Who's The Teacher?

Do you ever wonder who's the teacher in your childs life? I've always been keen to help my children learn. I bought books for them to read even before they were even born, the toys that they play with not only allow them to have fun but they also encourage them to learn different skills from counting and sorting to role play and dealing with certain emotions.

However when my children started school I thought I would become what I would call a back seat teacher, still helping them along their learning journey but becoming someone that reinforced what their school teachers were teaching them rather than being the main source of where their knowledge comes from.

My 6 year old daughter Freya and her class mates were let down big time last year by their teacher when they were in reception. Unfortunately they weren't taught all of their phonics and other basic skills and some were left not really being able to read properly when they started year one in September.

Now Freya was lucky in my opinion because she has an older sister and a mum who were willing to help her learn these things at home, I was aware of what she should be learning not only through what Elise had already learnt previously but because my mother in law is a teaching assistant for reception at a different school but should that have really been up to me to make sure that Freya was prepared for the next year in school?

Only last week Freya was set a piece of homework that she didn't understand, it was something that they had never been taught before. I ended up having to try and find my own method of teaching her and helping her understand what was being asked of her. Surely homework should be related to something that they have been learning that week/term??

In my head, I'm beginning to think that I may as well just home school my children if I am doing the teaching anyway.

Am I wrong in thinking this way, should it always be me who's the teacher primarily even when my children are at school?? I always want to be the one they come to when they need to know things about life in general, I'm hoping my children know that they can talk to me about anything however when it comes to academic learning surely us parents should be there to support and back up the knowledge that the teachers are bestowing them with not us teaching them and the teachers then reinforcing that what we've taught them is correct??

What do you think who's the teacher??

xxxx