DS has just started a new prep schol, having moved from a good local state school. He is now in Y3.
He has only been there a jus over a week so i am proably worrying over nothing, but I am suprised at the level of work that he is doing. It is much lower than he is capable of. The reason we moved him from his old school is because he is a lazy so and so (!) but very bright, and he was not self motivated enough to do his best in his previous school. (It was a very full busy class, and he had worked out that if he kept his head down the teacher was too busy to chivy him, so he could get away with chatting to friends, gazing out of the window etc).
For example, he was on free reading at his old school. He LOVES reading- it is something he enjoys doing and has always tried hard at. He wants to do it, unlike written work. His favourite books are BeastQuest (altho i think he has outgrown them in some ways he still loves the stories but reads them within an hour), The chronicals of avantia, The Roman Mystery series etc. When he was assessed for entrance by the school last year, they told us his reading was "exceptional" (i was over the moon!)with a reading age of 9yrs and 5 months. He was 7.5 at the time. However, since starting last week he has come home with Oxford reading tree books, stage 12 for two days and then moved onto stage 13. These books seem much easier than his choice of reading at home, although I will readily admit that he enjoys them. He currently reads a whole book per night. They are supposed to read for ten min every night, but he wants to finish the books. It takes him about 15 min. Should i be worried that they seem to have put him down some levels?
Also, his handwriting- which was never neat, has really slipped. They are supposed to pracice handwriting every morning but he doesn't get much of a chance as he is always changing his reading book!
Reading it back, I am sure I don't really need to say anything now and will just leave it for a few weeks for the teachers to suss him out and vice versa. Written down i am making a mountin out of a molehill. I suppose i am just panicked that he will revert to his usual- and do the least he can get away with- eg the messy writing. I suppose there is extra panic thinking that this is costing a fortune so i really don't want the same problem as at his previous school, I really want him to be encouraged, pushed if needed, to try his best.
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I don't want to be that annoying parent but....
Bananamash · 14/09/2011 21:42
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Message withdrawn at poster's request.
Depends what the school policy is, our prep school has 4 extra levels in reading to our state school. It means that when they first arrive they get progressively harder books until they work out what level they should be on. Your DS sounds exactly like mine (actually made me think I had been on the 
earlier and posted under another name) 
mad into beast quest, lazy and intelligent when he can be bothered, think it must be a Yr 3 boy thing. It may be that as he settles and gets more confident in his surroundings he will settle down to work as well, if he is being lazy then they will soon pick up on this that is the main advantage of the smaller class sizes. They will also be unsure of his level of work as he is new, our school doesn't even ask for transcripts from old schools as they say it is better to work out where a child is themselves as every school has a different perspective on what is good or excellent.
I would give it a few weeks to settle, at the start of a new year they are reassessing where a child is and what level of work they need. The handwriting may be just a case of getting used to routine, ours get their handwriting as prep every day, however, prep doesn't start in earnest until the third week of term for the Yr 3s.
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