Child who hates anything academic

[Whythe]

My DD (5) started Reception in Sept.

She couldn't wait to start school, she loved her previous nurseries, loved learning. Could write her name since the age of 3 and really enjoyed all activities in the class.

Now, the school is a bit different I know. More structure, longer days. But since the end of the first half term she absolutely hates anything school related. Started off reading and enjoyed it. Now she throws all the books around and would not want to read. She has not progressed with reading at all since Nov.

She is saying she doesn't want to go to school as it's too serious. I know she likes a bit of fun, a bit of laugh but I thought she liked learning too and was doing really well. We've stopped reading now and we just read to her at bedtime. I'm not pushing her to do anything she doesn't want to do.

Her behaviour at school very good and she is very quiet.

I'm very surprised at her attitude to school, as we always got very positive reports from her nurseries (she went private and state) and people commenting at how bright she is.

Does this get better? Is there any hope? Could she be masking something?

I think you should not worry and just keep reading with her at home. It sounds as if she’s a bright child, but learning isn’t always constant improvement. She could be: bored as she can already read and write, not enjoying the more formal approach at school etc. I’d have a chat to school as well and see if they have any flexibility with the approach or suggestions of how you can help your daughter find the fun again.

She could also be very tired. Both mine - y5 and y7 - still v affected by this.

I find it helps to do things (reading,spelling, homework) in the morning. I never used to have TV in mornings but effectively bribe DS that he can watch TV when he's "totally ready" for school: dressed, breakfast, teeth, reading or spelling. Doesn't always usually work for us, but does in spates.

We had a nanny for a few months once, when DD was six. She did reading between supper and pudding (laughably usually a yogurt or chopped fruit, maybe a biscuit!)

In my experience of my own children the ones that hated school at reception level had SEN. All 3 that hated school in the first instance (despite liking nursery) have autism and 2 of those have dyslexia - one very severely.

I suspect dyslexia, but she's probably too young to diagnose

Yes, I've tried mornings and she does seem more willing to read, so I should probably be doing that regularly.

Isn't Reception generally play based learning? The actual sitting at a table doing sustained periods of written work doesn't really kick in until Year 1. (I'm not saying they don't do any, they obviously do but not to the same extent.)

If she's hating the work aspect already and you have reason to suspect dyslexia, you're best off having a meeting with staff to start getting support in place as soon as possible. All that is required for support to be considered is a demonstrated need, not a diagnosis, so don't wait. The earlier the intervention and support, the better!

My dd is now 10 and still hates school, but she knows it’s non-negotiable, so grumbles but gets on. As soon as she started school she refused to do anything bearing any resemblance to “learning” at home. We persisted with reading, always in the morning for a couple of years as she was less tired and more willing, and she now reads for pleasure at home (although, only non-fiction, comics etc - reads chapter books at school and is advanced). In my experience you need to empathise with how she’s feeling while staying consistent in encouraging her to do the reading, spellings etc.

What’s the school ethos?

if it’s formal sitting down learning that could be what she hates? Reception should be play based learning but there are some schools that employ stricter methods- including one I know that had an hour of homework every night from day 1. My friend took her child out as like yours she went from being a keen learner to hating the forced learning.

my brother has never read a novel or for pleasure as he was sat every night at the kitchen table and forced to read.

are there any other schools you could visit?

@Cileymyrus It's a combination of sitting down on the carpet, for instance when they do phonics, and play based learning.

I think she is fine sitting down, she seems to be learning her phonics, but reading a book is an absolute struggle. I do wonder if she's got issues with her eyes.

They have no homework except for a book once a week. I think she is more willing to do stuff with her teachers, but unfortunately they don't do much reading at school from what I hear (they are constantly undersraffed which is a concern). So it's the parents that need to do a lot of work at home.

I meant understaffed...😀

Sounds similar to my DD. As soon as books had words in them she started throwing them around and getting very upset, it was completely out of character for her. My DD is dyslexic.

@TwoPointFourCatsAndDogs How old is your DD now and how is she doing? Did she ever get phonics?

Also DD likes writing...she has a good go at writing little sentences, again when she is the mood. I couldn't possibly make her write anything she doesn't want to.

Would a child with dyslexia be able to write well at this age?

