Primary teachers! how do I talk to school over 'overworking' of 6yr olds

[waterrat]

I know teachers work incredibly hard and I know that the year 2 sats are a pressure on them and the school.

But my heart is breaking for my boy coming out of school more than once this week and sobbing . He told me 'mummy I'm not allowed to daydream I hate school I have to just learn all day'. He kept saying - no daydreaming allowed. He says its boring, maths is boring its too hard his hand hurts from writing.

I am aware that kids moan - but he is six yeaars old and usually a very enthusiastic child. He is not averse to a bit of effort either - I HATE this system - I wish he was given the chance for free play/ learning through play at least some down time in class with lego or craft etc - why is play removed so early?

I am going to speak to his teacher - but what can I ask? I would feel like a bad parent and irresponsible person if I just bumbled along ignoring his unhappiness but it feels futile even complaining about it.

There are schools that do things differently, I'm not sure I'd want my kids doing free play all the time in yr2, but they should certainly still have lots of variety and joy be sat at their desks or on the carpet all the time at 6.

When we looked at moving schools we visited one that is very highly rated (as in high in the league tables) and it was, absolutely a sausage factory that gets extremely good results. Some kids would enjoy it I'm sure.

But we were looking for a more balanced approach and chose somewhere completely different!

I’ve never heard of children that age doing play based learning as a part of the curriculum to be very honest

I’m in Scotland too and both mine (ages 5 and 7) have play based learning on a daily basis. To be honest I don’t care at this age whether they are achieving outstanding academic results - there is time for them to focus on test results when they are older and they’ll learn more easily when the teaching style reflects their developmental stage.

I’d absolutely hate my child to be preparing for national tests at 6 years old. My DCs school has a focus on nurture and engagement - my D.C. are learning, but in a way and at a pace consistent with their cognitive, emotional and psychological development. I’d remove them from any school that didn’t facilitate that process.

Just look at mumsnet. Endless threads about ‘how do I get into an outstanding school?’ Or ‘my child is just not challenged enough’ or ‘why can’t my nursery child do Year 5 maths it’s so unfair on him’ etc etc ... education has been commodified. Don’t blame the teachers for a system that you have helped to create. Schools have to be totally focused on progress now. Six weekly progress meetings, assessments, data data data. Teachers are micromanaged and held accountable. We’d love to let the kids play more but it’s just not an option. Not if you want to remain in a job. Sorry. It’s not what I signed up for either.

It's a shame isn't it. At my infant school in the 70s we played every afternoon until the end of KS1 and had 3 breaks a day on the playground (including lunch break) until end of KS2. 3 from my year 6 class ended up going to Oxford, so it didn't do us any harm.

@BumsexAtTheBingo

Your comment, just fucking wow. How dare a SIX year old daydream, keep that for the weekends and after school.

I'm now out of the English school system thankfully as I thought it was disgusting. The pressure on kids is ridiculous. Dd1 had 7 teachers in year 1, they wouldn't stay, but our dc don't get that option do they.

So the teacher is supposed to smile sweetly and let him daydream?

Kids obviously zone out and lose focus sometimes as do adults, but it can’t really be a part of the school curriculum!

There's a time and a place for daydreaming.
If they are being spoken to that often about it then the likelihood is instead of 'teacher hates daydreaming and wishes to ruin childhood' it's probably more like 'same child rarely listens to instructions, then child can't attempt the work because they weren't listening and then child gets frustrated theu can't do the work'. Consequently the teacher has to spend time explaining again to the child, not because of lack of understanding, but because the child wasn't listening the first time.

The curriculum is what it is. It's worth talking to the teacher about DC being unhappy but it's also worth telling DC he has to listen to the teacher otherwise it's hardly surprising he finds the work tough

I don’t think daydreaming has ever been allowed at school really!

If you want to change school policy on a large scale-go to the head, or your MP.

Send him to a Steiner School. He'll be drawing rainbows all day long.

