Dissapointing School Report

[berry007]

Received DD?s end of Y1 school report and I am very disappointed. I start to wonder if we should start to look for another school......

At the end of the Reception, DD?s progress was rated as outstanding in all areas. In contrast, at the end of Y1, DD achieved - 1c which is below average. For illustration, Reception report states: DD can confidently count up to 20 and Y1 report states: DD can count well up to 20. To be fair, DD was born in August thus is the youngest child in the class. DD is active, loves learning and is very enthusiastic. On the downside, she gets easily bored. However, I must say I do find it surprising that her counting didn?t improve at all. What I find even more alarming is that throughout the year, the teacher didn?t highlight any areas we could be working on although we do ask regularly. The only response we go was that DD was improving!!! I am not sure if I am being unreasonable but I am actually thinking of talking to the Head teacher. What has gone wrong? Am I being unreasonable?

Any comments and thoughts welcome....

I don't have children at school yet but I have to say if it were my child and I for a report saying that they had not progressed I would be a bit concerned and would want to speak to the teacher.

To me the fact that the teacher has told you, when asked, there is nothing to work on with her and her school report indicates that she has not made any progress and has fallen below average would tell me I needed to speak to the teacher and just ask the questions: why did you say there was nothing to work on when clearly there was?"; 'when did you identify that she was falling behind and what can we do to help her.

I don't see having a conversation with the teacher as being PFBish and it is not even about focusing on the grades and feeling disappointed in her. It is just about making sure that she is getting something out of her education and also that because she is bright, she is not just being left to get on with it. You will not know this unless you speak to the teacher (although the head is one step too far).

she is 5 relax it isn't the end of the world.
Reception is like scottish preschool our kids don't have reception, so she is in yr 1 and her report isnt what you expected maybe she is coping but not excelling no shame to that.

where I am the winter babies are young DD2 is a feb birthday so she just made school and it does take them a while to catch up with the older ones, even now as a teen the other girls are a lot maturer than she is, please dont change schools because of a report card I will said it again she is 5

It is lovely that it has been reported that she is a happy, delightful little girl, but I would still expect to see progress - that's what the teacher's aim is and what the school is judged on.

I wouldn't stress, but I would ask for a meeting with the teacher, with both reports and ask what is going on - have you interpreted the levels correctly, and if so, what are they doing about it?

Everything the teacher plans is aimed at helping your child improve, however young. (You wouldn't expect No Change from Nursery to Reception). So has she improved in other areas, just not maths?

Oh. And ask what you can do to help (without pushing and pressurising!)

Some reporting systems are based on comment banks and can sound really clumsy unless the teacher is able and allowed to spend hours amending and adapting them. Most likely the choice was between counting to 20 or to 50 and 20 was the best fit. Reporting is NOT an efficient and useful tool to share info between school and home and just causes stress and confusion all round. You should have the option to discuss the report at a parents meeting to clarify but there are so many reasons she could be classed as confident in R and counting well in Y1. However you look at it, the basic info is that she counts to at least 20. The rest is subjective.

However, I must say I do find it surprising that her counting didn?t improve at all

So teach her to count at home then

The only response we go was that DD was improving!!!

And that's brilliant. Please stop putting pressure on her. She's only little and from the sound of what the teacher has said, she's doing fine.

It sounds as if you have a lovely little dd who is thriving at school. I'd dwell on the very positive elements of the report and praise her. She's only 6, not about to take her Oxbridge entrance exams after all. If you are concerned about any perceived lack in progress (it might be that different teachers express achievement differently) then raise this at parent's evening. In the meantime, do chill out! You have years and years of schooling to come!

When you say she was outstanding at the end of Reception, do you mean she got 8s and 9s in everything in her EYFS profile? If she was, I'd agree that to get to 1c after a year in is less progress than you might expect and would be worth a chat with the teacher.

But it's only slightly below average and she has progressed.

My DS's Y1 report said that he could count to 3. Something he'd been happily doing since about 2.5. Some of the assessment criteria are pretty bonkers.

It is worth considering that it is quite a leap from reception to Y1. They go from EYFS where it is largely play orientated to more structured lesson plans and targets. My DD1 who was also rated outstanding in reception seemed to struggle in y1 and some of her friends who seemed to struggle in reception did great in y1. DD picked up again in y2. As long as she's happy and encouraged it will come.