Try the five minute mum book for early school years, lots of games to help with basics.

Can you read what she has written? Both my DC are Dyslexic, in Grammar school and doing really well.

Dyslexia isn’t just whether or not a child can read or spell. My DS won a Spelling Bee in Yr7 but he cannot comprehend, DS comprehends really well but cannot spell, neither read for pleasure. DD has awful short term memory and DS’s is phenomenal, DS has great mental maths and DS is appalling. It’s a ND condition, one part of the brain works at 95% and another part at 105%.

Phonics becomes complicated when it moves away from vcv (vowel consonant vowel) like cat, dog and into blended sounds (ng, st, igh) like night. Phonics are taught in an order for a reason, keep going over them again and again and don’t be tempted to move on too quickly.

Sorry cvc - I typed it the wrong way round.

First of all, don't panic.

Second, rule out all the possibles e.g. eyesight, hearing. These can affect classroom learning.

It is my opinion that the first few years of school are pretty pressured and can be counter productive in the English system.

Have you any scope for an alternative - Montessori or home ed for the first bit?

Thank you for your advice. We are considering going private. Smaller classes, more gentle approach, less behavioural issues. But not sure she's going to get a place there (there is a particular one we have our eyes on).

Home Ed would not work for us. To be fair to her, she is willing to go to school most mornings, there are no tantrums as such (apart from the odd one), she is enjoying some elements of it, I guess the social aspect as she likes being surrounded by people. She just says she doesn't like it and doesn't want to do at home anything school related🙄

@TwoPointFourCatsAndDogs so glad to hear they are doing so well.

Thank you for your advice. DD's dad is dyslexic so I'm always keeping an eye on the signs. We had no worries about it until she started school.

Yesterday she wrote a sentence: Mimi the cat 'lighx' fish. So if the words are known to her she'll write really well. She doesn't know 'likes' yet so she worked it out as lightx as she knows the trigraph igh. I just praised her.

Funny enough this morning she was willing to read so she read 2 little books, one about a cat. She is obsessed with cats and she's got one too. So perhaps we can try to get books that have cats in them or things that she really enjoys..or are funny 😁

rule out all the possibles e.g. eyesight, hearing. These can affect classroom learning.

This is good advice - and also she might just be very tried - my older two were exhausted till about spring term.

However DS struggled in reception - (DD1 to a lesser extend she hid it better till late years) - he started out reading and writing little bit from nursery very advanced despite being one of the younger one - by Easter reception he was massively behind and very unenthusiastic about school and starting to be teased by his best "friend" about it which started some social issues for him.

He had some glue ear issues and short term memory issues - and the carpet time and free play learning didn't seem to go well for him and more formal the environment as the years progressed the better it seemed to suit him. He also started struggling with blending easily more complex words/sounds.

We ended upstart 10 minutes a day the most basic dancing bears book www.soundfoundations.co.uk/ and later did their spelling program.

Later we found teach your monster how to read which went down well and www.readingchest.co.uk/about-us might be worth a look.

Also how is she with maths - because DS also struggled there - a lot was group fun based activities and he seemed to forget what the activity was about before starting. We used www.themathsfactor.com/ after his teacher told us he didn't have a maths brain and would probably always struggle - we thought that oddly dismissive about a very young child and odd as DH was exceptional at maths and I'm well above average. As it happened he just sat his maths GSE early at got an A* ( we're in wales) and is looking at maths heavy A-levels.

I wouldn't panic - but I will say I wish we'd step in earlier with DD1 with some home support as we did with DS - as there was less of a gap to make up and less resistance to additional help built up.

We are considering going private. Smaller classes, more gentle approach, less behavioural issues.

We moved areas when our kids were still in primary to a school to another state school with much smaller class sizes - I was very surprised at how positive this was for our children.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience @GloomyDarkness. I'll look into the programmes you mentioned.

Her maths is not bad so far, she actually prefers it to reading. But the maths they do at school is very ad-hoc so far and I'm not sure how much she gets involved. Well done to your DS for doing so well and good luck with the A levels!

I do agree that probably most kids would do better in a smaller class. It's just so much disruption and noise and I personally find it overwhelming (I help at the school a lot) and I think DD, even though she'd cope with it, I can't see her thrive there.