"Bright children get bored in Reception"

[EvilTwins]

I have two daughters in Yr R. They are bright, inquisitive and imaginative children, and they absolutely love school. It's something different every day, and their teacher is absolutely fantastic. I sometimes wish I could be in their class, they do that many exciting things...

We spent some time recently with a friend whose daughter is in the same year - we've known each other since the girls were born - but no longer live near each other. My friend insists that her DD is "bored" at school, and that it's because she's bright, and that Reception year is boring for bright children.

AIBU to think that a) this is simply not true, and b) to resent my friend's implication, therefore, that since my children do enjoy being in Reception, they're obviously not bright?

My mum had to speak to my Reception class teacher as the reading books she was giving me were too simple for me and I complained they were too boring (I actually remember the conversation I had with mum). Mum took samples of books I read at home and the teacher acted on it and I was happy again.

However, I never found it boring in general, just the books. Similarly, my brother loved reception. He's now 30 but at school he was extremely bright (ended up with a masters from Cambridge in law and economics). I would be surprised if your friend's child was bored by all the subjects she's learning - maybe not fitting in as well as your dd.

My mum was/is utterly obsessed with me being bright. And was always telling people that I was bored, not being pushed hard enough blah blah.

I am reasonably intelligent, but the me being bright thing had not one single thing to do with me and everything to do with her.

I found it very difficult, even when I was tiny, and sometimes I would tell her I was bored because I couldn't explain how I actually felt. (Which was mostly confused, fed up and frustrated, since my dx of dyslexia was kept from me - for my own good, apparently )

I think your friend is just sadly in super-competitive mummy mode. She's also talking shite.

YANBU, btw - not all bright kids will be bored in reception, most probably aren't.

I'd be prepared to bet that your friend's child has never told her mum she is bored. She is probably having a whale of a time in school, doing her own thing. However, lots of children are a bit clam-like when it comes to telling parents what they've done in school, which your friend may be taking very literally e.g.

Mum: Prunella, what did you do in school today?
Prunella: Can't remember/nothing/played.
Mum:

I think that someone on the gifted and talented board said that truely gifted children are not bored because their minds are occupied with other things.

My daughter is not bored in reception.

dd is brightish but isn't bored, she is young socially though.

Your friend is being unreasonable.

Reception year is mainly about play. Bright and imaginative children will usually manage to amuse themselves.

You can't amuse yourself if people are telling you what to do the whole time and you are not allowed to follow your instincts.

MillyR, my mum was more likely to say to me something like, "here stir this gravy", or "off you go, here's a dressing up box, get on with it". We didn't do play really. I didn't mind at all. Dad was more into flinging us around and being a monster and stuff and that was good too, very complementary. School did not let me handle hot things or spend ages fiddling with fabrics or make loud noises so in short was a pale imitation of real life.

I think these days, in general, they do the messier, more dangerous things at school with paint, glue, scissors , cooking etc BoffinMum. Reading MN I doubt whether many mums would give their 4 yr old the gravy to stir!(they would have to be at least 12)

Well, both of mine have had difficulties adjusting to life in reception, and both described it as 'boring' at one time or another. I think they were used to the more free play of pre-school in which it was very much pupil-led, and the sitting on the carpet/rules/trying to stop children hurting each other/focus on letters/number work at desks has been rather boring for them. They don't actually do that much creative stuff in Reception in either of the schools they have attended, it's all counting dinosaurs (fun the first time, deadly boring the second) and a lot of the work is not differentiated, so those who already know their numbers or letters (not necessarily super-bright, just having covered them already in pre-school) are repeating a lot of stuff.

Plus, I agree with my dd2, sitting on the carpet with crossed legs a lot is quite boring.

But, unlike your friend OP, I don't consider things being a bit 'boring' to be a bad thing. I've told them that reception is different than preschool, and that you do have to get used to the rules and regulations and harder academic work of school, and whilst it's nice if it's all 'fun', it isn't going to be 'fun' all the time.

I do get frustrated at my dd2's school that they can't seem to get that children develop at different levels, my solution is not to complain to the school, but to buy my own reading books and do extra stuff at home. But this is not an option for everyone.