SquidgyBiscuits - I agree... going to head is perhaps over the top.... . During one year, DD had two teachers. One of them spent most of the time shouting.... children (not only mine) disliked her because of the way she communicated.... The second one doesn't have enough experienced... when it comes to counting...DD counts easily with numbers beyond 20... we do loads of work at home ..... Unfortunately, we live in east London and from what I have seen so far, for many teachears in this borough, teaching is only easy money... when schools are doing badly... then they have the cheek to blame the parents (I know I am generalising)!!. Apologies, if I offended anyone but I am comparing UK education to the Czech one where I grew up...

OP can I bring alittle perspective to this. My DD2 October born in Yr 4. Maths report is 1A and National average is 3B. She has SEN and is on School Action Plus.

In all her subjects her achievment is below average but she has made progress this year and the effort she has put in has been excellent. The teacher gave a glowing report on her behaviour and personality. So I have nothing to complain about.

Childrens' levels aren't a good indication of their progress because the bands are so wide. You don't know that last year your DD didn't just scrape into 1C and this year was unlucky to just miss out on 1B.

Counting to 20 is pretty impressive for 5/6yo. Counting means understanding the value of the number and its placement. Not just learning 1 - 20 parrot fashion.

Chill out OP your daughter is happy and did receive a good report.

I agree the teacher should have highlighted the fact she isn't making the progress expected 5 months ago.

I would probably talk to the old and new teacher and see how you can support her at home this year. Don't go crazy but maybe look at Mathletics - which is fun on line maths. Review the situation again at the end of infants.

After reading your last post I'd say ignore the report! An inexperienced teacher has had to write reports on children he or she has only taught for part of a year and taken over from a teacher who has created a poor atmosphere. You do know that each of those reports is likely to have taken the teacher 1-2 hours to write, especially if they lack experience. It is a rubbish system in circumstances like yours. Enjoy your fun counting at home over the summer and maybe talk to the new teacher next year about making sure you get to know of any worries about progress as soon as they arise.

bamboostalks yes it is exactly what happened, some back story, lived in the USA and they started school 3 months before their 6 birthday and only did 2 1/2 hours a day, that is what they do in Kindergarten, moved back to the UK in the Christmas holidays but the LEA wouldn't let us register until we had an address in the county, so missed another 6 weeks of school whilst it was sorted out.
the American system we had, taught the hard ABC which is backed up by programs on PBS, where as it is phonetic in their UK school, so whilst they where new into schooling they had a background in this. a year and a half behind in schooling, and the accent problem.
they where being monitored due to bad behaviour both had been excluded for basically kicking off, and in both cases despite the inconvenience to us as parents they where correct to exclude them, but when dt2 was excluded we got his back story and on returning I broached the subject of dyslexia with him (I am and dt2 is like me in many ways and how I remember being at school) we had with the teachers previously but when you are in a queue of 10 parents all saying the same thing it gets lost.
anyway, meeting in Dec both p8 across the board, with form teachers, ed Psych, deputy head in attendance some interventions agreed amongst us all, surprise, surprise dt2 is dyslexic, me and DH have stuff to do at home to support the school and form teachers some ways of working which we think will help, as in dt1 don't keep him in a break as they had been doing, make him go out and play when he hasn't completed work, so when he gets home he doesn't get any WII time as he will have to do it at home, well that took 2 days! he makes sure he does it now.
they couldn't at the time give dyslexic son help as they only have a volunteer specialist teacher for dyslexia and she had a boy already, year 6 so when he left dt2 could have her next Sept 12.
meeting was made for March, the deputy head started with their grades, it was the most amazing thing because she had clearly remembered the p8's and she had a table of all the children's grades in the school, she said 2B, um! English 2A, lets look at dt2, oh! 2A, then she asked for a ruler, ruler duly brought over and she said OH! they are correct dt2 he of the dyslexia, was 1c on English, but Math and science 2b, because they are allowed verbal on these tests, dt1 was 2a and B's.
dt2 has his specialist teacher now, well before the date they gave us. happy story :)