School reports results came as a surprise

I agree with this. I’m not a teacher, but was school governor when kids were young.

truth of the matter is that teachers are teaching 25 kids. They don’t have the time for 1-1 attention to every kid all day.

parents have around 1-4 to look after, so their expectations are skewed.

OP- would also say that the teacher has told you how he is doing in his report card- you now know how to target your efforts at home.

It takes time for a teacher to evaluate progress- maybe when you last spoke he was doing fine, but had dipped recently?

the report is not an exam result, it’s a progress report with plenty of pointers for you over the summer.

he is only yr1. Save you stress for exam years

People telling you that WTE "doesn't mean anything" in Year 1 have no idea what they're talking about.

It's not about putting pressure on children or expecting them all to be geniuses. Progress is tracked from Reception for a reason. If a child is not making expected progress in Year 1 then unless they are given the right support the gap between that child and their peers is likely to widen in Year 2 and so on. Learning is like a series of building blocks, the early foundations (particularly in phonics and Maths) need to be there in order for them to be able to build on and develop their understanding.

At my school, a child who was WTE would be receiving support in the form of small intervention groups, pre-teaching, adapted work, fine motor skills intervention if they struggled with handwriting etc. If they were WTE in all areas then the Teacher would also be having conversations with the SEND team to rule out any unmet cognition and learning needs. If there were no learning needs identified then staff would be curious as to why the child was not making progress. For example, is their attendance low? Are they struggling with concentration?
Crucially, their parents would be fully informed of the above and there would be no surprises in their end of year report.

This can sometimes be a sign of neurodivergence, or it’s just that your friend’s child developed later.

Boys, especially, seem to find it harder to sit down and listen. It’s not because they are understimulated geniuses- just that they haven’t developed the executive function to sit in a class environment and do lessons.

its why some countries don’t start kids at school until 7 years old. They learn in different ways when younger.

to be fair to the Yr 1 teacher, it’s possibly the system at fault. Regardless of how bright your kid’s friend is, it’s likely he’d never have thrived in a class environment at that age.

I wouldn't worry too much about this. Talk to his teacher and let her know your concerns. The chances are he is almost expected and the evaluation is taking into account how he performed in end of year tests where perhaps he did not apply himself as much as he could. He has plenty of time to catch up in year 2.

People expect superhuman standards from teachers. Nurture, pastoral, coaching, toileting, manners, giving special attention, personalised plans and that’s before you get into actually educating them.

Just a message of support to all the mumsnet parents that are engaged with their child/ren’s school education and do want to understand the approach of their child’s school.

Communication is key, and if you want added clarity, you should feel able to approach the teacher and work with them to support the school and your own child’s happiness and confidence- and ultimately the best learning experience for them.

The negative comments here show so little imagination and understanding of how a child can be encouraged at home by their parents.
Do they think that parents set up a mini Victorian classroom, and ruin their child’s free time/school holidays by hot housing and long repetitive exercises?

Learning should always be fun as many people have said ‘little and often’ especially when very young.

Loads of online information and guidance is available today - more so than was available 3 decades ago when we were at this stage and W H Smith’s was almost our only resource.
Interwoven with fresh air physical exercise, of their choice and interesting days out it doesn’t need to be an intense chore for anyone or expensive.

In our case it had a very happy outcome - but in any case, if they are engage, happy and confident at school you will have massively boosted their life experience.

But they should be worried if their child is being overlooked by a teacher. The low standards people have come to expect of uk state schools and teachers is downright worrying.

I think the OP is more concerned about the failings of the school and the teacher than her son.

It may be that they base it on tests or something. It isn't great practice but some schools insist on this even if the teacher's judgement is different.

Reading is a weird one. I have a child in my class who did well in his test, reads a lot, but got 0/7 questions correct in his benchmarking assessment recently. I was expecting him to get to free reader and he's still two levels below that! Another two children got to FR but came out 'below' in the assessment. I don't bloody understand it sometimes.

Gifted and talented is also tricky. There's a very disruptive boy in our school whom I suspect is very bright, and who is probably bored. The problem is his test marks are low because he doesn't give a shit. It's all very well saying they're bored, but how are we able to support that if we have no proof they are working at the very top bracket for their age? Being bright is all very well, but if you don't apply yourself and work hard, it's not going to count for much.