Boffinmum, I agree with you. An awful lot of the day is spent on taking the register, doing whole class letter teaching/phonics, sitting for circle time, sitting at desks doing paper-based activities, sitting, sitting, sitting (and not figeting). It's not all creative free play in Reception as far as I can see. The only exception I know to this is a school which keeps its preschoolers and Reception children in together and has a noticeable commitment to free play. Free play isn't cutting and sticking stuff the teacher prepared earlier, of which there is an awful lot in the Reception classes I've seen. They might have water in the summer, but it's hardly a daily activity for mine, and painting is a controlled activity too.

There is some of that stuff, but the idea that Reception is one long free play paradise for children is just wrong, nor should it be. With thirty in a small classroom, lots of time is spent on behaviour management and socialising children to sit nicely, and that is boring for the others.

Mine was bored at lessons but enjoyed the social side.
Could read, spell do basic maths.
I hadn't spent hours teaching her she just absorbed it.
She got colouring in to do at school.
We just did our own alternative homework.

LaWeasel, I could have written your post but it was my dad who needed me to be super-intelligent.

Like you, I'm reasonably bright.. and I did very well academically (two first class honours degrees, distinction in post-grad) but I feel that rather than it reflecting intelligence per se, it reflects the pressure I was under to live up to being "the brightest" etc. It has made not one whit of difference to my salary or lifestyle, either, in case anyone wonders if it's such a bad thing to be pressured if you end up achieving well.

I was absolutely pigeonholed at home as the "bright, introverted one" because I showed some sort of interest in books when they were pushed on me. My sister who came along years later when my parent's pfbishness had worn off, was pigeonholed as "a bit thick but very friendly". In reality, we are both quite extroverted and reasonably intelligent yet she feels that she is stupid and I feel that I am socially sub-par.

I can't stand hearing people talk about how clever their kids are. It's a load of bollocks, all of it. I've got the credentials to prove I am "bright" but, honestly, I wish I'd spend more time actually enjoying life at university rather than trying to live up to my parent's expectations. The best thing I ever did was to walk away from academia and pursue a public sector job where it makes sod all difference that I graduated first in my class while my colleagues got 2:2's. Competitiveness on the basis of "intelligence" is dull and vile.

You see, children like me could already sit nicely and got absolutely baffled as to why the other children couldn't or wouldn't. We probably represented half the class. School for us represented hours and hours and hours of sitting with your legs crossed or standing in a line waiting for other kids to grow up, if you were born like this. Why should such children be forced to endure such tedium, when the favour is never reciprocated with their needs being met from time to time? (In some schools they are but there is still too much lick and stick out there).

I know I'm banging on about it a bit, the other issue we have in Reception is that some of the other children are quite aggressive, there's been a fair bit of biting/hitting/karate kicks and even chairs thrown by out of control little boys (they are all boys in this instance, I am not suggesting only boys do this). The reception teacher is new, and I think a bit non-plussed that some of the children aren't sitting nicely on the carpet with their arms folded and legs crossed (wish i could still do that without toppling over). So, BoffinMum, your point is a good one, for some children, Reception is an opportunity to mature, for others, sitting nicely and wondering why school is a bit boring, it's not so great, there's lots of rules and lots of waiting for little Jim to sit nicely before they can get on with what they are supposed to be doing (cue several more minutes).

Mine are pinging off the walls by the time they get out, their after-school club is brilliant as they do lots of outdoor play (even in winter), games, team stuff, groups and generally get to let off steam from having had to sit on that nylon carpet for extended periods.

My main memory of the whole of infant school was fear at being in an institutional environment. I would rather have been at home.

I still find it sad that so many people on here believe there is any such thing as a bright child. My kids are doing well at school, and do not tell them they are bright or believe it to be true. I tell them that anybody who is any good at anything has worked really, really hard to be that good, and you only get out of life what you put in.

Boffinmum, I agree about children not being allowed to follow their instincts in reception. It isn't really play; it is the illusion of play.

Working9while5, I don't think you have the credentials to show you are bright; I think you have the credentials to show that you have worked hard, during both your student years and your childhood. Education is a huge privilege that few people get at postgraduate level.

I got bored at first in Reception because I was the only one who could read fluently. They soon realised this and gave me harder work to do and more challenging books to read.

I do think it is misleading - although obviously very interesting - to compare our own experiences of reception to that of our children. Schools now are very different places.

Actually, in my case very different indeed. I understand they no longer use horn books, slates or the tawse.

They have cut down sitting on the carpet in reception. I have to say that I think that some boredom is good. You have to learn to listen to others-30 'free spirits' are a bit much in one room!

