A local young mum whose child starts school in September told me that the school sends someone round to her home prior to child starting to look at child's bedroom and the home to get an idea of what the child likes and dislikes. I have never heard of this and my GC starts school next Sep and I am not happy about someone from school checking out my house. Is this the normal these days? The young mum was happy about this but I find it smacks of big brother. What do others feel and have you had experience of this?
You use the alt key followed by a 3 digit number from the keys on the right-hand side of the keyboard. It has a method for if you don't have those keys too.
One of my children was a completely different person at home and at school. At home my child was articulate, confident and relaxed; the same child at school was reticent, anxious and barely spoke. It took four years and a privately commissioned Ed-Psych report for the school to agree with me that something was wrong at school. If my child's first teacher had been able to observe us in the home I think my child would have received much needed help sooner than was the case.
Children here start school on the first Monday after their fifth birthday. Before that they make a number of arranged visits to what will be their classroom, meeting the person who will be their teacher and the other children who will be their classmates, ending with a full day in school. A similar arrangement exists with what are called preschools - in effect, nursery schools - which take children from the age of two. I would suggest that this plan helps the children settle into a different place with different people - big and small - more readily than a single home visit which cannot possibly indicate to a small child what is in store. It must also be easier for teachers not to have a large intake of nervous little ones all on the same day.
I had never heard of this home visit plan before reading this thread. My daughter started nursery school - a part of the local primary which she later attended - for half days when she was three in 1985. No teachers suggested visiting her at home at any time. Far more traumatic than starting school was the transition to secondary school, the teaching style and ethos of which is so very different from earlier education.
Answer to your points Whitewave ...how? Your points were subjective and didn't give any examples of what you consider to be a cliché and what was unprofessional or even alarming. Unless you give such examples how can I respond to generalisations?
whitewave didn't mean it to sound like that. That's the problem with the written word it comes out harsher than meant. Sorry! Yes Nfk you can, I'm using an iPad.
Well, I often type without the accents on here as I am not able to find them - I do use them when typing in Word, but not when posting on GN. So I think that is a bit unfair to Whitewave, Aka. Perhaps you could advise please.
So if you find me posting without an aigu, a grave, a circumflex, a cedilla, an umlaut, tilde etc please make allowances. Thank you.
Whitewave without wishing to be pedantic, but if you must use it as a verb then please at least use the accent in clichéd. Personally I refute there is a verb 'to cliché'. I find that truly unprofessional.
Don't think it happens at GC's school but they do have to write a précis of the child's likes and capabilities, eating and sleeping habits and what they get up to on a weekend.