newbie here! could someone pls make sense of ds's report?

[4ever21]

Recently got reception ds's report and i suspect it was a lot of cut and paste!The summary by his teacher however was good, She however said some things which I'm not sure of the meaning and was wondering if anyone could help. For instance she mentioned 'he's working well through his extention activities' I'm not quite sure what extention activities are.would appreciate some explanation. thank you.

[Doodle2u]

Sounds like he's completing the usual work and THEN working well through the extra stuff she/he is giving to him to compliment the subject matter and stretch him a bit.

[Doodle2u]

Hello & welcome by the way

[cornsilk]

Ditto Doodle! Can you go in and speak to her?

[elliepac]

Hello, relative newbie here as well so we can be newbies together . Am a teacher (secondary) and extension activities are usually used to stretch a child when they have worked through a given task well. It 'extends' their learning. Does that make sense? If your DS is being given extension activities that would suggest to me he is doing well with the 'standard' reception work.

[melissa75]

My interpretation of that would be that he is being given a variety of extension activities as he is working at a higher level and can do his reception work without a wide range of difficulty. So he may have been doing beginning of Year One work already as an extension of the foundation stage curriculum. We do this for our pupils who are higher acheivers or on the gifted and talented register, where they will do the work at a higher level, but also have extension work in order to give them more of a challenge.

If you have questions about some of the other things in the report, the best thing to do is go and speak to the teacher who wrote it, as she will be better able to justify and explain her statements.

[4ever21]

wow! thanks a lot everyone, I didn't expect to get so many replies so soon.

I know I'm probably being unreasonable but I really don't like speaking with the teacher except it's very very necessary, I don't think you really ever get the answers you want from the teacher, so I just don't bother. I get most of my answers from mumsnet anyway!

I was never told he was doing any extension activities though, maybe it's no big deal and that's why i wasn't told.

[melissa75]

4ever...you generally would not be told they are doing extension activities, as it is not generally something that is told to parents, unless there is specific reason to do so. If your child was being considered for the gifted and talented register, then they would let you know in what area and why, but extension activities are not generally specific to just one child.
For example, in my class I set the work for the children to do based on their ability, and then if they finish it early on, I will have an extra piece of work for them to do which follows along with the topic they were working on in the lesson and it may be a whole class extension, or it may be specific to a certain group of children who I know may get through their work quicker than others for whatever reason.

Its great that you get most of your answers via mumsnet, but I think it is important to get specific answers from the person you have the question about, in this case, the teacher! She will be able to tell you which specific areas of the curriculum he may have had extension activities in, which will allow you to foster that acheivement in at home activities as well!