YANBU, I was a free reader and good at sums etc on entry to reception and I was never bored. I loved it!

DD is so far a bright girl, obviously a bit early to really tell (she's 3.8) but there are a few areas where she's ahead of the game so to speak, and I am not anticipating boredom - she's enthusiastic and easily engaged in games so why on earth would she be bored? Reception is mostly play anyway so bright children can make their own projects - some children will be counting bricks, but a bright child could be investigating how many bricks are needed to make staircases of various heights - ie learning triangular numbers.

I was bored in Reception (second year of nursery - in the 1960s...) and was moved up a class.

I agree with those saying that some bright children will be bored and others won't. I don't think that level of boredom can be used to assess brightness :) all children are different and while some thrive in the school environment some don't so your friend's child may be bright and bored and your child may be bright and stimulated - what's the big deal?

TBH my kids' reception experience was even more dull than mine. At least we got the same teacher all year - my kids had as many as four in a year as they came and went so much. And we got to play outside a bit more.

I skipped year 2 at one point but then wasn't allowed up to the Juniors so had to wait a year for everyone else to catch up so we could move on together. Awful.

MillyR:

Re: "Working9while5, I don't think you have the credentials to show you are bright; I think you have the credentials to show that you have worked hard, during both your student years and your childhood. Education is a huge privilege that few people get at postgraduate level"

This is a somewhat peevish point, I feel?

Privilege is a funny sort of idea, isn't it? Of course having the opportunity and ability to attend university is a privilege. It's a privilege to be born into a world where life options aren't confined to foraging for food in a dump, but that's not strictly relevant to this topic. It's undoubtedly a privilege to have a certain type of cognitive capability that enables you to achieve in academic contexts. Make no mistake, it is sheer dumb luck as much as anything. No amount of hard work will enable someone who doesn't have a particular set of cognitive capacities to achieve highly academically. I say that factually and neutrally as I see it as something given, not won.

I graduated first in my class from a top level university. You extrapolated from my previous post that I achieved because of "hard work", but this assumes that I must have worked harder than my peers to attain this particular standard. That's not really true. I had an early interest in books, my parents pushed me to go with that (more so than was really necessary, in retrospect), I developed skills in that particular area and fostered those for some years, I went to university and coasted to good results because of a particular aptitude I'd developed and had fostered in early childhood.

However, I laugh at the idea of easy privilege accounting for good academic results. My home was a fraught, chaotic alcoholic home where perfection was highly valued. Grades are perfectible. I learned to play that particular game as a means to an end in a situation that was, well, privileged in comparison to the experiences of so many others in the grand scheme of things but.. well.. perhaps not the easiest route to success. It wasn't quite Angela's Ashes, my childhood, but it wasn't a million miles from there. I feel lucky, as an adult, to have had some of the experiences I had as a child... but to conceptualise it as "privilege" doesn't feel right to me. I think I got by because I was reasonably bright (aka had the relevant underlying cognitive skills to work with) in combination with prioritising learning tasks at relevant times for a particular emotional purpose. Perhaps it is privilege, perhaps not. It didn't always feel as though it were..

I work with children and young people with a variety of special educational needs at this point of my life. They work terribly, terribly hard - much harder than I ever had to - and they will never achieve academically as I have. This doesn't speak to who they are as people, nor does having a certain set of privileges speak to who I am as a person.

I find it somewhat disheartening when this particular privilege is used as it is on here, as something you've won rather than what you were given. As though it would be better to be "the sort of bright" where you didn't have to work rather than the "sort of bright" where you needed to study to do well. Having the cognitive skills to achieve academically is not a personality characteristic, it's a neurological feature. It's laughable to try to separate credentials qualitatively based on whether they were achieved because someone was "bright" or "hard working". It doesn't much matter, in the grand scheme of things. It's about ratios, really. Which way it tips does not much matter in the grand scheme of things.

I find it inutterably sad to see parents crow about how "bright" their children are in order to do others down. At Reception level. Feel that internal pride, I would deny no one that.. but I don't like to hear of people who have the immense privilege of having gorgeous little people living in their homes seize on how "bright" they are in the way it's been described on this thread. They will live with the sodding boredom while everyone else around them grows up a little. It is Reception. Learning to cope with boredom is as valuable a skill as moving up a level in reading.