I have just returned from my twelve year old step-daughters parents evening. It was an interesting hour and I believe my daughter has learnt quite a lot from the experience. The teachers gave her some important life coaching advice which I will write about in this article.

My step-daughters name is Taryn and she is basically a very bright and well behaved child. One of her faults however is that she just does enough, she is not naughty at school but does not give one hundred percent to her studies.

Before we attended the parents evening we had the opportunity to read her school report. Taryn thought this report was very good as she was above average in her year, this was certainly borne out in her recent examination results. What annoyed both me and her mother was the regular comments that Taryn does not ask enough questions, that she does not contribute enough in classroom discussions and that her homework seems rushed.

We were also aware that even though the exam results were good, that they could have been even better as she did not do any revision. We told her that even though she was above average that we were not happy with some of the comments made which suggested that she could and should have done even better. Taryn was not happy by this and had quite a big strop thinking that we were just being cruel.

Taryn loves to play sport and has been a regular in the netball and athletic teams. The first teacher she took us to see was her sports teacher who Taryn assumed would be very happy with her. This teacher first asked how we as her parents thought Taryn was getting on, in general at school. We voiced our concerns and the teacher agreed as she had read the whole report and was also not that pleased with it. She looked at Taryn and told her that in sport she always gave one hundred percent and asked her why she did not have the same attitude in Maths and English. Taryn did not know what to say and seemed quite shocked. The teacher stated that even though sport is important, the other subjects should come first and that if she did not see a marked improvement over the next few months, that she would drop her from the netball and athletics team.

Next was the English teacher. He told all of us that Taryn was very clever but that she needed to take more of a pride in her work. She needs to check what she has completed before she hands it in, as the only real errors she makes are just silly mistakes.
He believed that even though Taryn was in the top thirty percent that she should be in the top ten percent.

All of the teachers we met gave Taryn the same message. Do not accept second best, always give one hundred percent, spend less time on the computer and more time reading and revising.

By the end of the evening poor old Taryn looked shell shocked. She now understands what to do and certainly does not want to be kicked out of the sports teams.

I was more than pleased with the schools attitude and believe that Taryn has been given some important life coaching advice.