Well actually I said he can daydream weekends, before and after school, 2 break times, lunch time and possibly sometimes when work is done! So not being able to daydream isn’t really accurate. ‘Sometimes we have to listen’ is more like it which is not an unreasonable expectation in a school imo.
Surely it’s common sense that you don’t sit daydreaming when you’re being given an instruction or you’re meant to be doing your work? It’s part of good manners aside from everything else. Would the op be a big fan of her child daydreaming instead of washing themselves in the bath or getting dressed and her having to ask her child to do these things several times every time?
As a pp said there’s a time and a place for daydreaming. There’s no way he’s being told off for daydreaming in the playground but if he’s asked questions in class and it transpires he can’t recall the instructions the teacher has just given of course she’s going to tell him not to be daydreaming!
If you aren’t going to encourage your child to listen to their teacher what’s the point in even sending them to school?
Whether ks1 should be more play based is debateable but even in primaries that err towards being more play focussed at that age there are still times when children need to listen to their teacher. No primary school allows children to just zone out as and when they please and I can’t see why it’s a habit anyone would want to encourage.
But instead of asking the child not to daydream obviously the teacher needs speaking to for not managing to teach each child separately when each one of them is prepared to listen

I’m all for a spot of daydreaming. But you have to learn when’s good and when isn’t at some stage, unfortunately.

I agree with Bumsex (that sounds a strange thing to announce ) The teacher wouldn’t ever be able to get anyone to learn and progress at all if they encouraged students to mentally disengage on an ad hoc basis. There simply isn’t the time to reteach everyone individually. And as the pace picks up at school over the coming years, concentrating is an important thing to master.

I’m not a fan of Sats at all btw, but surely this applies anyway regardless of Sats.

Not all schools place so much pressure on the kids for SATs but parents want successfully performing schools for their children and judge the school by its results...
My DCs primary really got the balance right. The children were adequately prepared but never 'flogged'. Their results were slightly above national average. Perhaps my DC (103/105/107 Yr6) / the school overall could have done better if they had done like other schools and done endless SATs prep? Who knows? Some parents accuse the school of being unambitious but I think they've got it right.
Perhaps you could investigate a new school for KS2? And consider that schools who haven't got brilliant results MIGHT be those that do not place such pressure on their children.

Unfortunately children do need to learn to listen in class and not day dream otherwise they won't know what is going on.

To the OP I'd talk to the teacher about the fact that he is finding the work hard and is getting upset and see what her thoughts are. Is this definitely because of the Y2 SATs or have you made that assumption? When my DD did them they were kept really low key and no-one was talking about them in the autumn term. If your son's school is placing a great emphasis on them already you may want to consider other options. Or is it just that your son is having trouble adjusting to the change in teaching style?

In DD's school that change happened more in Year 1 so that by Year 2 there wasn't really any free play time during the day in the class room.

Thanks guys. I chatted to the teacher and yes I realise there isn't any free play in year 2. Essentially my issue with it is with the wider system and it's not something one teacher is going to change.

🤦‍♀️

Glad you spoke to the teacher OP.
You'll probably not be alone in your feelings about the ks1 curriculum.
The idea of being told not to daydream being a problem is probs my more of a niche view. That isn't an issue with SATs or curriculum and everything to do with whether you believe it's polite and appropriate to listen to the teacher when they are teaching.

Surely it’s common sense that you don’t sit daydreaming when you’re being given an instruction or you’re meant to be doing your work? It’s part of good manners aside from everything else.
You'd think.
But there's some who will cute-i-fy poor behaviour, no responsibility and now showing manners and whilst it can be spun as adorable sweet at 6/7/8 (daydreaming... little rascal... little tyke), it's considerably less so at 12/13/14.

Im not sure how long a just 6yo attention span should be but i expect it is shorter than the length they are teaching for.
I think small groups / 1-2-1 you often get better attention. I think it's interesting too that through school from nursery they focus is on sitting. But they cant make them listen and i think a lot glaze over. So dd over years now has gradually stopped jumping up and running around when she should be listening but im not sure they acyually have her attention.

I guess a lot of daydreaming could be inattentive add.

I am surprised people who are saying it impolite to daydream cannot see the relationship between lack of time to play and the ability to concentrate when the teacher is teaching formally. I think kids of primary age need a break from formal learning during the day (not just lunch and playtime). Otherwise, some of them will glaze over, just like adults would if they were being taught completely new subjects the whole day or sat in meetings the whole day.

Wineinbathtub
Everyone daydreams sometimes. For someone tl be picked up on it regularly means they are routinely not listening to the teacher. And from the OP's perspective that seems to be some sort of teacher issue and rather than telling their child that they will find subjects hard and lessons boring if they don't pay attention.

