To think this is too much in nursery?

[nothingbyhalves]

Dt's are in nursery in Wales (they can start half days from age of three here) they have a new teacher since September, and they have weekly homework, this has consisted of learning letters, colour by numbers, fill a page in their homework book with anything to do with dinosaurs for example. On top of this parents have been asked to help them write their name in what us practically joined up writing, and learn to identify about 10 words such as mum dad and kipper, chip, floppy etc. I am starting to feel its too much. The last homework took them an hour! There is a parents evening next week and I thinking about bringing up these concerns. Or is this normal for three year olds in nursery?

The local advisory team would go nuts if they knew and OFSTED won't be pleased either. Is this nursery under pressure from the local school to 'get them ready' or is this a large chain following a bad blanket policy? If children don't get the play time to develop the sequencing skills, movement skills, eye muscle skills and language from free flow child led play then the reading and writing doesn't develop properly anyway, these can't just be 'trained in'. Bin the homework and if you wanted to talk to your local authority education advisory team (will be someone designated early years) they can let you know the county policy. You might also want to look at other local nurseries that value free flow play and understand the learning in it. Teaching through play is a skilled job.

Incidentally is anyone on the staff of the nursery a qualified teacher to be teaching sight reading?

agree with rumble
I am confused as I thought Wales had the Foundation Phase which is a play-based curriculum up to age 7.

Wow, I have worked in childcare for quite a few years and I have never heard anything like it, it is definitely not in the EYFS, in fact many YR teachers would be mortified to hear nurseries are teaching children how to write anything other than their name!

My DS could read properly at that age and they still did not provide him with structured work at that age and the emphasis was still on learning through play, they would just extend an activity for him such as he would read the instructions or something for an activity but definitely nothing more than that.

I would not have let him go to a nursery that did this as the most important thing at this age is their social skills and learning to be independent in dressing themselves, toileting and so on.

I agree it sounds ridiculous - we're in South Wales and dd has just started derbyn (reception). They didn't have any homework at all in Nursery and so far have just had a sheet on Friday asking them to practise writing a particular letter, collecting leaves, stuff like that. This week they've started bringing home reading books and we have more structured details about what they should be doing so it is slowly increasing. I thought it was all learning through play, nursery didn't even seem to look at letters or numbers with us. Lots of time must have been spent learning basic welsh though!

That sounds like what my 5 year old godson is doing at school.to a t.too much,if anything let them learn it with the other kids at school.be pretty boring for them to do all over again.sounds like a show off teacher to me.

Our nursery told us they had to stop teaching teaching as ofsted said to stop.

Aaargh teaching reading

Crazy, sounds lie homework for a school age child. Definitely ase this with nursery

Raise this

Wanted to say my DS3 (4.5) brings home 2 fairly random school library books a week, pitched at a kind of introductory reader level, and is supposed to leaf through them if he fancies it. His school has an absolutely staggering reputation for getting kids reading and they do not use reading schemes or force home reading sessions. They do spend a lot of money on children's books though, teach kids letters, phonics and so on carefully in class time, and observe closely what's going on in the case of each child. That's all you need.

Ridiculous. Is your DD in a class with 4 year olds preparing for some sort of private school assessment? Sounds like they're fobbing off their responsibility to teach certain things to you. Either that, or they're taking it all too seriously! I also find it incredibly patronising as it's as if they're assuming that parents know and care so little about their children's education and development that they'll blindly follow ridiculously unreasonable instructions. You're absolutely right to question it. I'd ask them exactly how much time they're expecting your DD to spend on each task and how frequently over the course of the weekend. Nail 'em down on this! If they patronise by telling you to space it out over the weekend, act dumb and continue to nail them for how often and how long (before releasing your DD from her work) on each task.
How long do they expect her to concentrate each time?
THEN ask:
How long does SHE (DD) manage to concentrate EACH time on each and every task that they are setting for her (you) as homework?
How often do THEY get her to work on each task at school? How large are the groups each time?
What are the learning expectations by re time she leaves nursery? How do these fit in with the Reception syllabus? (Reception classes generally teach this stuff).
Then look at the frequencies and durations that they've told you her tasks should be worked on over the weekend. Literally write then down (act dumb / clueless) as they tell you (questions above).
Now ADD THE TIMES UP in front of them. I'd love to know how long! Confront them with unreasonably short / long time expectations for each task (e.g. If they say "Oh, just a couple of minutes!", ask what you can achieve in that time).
I'd love to hear what they say!

Wait until you get the ten minute lecture on holding their pen right!

Cursive is the norm where I live, otherwise the children have to learn to write twice. I was skeptical until I saw my friends 6 year olds writing which is fantastic.

Dd is expected to do 15 minutes of phonics every day and they ask parents to read to children. Stuff she enjoys anyway.

My DS's nursery has been steered away from any structured learning, the early years program is about learning through play. This level of structured work is completely inappropriate at 3 and as for homework
We were given a sheet with ideas to encourage learning letters and sounds at home which us entirely sensible

That sounds like junior/senior infant work here,ages 4/5/6. Most preschool children are learning through play,role playing,songs and stories.

Boffinmum your DS' school sounds like the have got the right idea.
this sums it up

FWIW I am an educationalist but I have barely ever listened to my kids read books sent home from school. It sucks the life out of me and I resent having to do it.

All mine learned to read OK (including two dyslexics).

It sucks the life out of me and I resent having to do it.

I felt it sucking the life out of my children too.

Despite all the well-meaning notes in reading journals and comments at parents evening, my DDs read their reading books rarely at home. Instead we read together and enjoy books or of our choosing when my DDs felt like it. We made it fun by taking it in turns and competing to see who could find the longest word, the one with most ts in it, making up our own endings etc. I preferred my DDs to read because they wanted to, not because they had to.

I think the predictability of the flimsy, trite reading scheme books put us right off. I did show an interest in them reading things around the house, and put them in positions where they felt they had to read stuff for themselves, but ultimately ORT is not great literature, let's face it.

ultimately ORT is not great literature, let's face it.

I've done it twice. Thank goodness I don't have three

ORT is crap. It was a revelation when starting to listen to my son reading to me - 'Aha! So that's why must children write the word SAID a billion bloody times in their stories!' We train them up on it and then expect them to be able to use other words for. 'Said'. Yes , there actually are some! Lol

The bit about ORT I found hardest to swallow was the number of errors in glaring grammar and punctuation.

It won't have had an effect on the children's learning but it certainly had one on me!

Oh God.... We are about 10 books in to ORT...for the first time. Thank goodness I only have 2.

Bloody ridiculous that's to much at 5 IMHO never mind 3!!