Pushy parent (in training)

I don't think I'm a pushy parent, but I know I have the potential. I suspect that this is true of most mothers, maybe more than fathers since mothers tend to be more connected to the day to day details of their children's lives. That's not a criticism, but I think it's true. And this means that it's usually mothers who do the school drop off and pick up, talk to other mothers about their impressions of the teachers, and step in to fix things which they perceive as being broken.

And that's the situation we're facing at the moment. The teacher in Isabel's Reception year was brilliant - the kids loved her, the parents loved her, she communicated well with the parents, the kids were clearly learning and also having fun. What more could you ask for? Now that Isabel's in Year 1, it's not the same at all. I know that Year 1 is very different from Reception, which is really a bridge year between nursery and real school. There's a lot more structured work in Year 1, which has often caused Isabel to sigh, and say, "I wish I was back in Reception...". But she's managing the work with no problem so far.

The problem is, unfortunately, with the teacher. She's newly qualified, which I had hoped might mean that she would be really enthusiastic and up to date with teaching techniques. The latter may be true, but the former doesn't seem to be. And while she may be good in front of the class, which appears to be the case, she's woefully disorganised. She communicates badly with the parents too, and just isn't very personable. And some of the things they're being taught are just plain wrong - Isabel's writing a lot now, but isn't writing all of her letters correctly (e.g. starting an 'f' from the bottom instead of the top) and this will cause her problems when it comes to trying to do joined up writing. To combat this, I've downloaded some letter formation sheets and she's doing extra practice on three letters per night to try to correct the problem before it gets worse, or before it become ingrained and difficult to shift.

I've already been to see the teacher to ask her to move Isabel up to a new reading level (she ended up moving from level 2 to level 5, which is a jump large enough that I would have thought someone else should have suggested it before I did), and every week we either fail to get the homework, the spellings for the following week's test, or both. I spoke to her yesterday to find out why no-one's been hearing Isabel read (she's meant to read out loud to a staff member or "reading parent" at least twice a week) and was told that the reading parents only started this week after Christmas because of the snow, and also that she would from now on be hearing every child read once a week. So she should, she's their teacher! And then today Isabel said that the teacher hadn't heard her read, she'd forgotten.

This means I'll have to go back and speak to her again tomorrow. Is it usual to have to do this much pushing to get the basic stuff right? Should I see the headmaster, or is it just because she's new and finding her feet? I don't know whether I'm making too much of a fuss or not enough fuss - advice from anyone very much welcomed!