Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

Nursery reports that are flights of imagination

67 replies

SantanaLopez · 01/04/2017 19:45

The more I think about this, the crosser I get.

DD just turned four in February there. She is a very good and happy wee girl. She likes going to nursery, plays well, comes home covered in paint etc etc.

I just got her report back and it is all total shite. She can add and subtract in her head and is also beginning to blend.

This is total claptrap- especially as neither adding, subtracting nor blending has even been taught!

I found it vaguely amusing at first, but I really am a bit cross. DH says it's a nursery report, and not worth the paper it's written on, but it's the principle of the thing.

AIBU to ask for a meeting to discuss it?

OP posts:

Wando1986 · 02/04/2017 09:27

How does your 4yr old not know what 4+2 is? That's on you as a parent too. It is not only the responsibility of a nursery or school to teach your children. Honestly what the hell do people do with their kids these days.

TasLondon · 02/04/2017 09:48

Wando, many 4yo don't, and IMHO that's fine, they will learn. And if it looks like they aren't learning, they will be helped during KS1. Also, ref EYFS expectations in mathematics: tinyurl.com/k4beh3a

Camomila · 02/04/2017 10:00

'Not worth the paper they are written on'...Most nurseries have at least one graduate practitioner/early years teacher these days (am former early years teacher)

We'd spend ages on reports, especially 2 year checks or the very last ones before the dcs went off to primary.

I agree with lots of pp have said that there is a good chance that your DD can do simple addition at nursery e.g. with a visual prompt at snack time but can't necessarily do it at home/in an abstract 'what is 2 + 2' way.

ToDuk · 02/04/2017 10:08

Oh dear.

I have to disagree with the person above me. I visit lots of nurseries and preschools through my job and was previously an early years teacher. So many are great and have fabulous staff who have a good handle on where the children are at in their development. However in my experience there are an equal number who are incredibly over optimistic about children's abilities for various reasons. This leads to problems once the children start school and the reception teacher has to paint a more realistic picture, which can look like the child has gone backwards.

I think this happens for varied reasing. Some nursery stuff feel it reflects badlybon them if the child isn't in a high age band on the eyfs. Some just want to make the parents happy so are overly positive. Some just aren't very good at accurately reporting.
And in most nurseries I go, with the exception of school nurseries, almost nobody has a degree, so my ecperience is different from the pp.

ToDuk · 02/04/2017 10:09

OP I would definitely go in and ask for clarification / explanation.

Camomila · 02/04/2017 10:10

Aaah have just seen your updates..hmmm I hope they are being honest and it is just a case of 'will do it at nursery but not at home for mummy'

My DS will just try to eat books if I try to read them with him, my friend read him one and he sat very still and copied her at lifting the flaps gently. I was amazed.

Witchend · 02/04/2017 11:19

For adding and subtracting in her head it's probably rather than saying "what's one add two" along the lines of "if you have 2 sweets and I give you another how many do you have?"

With counting they may well count all together and she may have the confidence to do it when all are doing-or she may be saying gobbledegoop, but more likely she is joining in.

I found generally their reports were less because they had to see evidence before they could say they did it.

Papafran · 02/04/2017 11:26

Well, isn't it up to you whether you hold her back or not? I am not sure why you are so angry about this, tbh. Maybe they are not using the same markers as you would in terms of addition etc. However, they have given you their opinion that they feel she is ready for school. You feel differently and will hold her back a year. Why does it matter so much about the report?

Papafran · 02/04/2017 11:28

Also, the things you mention, a 4 yo should be able to do. Maybe you should try teaching her rather than insisting that she definitely cannot do it.

MiscellaneousAssortment · 02/04/2017 11:38

It isn't great if the nursery are so out of step with the parent is it? And it's not great that they are contradicting themselves, 'we don't teach phonics' is at odds with the blending etc on the report.

It's undermining and surely merits some questioning to get to the bottom of it?

The soap hasn't mentioned anything else about her child or what she does or doesn't do with her child, so the snidey comments saying she should stop criticising the nursery and teach the child herself are completely missing the point.

puglife15 · 04/04/2017 09:13

My 4 year old can't blend words or probably add 4+2 in his head either. Before he starts school I'm more interested in him playing and learning how the world works before the next several years of his life are all about learning times tables and phonics and tests.

Can't believe people are giving the op a hard time on this...

5moreminutes · 05/04/2017 10:54

That's exactly as it should be puglife

Some people on this thread are on some kind of stealth boasting power trip or living in an alternative reality.

Other countries where children don't even start learning to read until they are 6 actually have children achieving at higher levels in literacy and numeracy on average by age 15.

Quite why some people think it is a badge of honour to hot house children barely out of toddlerdom is baffling - it achieves absolutely nothing but anxiety and stress for some and boasting rights for others ...

corythatwas · 05/04/2017 11:15

5moreminutes, as a native of one of those countries, I can assure you that this wouldn't mean that children of those countries don't learn to add up and subtract in their heads before the age of 7: they just don't do it in a formal environment.

In Sweden, for instance, children tend to be introduced to cooking and DIY at a very young age and learning calculation naturally in that way. At nursery they would be involved in preparing lunch and calculating quantities for the whole group; at home they would likely be involved in preparing the boat or painting the house or whatever else was going on, and adults would be talking to them and expecting them to get involved in working things out.

Starting school at 6 or 7 doesn't mean they suddenly start learning things; a lot of the time it means they formalise things they have learnt already. That is why it's so quick.

DingDongtheWitchIsDangDiddlyDe · 05/04/2017 11:43

I don't see why any of this matters. She is just turned FOUR, why on earth should she be doing phonics and subtraction?
You British people and your odd obsession with hot housing toddlers! Let them PLAY.

ToDuk · 05/04/2017 21:04

Starting school at 6 or 7 doesn't mean they suddenly start learning things; a lot of the time it means they formalise things they have learnt already. That is why it's so quick.

This. And of course it's a myth that children don't start school til 6 or 7 in those countries. It's just not called school and isn't so formal but they all go and learn.

5moreminutes · 05/04/2017 21:23

TuDuk and Cory I live in Germany. I've lived here since my secondary school aged DC1 was under 2. Kindergarten isn't school. They don't learn phonics or blending or "what 4+2" is.

Of course children learn through play and through everyday activity from very early babyhood wherever you live. One of mine could read in English before starting school but she picked that up herself, certainly not at Kindergarten which is all in German. At Kindergarten they are only expected to be able to write their names (which isn't taught explicitly, most kids have picked that up by age 5-6) and all they do explicitly is a bit of number work once per week in the year before school (so starting at age 5).

I'm saying it doesn't give them any advantage to formally teach phonics to 3 year olds.

Children learn more quickly say 6/7 than 4 because they are more developmentally ready; obviously they draw on informal knowledge and experience but 20% of children in our local (rural) area didn't go to Kindergarten at all up until a couple of years ago - Kindergarten isn't compulsory nor is it free, like school is. The final year of kindergarten has now been more heavily subsidised to encourage parents to use it, but still plenty of rural families choose not to use any childcare before age 4.

I have read that parents are supposedly pressured to send children to all day childcare in some Scandinavian countries but whether that's true or not, it isn't in every country with a later school starting age.

UppityHumpty · 05/04/2017 21:39

Kids are different at school. My neice started reading at 4 but only at school and the first we realised it was when she received a certificate in reading! She absolutely refused to read at home even when I tried to teach her. She's nearly 5 now and is doing sums at school but won't even consider it at home. So I believe the school tbh.

Flip

1 2 3