I don't know what my child learns at school...

[Suzi7979]

Do any of you actually know what your Y1 child learns at school? The teacher never speaks to the parent, we haven't had parent evening yet and all parents wonder what the kids actually learns. The school is outstanding ( ofsted).

Just wanted to know if its normal to not know what the kids learn at school and which subjects they have each day?

...have you asked your child?

If I asked my dc I just use to get “I can’t remember”

What I do know is that they do maths and English every day in primary

You could look on the school website or look up the National curriculum.

Do you need to know? School is their thing, you have work - am sure you don't much feel like talking about your job at home either

I'd say it's fairly normal. I'd expect a newsletter or some information on the website once a half term saying what the 'topic' is. This half term we will be learning about maps and the Great Fire of London. I'd also expect to know what day PE is for practical reasons.

As to to what they are actually doing in maths etc. I'd expect to rely on my child to tell me. Although they always just say 'nothing'.

Have they published their curriculum on the school website?

Also, no news is good news. I know what my year 2 child is doing because he is so far behind, we are all working together to support him.

I have no idea what my Year 1 child learns, I only get told what was for lunch! We are going to be having a parents evening via telephone. I also think that if there were any issues they would contact me.

Apparently it's totally normal. Mine just started reception and the only update I had was he'd been 'naughty' one day. The behaviour was very much related to an ongoing investigation into sensory issues/possible autism that I had assumed the teacher was updated on. Nope. So asked to keep in contact on a weekly bases to see if any behaviour needed working with at home/in school. Had one update then nothing.

Get nothing in learning either. Some very basic home learning that never gets commented on, no books or anything of academic value. No sign of a parents evening. Even his nursery sent him home with reading books, I know Covid makes this difficult, but even just an idea of 'your child is at x reading level, here are some recommendations' would be helpful!

Same here with my Y1 child.
We get snippets of information 'I did some letters on a white board' or, on Friday I got 'did you know the world was made by a man called god and the first person was Adam' (not a specifically Christian school, so that was a surprise 😕)
There isn't an email address to contact the teacher and we are not allowed to approach the teacher at drop off / pick up

Have you looked at the school website? Most have topic areas which show you what's being covered.

So many parents never bother to look and then just moan.

Thanks all. Maybe I had big expectation. I looked at their website but couldn't find anything. I will have to rely on my child now.

You need to make friends with the equivalent of me! Dd used to tell me everything that went on at school when she was that age. I knew what groups everyone was in, who was “spirited”, who was the best at art, running, dancing, plaiting hair, who was friends with who, who had fallen out with who and who had made up with who.

I didn’t realise this was unusual until there was a party and someone mentioned the maths groups and I said “oh - yes - your little Lizzie is in the Hexagons with dd isn’t she?” And suddenly 10 parents dived on me trying to find out what I knew.

Can’t do it with ds - he never tells me a thing!

You should b3 getting a weekly newsletter that gives a rough breakdown of what the pupils are doing each week and which themesAnd topics they’re learning through.
Ours is just an email through parent mail.
You might be able to get something by asking questions based on the Info on their but I wouldn’t count on it in year 1.
I always used to know what they had for pudding that day and who the milk monitors were but that was it.

The newsletter is not weekly and doesn't cover contents they have learned. I will have to wait for parent evening and maybe get a better insight then.

Thanks for all the replies.

@DaphneFanshaw

You should b3 getting a weekly newsletter that gives a rough breakdown of what the pupils are doing each week and which themesAnd topics they’re learning through. Ours is just an email through parent mail. You might be able to get something by asking questions based on the Info on their but I wouldn’t count on it in year 1. I always used to know what they had for pudding that day and who the milk monitors were but that was it.

Should?

I don't know of any primaries here that communicate that weekly through the newsletter. Nice if you get it but shouldn't be an expectation.

Oh that’s interesting, despite my appalling spag on here I’ve worked in a lot of schools and the weekly newsletter was something that they all did.
It was something that I remember Ofsted looking at quite closely so I expected it to be the norm.

My DS at that age could reel off who was in each group and when everyone's birthday was and possibly what he had for lunch (although could normally tell that from his jumper anyway!) but very rarely told me what he had done that day.

No not the norm, some schools do quite a few don’t.

Yes, I have a year 2 and a year 1 and generally know what they’re doing.
The newsletter is monthly but the teachers use Class Dojo to give updates on what they’re up to week by week, with photos etc. Mine are also generally fairly good at telling me what they’re doing too.
They both have weekly spellings that are related to their topic work, and we have a termly homework ‘menu’ which is linked to what they’re doing in class.
We can also contact them via Class Dojo with any questions about what they’re doing.

Actually, after giving it some thought I think It may have been the yearly blogs that Ofsted were interested in. They still had the same sort of information though.

@Mumoftwoyoungkids

You need to make friends with the equivalent of me! Dd used to tell me everything that went on at school when she was that age. I knew what groups everyone was in, who was “spirited”, who was the best at art, running, dancing, plaiting hair, who was friends with who, who had fallen out with who and who had made up with who.

I didn’t realise this was unusual until there was a party and someone mentioned the maths groups and I said “oh - yes - your little Lizzie is in the Hexagons with dd isn’t she?” And suddenly 10 parents dived on me trying to find out what I knew.

Can’t do it with ds - he never tells me a thing!

Haha both of mine are like that too.

Our Ofsted outstanding state school used to send weekly emails stating what the children are covering. Now they post it weekly on seesaw. Home to school communication is key. So basically what they are covering in Maths, English, science, RE sometimes even music etc. Kids also expected to read a new book 3-5 times a week plus weekly maths tests and spellings tests.

The school curriculum should be on their website. If not email them and ask for it. My DCs school has a class page for each year with their current term curriculum on it.