I don't want to be a pushy parent, but.........

Mrs S and are are very lucky to have two little hooligans that simply love going to school. We have no trouble getting them out of the house every morning at 08:00 for them to walk, by themselves I might add, the 1 kilometre or so to the village school..

When the boys reached school age (age 6, much later here than in the UK) we were able to choose the kind of system they would follow for the first few years. We had the option of the normal "years 1 / 2 / 3" system or a new style "Basis-stufe" where the last kindergarten year, plus first 3 school years are rolled into one class.

We chose the Basis-stufe style for both boys, as the building was brand new, open plan and beautifully equipped, in addition the small class size of 20 was shared by 2 teaching staff, thats one teacher for 10 kids!! And there was the added benefit of the younger kids being inspired to learn by the older kids and in turn the older kids helping to "mentor" the little ones. We thought it provided a really wonderful, inclusive and inspiring learning environment for our boys to start their schooling. We were pleased to hear that the children would be encouraged to work toward their strengths and be helped and inspired by their classmates to tackle their weaknesses, assisted by the teaching staff.

Both boys attend the Basis-Stufe in separate classes, both classes have 20 kids and 2 teachers. Small is absolutely loving his time at school and his teachers are really fantastic and supportive, he doesn't enjoy the traditional school work as such, but is allowed to really exercise his creative mind with building things from old cardboard, painting, drawing and working as part of a team. He is extremely creative and very skilled with his hands. He has struggled wth learning his numbers and letters a bit but, with our support at home and that of his tutors, he is making steady progress and his confidence is growing all the time...most heartening!

BIG however, is struggling a bit....and it's troubling us.

Even before he started school, BIG had a huge interest in numbers, letters and books. So much so that I took it upon myself to teach him to read and count before he had finished kindergarten. I bought a stack of books from the UK on the early years math syllabus and revisited the classic Peter & Jane, Ladybird KEYWORDS reading series that I enjoyed so much as a youngster. BIG absolutely loved this stuff and would happily sit with me for several afternoons a week and learn to write and read, and to add and subtract. All in English of course, as I didn't want to do the wrong thing in German..not that my knowledge of my adopted language and the mother tongue of Mrs S and the boys is my greatest strength,  I just wanted to do my bit to encourage a young mind, hungry for knowledge.

His first year in Basis-Stufe seemed to go OK but we did notice his frustration that he wasn't getting to do what he would consider "proper school work" There was lots of playing and making stuff and learning to be part of a team but, he really wanted to be learning to do the things he had done with me at home, in school...

We were able to counter his frustrations by continuing the work we'd been doing at home, and by his second year at Basis-stufe, he started to do all the things he wanted to be doing...
Fuelled by his thirst for knowledge and doing a good job, he would happily bring home his books and fly through his homework. He knew his alphabet in German and English, learnt to pronounce all of his letters in German (Very different to English) He enjoyed reading his books from school which were at a much lower level than the level he had attained on the KEYWORDS books, but most importantly he seemed very inspired. Maths was the same, he could happily count to 100 in German and English,  and he had happily mastered addition and subtraction upto 50 in German and English, by himself...

Supporting his obvious enthusiasm and thirst for this, Mrs S and I would spend time with him in the evenings working through his homework books, helping him where required and diligently filling in all of the work he had achieved in the "report" section. Then we started noticing a problem...his tutor hadn't acknowledged ANY of the work he had done...he was sent home with notes asking us NOT to do anymore work on these books with him as he was overtaking the class and they should all be learning together, his regular homework consisted of worksheets that he could complete in minutes and slowly but surely, he started to loose enthusiasm for his much loved numbers...

His teacher even told him off in front of the class for doing too much work and he became scared to sit with us at home and do things because he thought he'd get in trouble with his teacher!

The same thing started to happen in his reading.... with the head start he had from the KEYWORDS series and his ability to work out words and sentences in German or English he was devouring the weekly class reader in a single evening...The school library wouldn't let him take out extra books beyond his class level and so we had to make up the short fall ourselves with books at home.

Not really the supportive educational experience that we had been promised for him...

After speaking with his tutors and trying to air our frustrations, it became clear that they thought WE, his parents, were to blame and that we were pushing him too hard and just wanted him to be a star student!

That really could not be further from the truth, I was no star at school, in fact I hated it...I went on to do a teaching degree and lectured in music on the University and College system, but that was in my early 30s, my schooling and academic achievement was by no means a highlight. Mrs S was the studious one, having studied languages, medicine and finally attaining her Masters but again, is no academic, she just worked hard. We are not pushy parents at all, the luxury of us both being self employed and spending lots of time with our boys has really allowed us to help them indulge in the things they love to do. We were both so pleased that they enjoyed school we wanted to help and encourage them to learn whilst they had the opportunity to do so. It hurt being labelled as a pushy parent!

As it was, we left the meeting feeling like we had done something wrong with BIG, we were given no extra support or ideas to help him with his maths schooling at home, just simply told, he needs to follow the program with the class. So in an act of defiance, I photocopied the entire book and we work on that and anything else I can find "on topic" from the internet.

He has been put on a reading program "Antolin" where each time he reads a book he can go online to answer questions about the book and earn points. This has inspired him even more and in 3 months he has amassed over 380 points (the same level as kids 3 years above him) he is reading books in German and English at home and earning his points...He can't get enough of it BUT, once again, the teacher is convinced we are doing the work for him...

The weekly school reader (which he'll do in an evening) is taken off him the next day and he then has to wait 5 days before doing the online test at school without re-reading the book...

It's like the teacher is trying to catch him, or us, out!

IT'S VERY FRUSTRATING.....

So, I don't want to be a pushy parent, but.........

I simply wish that a tutor who has only TEN,  7-8 year old students to look after, would simply show a bit of support and enthusiasm for a hungry young mind!

Is there no such thing as differentiation in the Swiss school system?
Is it really that hard to set some slightly more advanced work based on the same topic?
Is it really OK to ask a child to not do too much work, when they really want to?

Am I being a pushy parent?

I simply don't know...

I, just as we all do, only want the best for my kids and if they are inspired, I want to help them realise their potential...isn't that the true art of teaching?