To think a 5 year old should not be in a computer programming course for 6-10 year olds?

[DingbatsFur]

Hello,
I managed to get tickets for my sons (7&9) to go to a local further education college on a saturday morning to learn programming. It's a lego mindstorm if anyone cares.
They run a course on lego for 6-10 year olds and advise younger children can do a beebot.
On day 1 we we paired with a man and his son. The son could not be arsed about the programming. He spent the first session jamming a lego minifigure into the workings of the robot. The father is very interested in the robot so spends his time programming it, while I try to distract his kid.
Second session was much the same.
3rd one he smashed the robot causing my 9 year old to weep.
4th session I hear the guy talking and find out his son is 5. He is too young for the class, so never should have been there, but the dad thought he liked robots and building so enrolled him anyhow.
I was so frustrated today by trying to keep my sons engaged and stop his kid wrecking the robot that I nearly left and hour early.
What also peeves me is the kid has robbed a child who could be engaged of a place on the course.
Bah.

Ask to be paired with someone else. It's from age 6, he's 5 - meh. The issue isn't a slight bend of the rules, it's that this particular kid, whatever his age, is ruining it for your kids. Don't let him do that. Next time refuse to be paired with him.

There is nothing wrong with a 5 year old doing an activity for 6+ as the age is only a guide

Actually that's not true. There may be insurance issues and funding may be restricted to those meeting strict criteria of which age may be one. Even if you are paying a fee there may be additional funding which subsidises the tuition, materials, hire of venue etc so the actual cost per place is higher. Those not meeting the criteria therefore should pay more.

I didn't complain because I've been trying to get the situation to work. It was only today I found out he was 5. I'd thought if I put effort in to showing cooperation that was better than pointing it out to the supervisor.
I agree when a child has ability age shouldn't matter, but in this case they even offer a basic course on simpler computers called beebots which would have been better. It might even have been a better choice for my 7 year old.

I'm going to drop the organizers an email. I'll see if we could be paired with someone else. The pairing was made at the start of the session but this is getting silly.

YANBU.
Age sounds more than a guideline if under sixes told to access different course.
You may as well complain in writing so centre ups its game re legit participants.....

There is a jump from 5 to 6 by the way caused by formal schooling. 6 year old will have a year of school at least. 5, not so much. In NI they start school P1 at 4.

It's not his age per se, he could have been a lot older and still behaved the same way. The problem isn't the child it's his Dad, who has put his interests ahead of his child and the child he's paired with. If there's a next time, I'd. let the course leaders know what's been going on and that you aren't prepared for the poor decisions of the this child's father to spoil your child's experience.

There's a five year old in DD's (9) Scratch class and this kid is streets ahead of quite a few of his classmates.

We have an old set of lego mindstorms and the age is 12+, so it is complicated, it is used in my dcs school 6th form engineering club, my ds was allowed to go to the club when he was in yr 7 because he took it seriously, so there is nothing wrong with younger children doing it, but it seems in the OPs case the parent is actually taking up the space of a child, and the 5 year old is really not getting any benefit from being there and his behaviour is interfering with other childrens' enjoyment.

Not RTFT but we had a similar thing at work, a robots course for 11-16yrs, max. 12 children (stipulated by the workshop provider [who would be running it with a member of our staff as additional supervisor] as he had never worked with younger children and it involved working with soldering irons etc). We stated this to all parents and took the discretion to accept children who would be 11 during the course if they had a particular programming interest. The first one was a trial for both of us and worked well but needed tweaking as it was too easy for a lot of them. It was then tweaked to be based on a level from the new Y7 National Curriculum so it would be in line with their current/future knowledge. This time we had two younger boys on the course. One was very interested, his best mate was not. We couldn't hold his interest, at one point he abandoned the robot to make shadow puppets on the projector. He also acted a lot younger than the others in the group (maturity wise), even his friend got fed up of him. We discovered that he wasn't, as mum told us, nearly 11, he'd only turned 10 two weeks previously! Needless to say we weren't happy and will be revising our acceptance criteria for the next one. It wasn't fair on us, the workshop provider, the other children, or the children who were turned down because the places were full and won't be fair on the mature and knowledgeable due-a-birthday-soon 10 yr olds who we won't accept in future.

Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate it.
I have sent a note in to the organisers suggesting they include more information about what lego mindstorms is on teir website and advising they check the ages of the kids involved.
I have come up with a solution but it may make me look like a twerp.
We have a mindstorm at home, what if next session we brought it and a laptop in with us. We could then work independantly and would not need to be paired with the man and his young child.
On the other hand we would be the people who brought in their own robot and laptop (necessary because out robot is the newer version and so needs different software).

You'd need to check they would be happy for you to do this. There may be restrictions on electrical equipment that hasn't been PAT tested.

Don't bring in your own stuff. Just contact the organisers and say what you've said here. You are trying to find a way round it but the other parent doesn't care your children are having their fun ruined.

If there was a restriction, you might find that the premises officer at DSs' primary school would PAT-test it for you and give you the appropriate label.

Don't take your stuff. It isn't your problem.

Tell the organisers. Make it their problem.

Ok, will push back to organisers! Thanks.