out your words.
BB please concentrate more on your writing.
BB there is simply not enough written in the time here!

Can you guess what three phrases we use most at home when doing homework with BB? Yeah, I'm forever reminding BB;

Finger Space! 

Concentrate! 

Speed it up kid! 

As we went into BB's classroom, his teacher was smiling kindly at BB. My Children are great at getting Adults to like them.

How are we all this evening? She asked politely

Well, not very good. I answered.

Oh! Why not? What's wrong? 

Well, I've just read through BB's work and all the things we (the Teacher and I) are always talking about are still happening and I'm just not happy about it. Am I BB?

I don't think the Teacher was expecting this answer, but she quickly realised that I was acting the part of a disappointed parent disillusioned with her child.

BB, looked up at us both.

I do try.

And then the Teacher told BB that she knew he did. She went on to say;

"The thing is, that your Mummy and I just want the best for you. I'm very good at nagging, and I bet your Mummy is too. And together we probably nag you about the same things but one day, one day you will suddenly understand. You will one day start writing for fun and there will be no stopping you. Until then however, you're going to have to put up with us nagging you."

BB nodded, he understood that we didn't blame him. That we don't blame him, we know he tries and we know, he knows how to put together a sentence and punctuation and all the other great things that the Teachers have taught him.

It just hasn't clicked yet, but it will one day.

BB's teacher went on to tell BB that he was one of her best students. 

She told him that he was polite and friendly and she was thankful for him always offering to help. 

She told him that he was coherent and had a great vocabulary and marvellous ideas. 

She told him that he was brilliant at his Spellings and his Mathematics work was amazing.

She told him everything that was positive about him, from his attitude to learning to his zeal for school life.

The whole meeting probably only took five minutes, but those five minutes allowed BB to understand that his Teacher, his Mum and he are a team. We want what is best for him, we want to stop nagging him. Yet, we understand that it isn't really his fault. It just hasn't clicked yet.

We both felt so upbeat as we left BB's classroom that we skipped home in the rain. That is what I call a great Parents Evening!