Certainly one of the by products of an effective school transition program we hoped was the easing of parent concerns about the student class placement for the following year. An earlier post on school transition described the program that we have implemented. In February at the start of the new school year the program moves into the 3rd phase of student induction which continues to build student relationships with each other and the teacher. I think this is one of the main expressed concerns of students and parents alike – will I have a friend in my class? The emphasis for teachers is a friend in the class, not meaning my best friend or friends which is often what students want and parent request.
What teachers comment on a lot in class placement is best friends often inadvertently restricting the friendship circle through lack of opportunity to make new friends or an over reliance on existing friendships that create a dependency. Sometimes these “old” friendships place stress on the learning boundaries as well as students look to affirm the same relationships even though the learning tasks require students to work with peers with different skills, interests, passions and experiences. So they mix students up each year.
This year in a slightly amended policy on class placement we tightened the boundaries of parent input into class placement saying the teacher selection [the first request of parent] was not appropriate as well as requests for continuing student friendships. Most parents are not silly and a recognise a quality teacher is the main criteria for student success although they form opinions on a different criteria of quality instruction to me.
Still some parent try and persuade me to change their child’s class as the quality of the teacher is lower in their eyes than the selected class teacher. I could write a whole post on different perceptions of quality instruction but at this stage lets just acknowledge there are differences of opinions.
Our policy on class placement is to create mixed gender classes with a normal distribution of skills and capabilities. I trust teachers to follow the policy, make sensible or justifiable placement decisions and seek feedback from students. Sometimes some outside factors are over looked [cousins in same class as an example] and a decision needs to be overturned but this happens in about 0.5% cases.
So what happened?
Well the number of parent emails and letters asking for teachers or friendships reduced. It’s hard to use this single measure as an indicator of a successful transition program and I know a sub committee is working on an online survey to collect additional data.
The emotional response by about 2% of the parent population, sometimes expressed as an anger or frustration, at an injustice in class placement [no perceived friends], at a teacher they don’t like, or a multi aged class where their bright child in the upper class who won’t be extended are still the same and it takes time to research, talk to teachers and respond.
I sometimes wonder are we creating a generation of young people with reduced social skills to cope with life’s little frustrations? Are we creating dependency instead of resilience? Or are we as a population more informed and want a greater say in the small things that affect our children’s lives.
I know when one of my children didn’t get selected in the top representative side for their sport or dance performance they were upset but my job as a parent was to help them overcome the emotions and work on a plan to get better skills, make new friends and enjoy the whole court or stage time experience. I accepted the selection committees decision and moved on. Am I just more resilient, older, less caring, have more perspective or more pragmatic?
I know I have had no say on these class placement issues from year 7 onwards as its high school and a different culture. But the questions I raise are still worth pondering?
