AIBU to be angry that the school think my son is thick?

[SianFirstTimeMum]

My son turned 3 right at the end of August. He started school 2 weeks later (preschool). I went to his first parents evening a couple of weeks ago, only to be told that my son is not as bright as he should be at his age and is behind in everything. He JUST turned 3. They are comparing him with children who are almost 12 months older than him. Knowing he would be the youngest in his class, I made extra effort to teach him to count to 10, recognise his name when written down and we started learning the alphabet.

mine are older ...do 3 year olds seriously get assessed these days ? I assume pre-school is nursery

at three I had alot of Daniel hit him on the head with a firetruck but then 'ds' pushed him in the sandpit , then the both eat bananna's

that sounds normal for being three ...you can't judge intelligence or lack of on a three year old

I had a similar experience with DS1's clip-board carrying nursery teacher 14 years ago. His speech at the time wasn't very clear, and he was quite shy and clingy towards me, although he did love playing with the other children.
I don't think she used the words 'not very bright,' but she wearily relayed to me towards the end of his time there how he struggled with this or that aspect of education and socialisation.

I was stunned, but managed to point out that as far as I was concerned he was there to learn to interact with adults and other children, and he would be able to focus on letters and numbers at the appropriate stage - ie school. She back-tracked at this point and said, of course, it's ridiculous to judge little children on these criteria etc etc. Since her role at that nursery did seem to mainly involve walking round looking officious and carrying said clipboard, I took everything she said with a pinch of salt, although it was hurtful at the time.

He actually turned out to have glue ear, but took a few years to really come into himself and perform at his true level. I think he was just a bit dreamy and bewildered for a while. He's now at grammar school studying a-level maths, further maths, physics, history and politics. Wants to do a maths degree. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it, Mrs miserable nursery teacher.

In hindsight, I probably knew it wasn't a good nursery, but this review happened towards the end of the year, plus he was my first, and it was close to home, and attached to the highly-thought-of primary school yada yada.
You're at an early stage, though, so maybe you could look around for somewhere with a kinder, more appropriate approach to little ones - assuming, as others have said, you have no concerns about his understanding and general interest.

he is 3 take him out of school and let him start at 5 like normal people

Op- come back and tell us more. Are you in the UK?

It does depend so much on how and exactly what they said. If they said "your ds is going to forever struggle at school compared to his peers" that's wrong, and they can't tell how well he'll be doing in even 6 months time really.

If they said "Look we're a bit concerned because assessing him on his current age there are a few things he seems to be struggling with" then that's reasonable. However, your response needs to be along the lines of "how are we going to help him to catch up?" not getting defensive.

If he is behind, then it's a good thing that they've spotted it, because you both can then work with him to help him improve. Much better that then the first you hear is that he's going to get a poor SATS result, and you're saying "If only I knew, no one told me. I could have helped."

YANBU.I have an august baby so I was especially worried about this (29th!) but I asked about it when he started preschool (and now reception) and they have methods in place to account for the age differences in the class. IE while my DS1 might be behind others in his class, he is doing ok for his actual age. If they arent doing this, I would be asking why but remember its preschool so all this is more important at school, tell them to stop trying to teach him things and just let him play - Just had DS1s first parents evening and the reception teacher basically refused to comment on anything academic other than to say he was doing well. She insisted that the first term of reception is more about settling in socially and confidently. i think she is right. He isnt behind anyone - he is just a little boy :)