Earlier on in the day, Kate, the Head of English, and I met up with Helen’s parents for a review meeting.
I’m so impressed with how Kate handled herself. She stood her ground, had prepared well with copies of Helen’s work and her recent assessments. She had a plan of action and put it across comprehensively.
That all went well and the parents are now happier with Helen’s grouping but will continue to monitor us.I was pleased and told Kate so but she was angry. It turns out that there is yet another Governor ‘complaining’ about policies and procedures. This one isn’t pulling rank in the same way but Kate, understandably, feels that she shouldn’t be spending time preparing for meetings like this one and that every moment spent getting ready was a moment not monitoring the team or preparing lessons.
I couldn’t agree more but good customer relations is so important.
The other parent I spoke to today was complaining about the Head of Maths who had set homework of ‘learn the first 15 square numbers and 5 cubes’; he had then checked that this was done by picking three pupils and asking them just 2 questions – if they got both wrong they were in detention!
He couldn’t quite see what all the fuss was about; I left the meeting with him appreciating Kate more and more.
