Parents' Forum

I was at a conference recently and a debate started about the book bag. For those of you who don’t have children at primary school in the UK a book bag is a bag in which children bring home their reading books from school. As well as books the bag contains a document which the parent has to sign off to prove to the teacher that thet have read the school books with their children.

The debate went something like this (and I have to admit I was part of this). “I resent having to prove to the teacher that I have read these school books to my child. In fact I read much more interesting books than the ones they give them at school. What I do is write on the paper that my child has read a “home book” and put the title on the paper.” The other category of parent said:”I shouldn’t have to prove that I read these books to the teacher. I refuse to sign the paper.”

But are these parents misguided? Is it unreasonable for schools to send books home with the kids; and, yes, in an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to sign things off…but aren’t these parents undermining the teachers with their reaction to the book bag? Aren’t we just trying to prove what a superior parent we are having a whole load of home books and refusing to abide by the rules and creating our own way of doing things. In effect aren’t we being a right royal pain in the arse? Should we be setting our kids a lesson by helping them do what is asked of them by their teacher?