Report questions & end of year 2 expectations ?

[houseHuntinginmanchester]

Dd finished year 1 this year. She was on target for all levels in all subjects except 'multiplication & division' and 'spoken language'. Her English teacher has explained that the latter is due to shyness and lack of voluntary participation in group discussions. I asked her what we could do in the summer to help and she said lots and lots of reading. Dd does this anyway; we have a house full of books, story time every day, member of the library etc. In this instance I don't think the teachers suggestion was particularly helpful.

I would hugely appreciate any suggestions, ideas or recommendations of resources/websites we could use to help both areas that dd's report highlighted.

Also would appreciate if anyone could point me in the direction of end of year 2 expectations so we know what to work towards, as this years expected levels came as a bit of a surprise. Also I think dd's school is a lot more academic than I thought.

[taxi4ballet]

Will she have a different English teacher next year? If she has, you might find that she might be less self-conscious with another teacher. My dd was like that with reading in Reception - I think she was slightly intimidated by the teacher, and a bit scared of getting things wrong and being told off, so she clammed up. It took her next teacher about 6 months to get her confidence back.

Maths - maybe just concentrate on factors over the hols, and some simple doubles, halves, quarters, x10 etc, and telling the time, that should be enough to be going on with. (try Googling year 2 maths expectations). Hope this helps.

[houseHuntinginmanchester]

Thank you taxi - I suspect that her previous English teacher was a bit 'strict' (in dd's words), and once she told me she cried in class because she got something wrong and the teacher asked her to do it again. However for year although she will have a different English teacher, her old English teacher will be her class teacher. So I'm also worrying a little about the effect she is going to have on dd's confidence overall. Dd does say that she likes her though, and said teacher is head of literacy and seems very good, so I don't know yet what to think or feel.
Thank you for the Maths suggestions. I've tried googling end of year 2 expectations but it comes up a mixed bag of results mainly from various school websites. I'm not sure whether to go with these as I am under the impression that most schools were still implementing the old curriculum from last September for year 2, for Sats purposes.

[georgebear103]

If you Google 'national curriculum 2014' you can download the document and for each subject it lists expectations for each year group.

[houseHuntinginmanchester]

I'll try that, thanks george.

[Feenie]

All.schools were legally obliged to follow the old curriculum in Year two last year. All schools will have to teach the new curriculum 2014 in all years from September 2015, and all schools will have to put it on their websites, too.

[houseHuntinginmanchester]

Hi feenie, yes I just read that online while googling the new national curriculum - thanks.

Any suggestions for supporting group discussions/building confidence at home? How can I draw dd out a little. The new curriculum seems very hot on active participation in groups.

[Hopeful83]

Get her involved in as many extra curricular activities as possible, depending on her interests. Brownies, rainbows, gymnastics, dance, martial arts, swimming, drama etc. Anything to build her confidence

[houseHuntinginmanchester]

Thanks hopeful - she does rainbows and swimming every week and has been all of year 1, she's also done drama club and science club at school and a couple of terms of multi sports. We have her friends over as well for tea and dd gets invited over to various friends often. She gets birthday invitations from all her friends.

I put all these things in place for her pretty much by the end of nursery year as her (wonderful) class teacher said dd hadn't found her one friend yet and that she was very shy. This has seemed to help tremendously with the social side of things for dd and she's formed some very good friendships as many of her friends also share the outside of school activities.

It's just not helped to build confidence within a whole class discussion though. Even though she is regularly in big groups after school etc, and she enjoys all her clubs.

[Ferguson]

I was a primary TA for over twenty years, and continued voluntary support with younger classes when I retired.

Many children can be very shy, and a teacher's insistence that they contribute in groups, or 'perform' in drama can put a distressing strain on them. For this reason, when dealing with such children I always took care to put as little pressure as possible on them.

One can only try and boost their confidence, by presenting tasks that are achievable, and giving copious praise and encouragement. 'Pushing' too hard will do more harm than good.

Regarding the Numeracy shortfall, I will give you my standard maths advice:

Practical things are best for grasping number concepts - bricks, Lego, beads, counters, money, shapes, weights, measuring, cooking.

Do adding, taking away, multiplication (repeated addition), division (sharing), using REAL OBJECTS as just 'numbers' can be too abstract for some children.

Number Bonds of Ten forms the basis of much maths, so try to learn them. Using Lego or something similar, use a LOT of bricks (of just TWO colours, if you have enough) lay them out so the pattern can be seen of one colour INCREASING while the other colour DECREASES. Lay them down, or build up like steps.

So:

ten of one colour none of other
nine of one colour one of other
eight of one colour two of other
seven of one colour three of other
etc,
then of course, the sides are equal at 5 and 5; after which the colours 'swap over' as to increasing/decreasing.

To learn TABLES, do them in groups that have a relationship, thus:

x2, x4, x8

x3, x6, x12

5 and 10 are easy

7 and 9 are rather harder.

Starting with TWO times TABLE, I always say: "Imagine the class is lining up in pairs; each child will have a partner, if there is an EVEN number in the class. If one child is left without a partner, then the number is ODD, because an odd one is left out."

Use Lego bricks again, lay them out in a column of 2 wide to learn 2x table. Go half way down the column, and move half the bricks up, so that now the column is 4 bricks wide. That gives the start of 4x table.

Then do similar things with 3x and 6x.

With 5x, try and count in 'fives', and notice the relationship with 'ten' - they will alternate, ending in 5 then 10.

It is important to try and UNDERSTAND the relationships between numbers, and not just learn them 'by rote'.

An inexpensive solar powered calculator (no battery to run out!) can help learn tables by 'repeated addition'. So: enter 2+2 and press = to give 4. KEEP PRESSING = and it should add on 2 each time, giving 2 times table.

There are good web sites, which can be fun to use :

//www.ictgames.com/

www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/page/default.asp?title=Woodlands%20Junior%20School&pid=1

[houseHuntinginmanchester]

Wow, thank you very much for that Ferguson

I'm going to need to re-read that several times to grasp it all as I'm in bed with flu at the moment, but the Lego example sounds amazing. I am going to try it. As for the confidence thing, it's so difficult to know even as a parent when to push your child and when to hold back. Dds literacy teacher was explaining how the new curriculum places a lot of emphasis on using different register of voice and group discussions. Quite worrying for the parent of a very shy (but otherwise articulate) little girl. I just feel like her other skills may be overlooked because of her shyness.

There was a book that was based on similar maths principles to what you refer to, Ferguson. It was reccomended to me on here a short while ago, it wasn't part of the British way of teaching maths (foreign) but came highly recommended. Would you or anyone know what I'm talking about? I want to buy it for dd. Possibly korean?

[mrz]

Remember the new curriculum has different expectations and some if those suggestions would be more suited to Y1 (R) than Y2

[mrz]

www.risingstars-uk.com/system/files/free-stuff/Parents_Guide_Year_2.pdf

[houseHuntinginmanchester]

That document (and site) were exactly the kind of thing I was looking for mrz. Thank you so much

I've registered, and am printing stuff off as I type!

[mrz]

I sent copies home with all my class at the end of the year