Do you mean your child has recall of every times table up to 12 x 12? I can understand a teacher not necessarily knowing a child knows some times tables in Y1 because it is simply not on the curriculum, but if your child is really doing that (end of Y4 expectation, fairly achievable for those who work at it by midway through Y3) they are probably very fluent in other areas of maths too?

Well, I can only go on what I've seen over the past 10 years ish of administering the test myself... That it's a pretty good indicator of general reading skill. Is it spot on for every child? No. Have I seen the odd child pass, who fluked it? Yes. Very occasionally.
But I've never seen a child fail, who I'd been sure would pass.

What's your gut telling you in terms of their ability to learn and retain? If you think it's just an attention span issue then that will hopefully come as their brain develops and you can work on some strategies at home. He's still so young and piling on pressure at this age wouldn't be the best. My DD has timing issues but I'm of the opinion that it's hard to expect a 7 year old to grasp time when they don't really understand time yet, 10 mins seems like an eternity to them at that age and I'd rather slowly develop that slowly overtime with her rather than expect immediate results.

Well, yes and no. Reading isn't just phonics. Parents often tell me that their child reads really well and understands what they have read, but the child has little comprehension due to limited vocabulary or grammatical understanding.

Mirroring school at home is not the ideal. Learning at home should be natural, through daily conversation that develops their understanding of the world, their vocabulary and their interests.

It is really bad practice to only inform parents on an end of year report that their child isn’t age related. You 100% should have been told this prior to now and you need to address this with the school.
However, your child is only year one and you have lots of time to help. Your child has passed their Phonics Screening Check so is age related in Phonics.

Is this the first report you have received in the year?

No, she thought he was doing as expected as the teacher didn't raise any issues at parents evening and now she finds out that he is "behind" in all areas.

Find out how they assess the three levels and which bits he has not achieved. He might have what one calls a spiky profil, so he is ahead in some areas but has gaps that bring his overall score down.

Couldn't agree more and the early start here fits with what my son's teacher said.

I've been a primary school teacher for 17 years, and most of it in KS1 and early years...
When I read through your first few posts, this was what came to mind... A teacher who has had a hard year. Are they young/new to teaching? Assessments and working out where a child "fits" can be hard for someone quite new to the game.
But I can tell you know, if your DS got 36/40 in his phonics screening, the likelihood of him being "working towards" for reading is pretty low. In my experience, the test is a pretty good average for working out where children "fit".

The "greater depth" children get 40/40 without batting an eye. The "better end of average" get 35+ and the "just abouts" get 32-35.
So, unless they bullshitted the test (which, sadly, is possible), your DS sounds like he's doing just fine.

Not always. The school i worked in made an effort but, despite working in education and knowing this, the school one of my chikdren went to did crap difficult to understand reporting that was unclear. The secondary in particular was terrible.

My experience is different. We "home schooled" for years R 1 and 2 which for us meant we let him play and discover whatever. He started school in year 3, his teacher had been teaching year R and 1 for years but wanted a change. He was assessed as fine for maths but waaay behind for reading and writing. During the year he steadily moved tables until he was in the gifted and talented group.

His teacher was lovely and I felt bad when she said she felt her career had been a waste of time as she had worked hard trying to get 4 and 5 year olds to do what they'd master easily at 7 and 8.

I think pushing lots of school and homework on 4 and 5 year olds can be counter productive. Just my experience.

Wouldn’t that information be clearly communicated to the parents though?

Some schools report the expected level aa at the end of the phase they are in. So year 2 for a year 1 chilx. So noone in year one meets the expected level (or a tiny number) do in year 1 as they should be working towards it as they have a whole year left to get there

Obviously not all schools do that, but one i worked in did and one of my children's did .

OP is responding to a previous commenter who asked about resources.

Working towards in year 1 is fine and not unusual. Children develop at different rates and there is plenty of time to catch up. Personally I feel that the expectation of these very young children is too great
Also when was his birthday as that can have an impact too.

Some schools report the expected level as at the end of the phase they are in. So year 2 for a year 1 child So noone in year one meets the expected level (or a tiny number) in year 1 as they should be working towards it as they have a whole year left to get there

Obviously not all schools do that, but one i worked in did and one of my children's did .