I'm sure my GCSE lessons are difficult and boring if you've not bothered to listen to new pieces of learning, didn't pay attention to my instructions, were gazing out the window during the video clips, counting flies instead of looking at texts in group work.

Comparing a primary classroom to an adult being in work meetings all day is ridiculously insulting to primary staff. It's nothing like that.

It is hard especially for the summer borns who’ve only just turned 6 when they start year 2. My daughter used to come home from school crying and saying school was hard and she hated her life and there was no play anymore. It’s heartbreaking and it takes the love of learning away from them.

I'm confused by people saying 'teachers can't change it'. We are all responsible for speaking up when things don't work - parents/ teachers/ heads etc so I hope we can all work constructively together if a system is broken.

Yes, it's a cop out.

There are good schools out there, but as a PP says (essentially), they're not the ones being rated Outstanding. They're happily bumbling along on Good, and keeping a little joy in the curriculum. That's down to inspirational heads and class teachers taking Ofsted with a pinch of salt.

I’ve never heard of children that age doing play based learning as a part of the curriculum to be very honest.

One of mine is in year 2 and I've had some very open and honest conversations with the class teacher about how ridiculous the curriculum demands have become these days - there's content my daughter's come home with that I remember bloody teaching to year 4 in my pre-kids teacher days! However they still manage to inject a hell of a lot of fun into it all as much as they can do - there's been quite a lot of mathematical modelling done via the medium of Smarties recently (it's amazing how mathematical skill levels increase when calculation if you're getting diddled out of available sweets comes into the equation)!

DD1 is a very able child, working at greater depth across the board, and their school is very child-oriented and not a high pressure school (yet still really solid in terms of results/Ofsted) but she's found the adjustment into year 2 quite hard going for a lot of this term - thrived on the increase in responsibility and being allowed to be the big kids and do all the helper jobs as their school's an infants so they're now the very big fish and love any chance to wander around being all officious-like - but we've had a few wobbles while she's adjusted.

I hate that the system has come to this - picked the most child friendly implementation of a totally fucked up system that we had available locally.

It's very hard to say "take ofsted with a pinch of salt" though. Schools are partially judged on the data, and if children are not making expected progress or achieving, the school will get a lower ofsted grade. This can lead to the school entering a downward spiral with a falling roll and less money, and even worse outcomes. At some point, the school may be graded inadequate and then be taken over by a MAT or given a new head and things will change anyway.

There are schools, maybe very rural ones, for example, where parents can't realistically chose to send their children elsewhere, that will suffer less from this. There are also schools where all the children come from the sort of home/background that means they will be supported and so most will achieve anyway, regardless of what the school does. Most schools do not fall into this category, and so have to care about ofsted/results.

It can be very hard for individual teachers to speak up, and they cannot change the system. Ultimately, it is their job, and they have to balance keeping their income with how much they are willing to speak out/go off piste.

I agree that a lot is asked of children in Year 2- probably far too much. Some schools are better than others at managing this.

However, I would speak to the teacher re: daydreaming etc- ultimately, she cannot just let him opt out of participating in whatever the class are doing. I agree that it would be good to find strategies to help him- but those can't be "only let him do things he finds interesting" or "let him ignore instructions". The second can be a safety risk too.

It may be worth looking at other schools too, to see if you like any of them better. I do agree most English schools don't do play based learning in Year 2, but some may offer more music/PE/drama/art etc which may suit him better, or may generally feel less "hot house".

@MaisyPops

I take your point if you are saying the teachers use all sorts of methods to match what they are teaching to their pupils and make the material interesting and fun. I was trying to say that learning completely new subjects all day is draining for anyone. I have taught 16-18 year olds and sometimes by the end of the day they were just too tired no matter what I did to make the material more digestible. However, I may have wandered from the original question and out of my own experience. In any case, I wish you luck OP.

It can be very hard for individual teachers to speak up, and they cannot change the system. Ultimately, it is their job, and they have to balance keeping their income with how much they are willing to speak out/go off piste.

That's the same for everyone though, isn't it? Whether you're a fire officer asking difficult questions or a nurse or a site manager or a signals operator or a junior minister. It does require courage to speak up, yes. And yes, you can change the system. Systems can be changed.

I know a few schools who don't slavishly follow Ofsted (one is a rural school but has won lots of awards and isn't really dependent on a captive catchment). Again, it does require courage but it is possible, and that's the point I'm making here - that telling people "Oh it's impossible to change" is a cop out.