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?

I was shocked by this too but when I had the first parents evening I got them to explain the weekly timetable and got a lot more detail. They seemed excited that a parent was interested. I guess most parents don’t care what their child learns 🤷‍♀️

I'd suggest focusing on reading at home and buying the oxford reading tree or songbirds or other scheme (ideally a different one to what they have at school) so you can see their progress.

Read to them, play maths games and you'll see the progress. I've never had decent detailed feedback from a state school with the exception of one teacher over the years.

On my year 1 child's homework sheet every week it says "next week our topic is ..." and the tasks are generally recapping what they've done that week.

I know in quite excessive detail what my DD does everyday. She has an EHCP and 1-1 so I get verbal and written communication every day. She's quite behind so I get told a lot about the learning so I can practice at home.

I know others don't get anywhere near the same in her class.

I was a TA in Y1 recently.
Books changed after 3 reads (though now messed up by Covid)
Half an hour phonics each morning, grouped by ability across Y1 and Y2
English each morning - starting to learn to hold a sentence in their heads and write it down, use full stops and capitals. Lots of work based around books and images - Percy the Park-keeper etc. Retelling the story, writing their own a similar theme etc
Maths - tens and ones, basic addition and subtraction, groups and early times tables
Topic - Great Fire of London, the seaside, the Romans, can't remember what else
Science - simple stuff like what floats and what doesn't
PSHE - friendships, keeping safe, festivals from various religions
Also PE twice a week and ICT once a week.
Assembly and singing once a week each (not at the moment though)

The morning was basically graft and the afternoon involved a fair bit of art and general creativity tied to topics and PSHE.

Honestly, the most useful thing you can do for your DC in relation to learning is read with them once a day until they can read something like Harry Potter with fair fluency. Reading underpins everything - spelling, writing, SPAG, understanding the questions in maths.

We get a presentation at the start of the year (via Teams this year) that tells us what the children are going to be learning throughout the year, including topics etc.

Then we get occasional updates on Class Dojo, with some teachers adding stuff more often than others.

No newsletter at all.

Both DS and DD have complete memory wipes as soon as they leave the school building.

I think the lack of information comes as a shock for parents of children who have moved up from nursery where you'd get daily updates.

I teach Y2. We do a termly learning plan with an overview on, 2 parents evenings a year and we use an online platform to share odd snippets of work and news etc. We don’t have time to talk to parents individually at the end of the day for very long unfortunately as there is often 1 of us (Or 2 with younger children) trying to safely dismiss 30 children to the right adults without losing any. It just isn’t safe to spend much time discussing the details of the day with parents as it is soo manic. It’s very different to day nursery in terms of staffing and staggered pick up times so I think some parents find that very different.

I would expect some kind of termly overview on their website or handed out each term though.

Is this a state school? I ask because one of the things OFSTED look at before even setting foot in a school is the curriculum information available on the website. So I would be very surprised at any state school that doesn't have details somewhere on their website. We also send a class letter home each term which details the learning that will take place. We don't tend to send weekly learning plans home as they invariably change! But lots of " this week we are making Chinese dragons, can you send in cereal boxes so we can make one" requests.

Also just for an awareness of reading books - to change every child’s book, listen to them read a few pages, check the level and write in their diary takes around 2-3 hours (30 children, 5-10 mins each). If we did that 3 times a week that is 6-9 hours a week of lost learning for 29 other children while the adults are busy doing that. I know someone will say about TAs, but their job is incredibly varied and often spent supporting lower ability or SEN children who would otherwise not access anything. So if they are doing books, and the teacher is teaching the class, there is a group of children not learning at an appropriate level for a good chunk of time. SO we do 1:1 books once a week in our school, but it does not mean children aren’t reading at other times.

Reading is built into every single lesson and children also have daily group or guided reading sessions. The home books really are just to encourage reading at home, so if they’re not changed more regularly just stop for a second and consider the impact that would have on the teacher’s time at school.

We find a lot of parents think it is the only time the teacher listens to the child read which is not true at all

Also, if they finish their books, re-reading is vital for fluency and understanding. It’s not just something we say because we don’t want to change their books, it’s true. Also we always tell parents they are welcome to read other things and record them in their diary too.

We get an email at the start of each half term with the curriculum for that half term and a timetable.

Then obviously the homework set gives us a little nod to what's happened that week.

But other than that it's down to me asking DC.

Books used to be daily but since Covid are now 2 a week.

So far in Y1 my Dc has been revising the things they should have learnt between March-July in reception. Bit depressing but they haven’t started anything new yet.
Tbh I think my expectations were far too high too. Haven’t spoken to their new teacher yet. All pick up and drop offs are socially distanced. Any queries have to be done in writing and through the office.
Instead we do a lot at home. There are decent phonics and maths sites and we read together new books every day.
The online offering from the school was 90% external sources so at least now I know where to go to access material. My only concern is that by doing this learning at home, they may find lessons boring but tbh the main benefit of school for my DC is the social aspect (for our circumstances).

Just reading some of the other responses. We get zero mandated homework. All work sent home is optional with no requirement to submit anywhere.

OP- email the headteacher and ask for weekly updates on what the kids are covering in class

I would advise against doing this.

We get a class newsletter at the start of each half term, with topics to be covered in each subject (and suggested home learning activities), and a weekly timetable. Email on a Friday with a paragraph about what each class has been doing that week. Updates on the website and social media are sporadic. I would definitely ask the school if you would like more information.

We get a letter at the start of term saying what subjects they cover in the term, books are changed weekly and sometimes its forgotten and a bit longer. Earlier years are harder as theres not a lot of information coming back from the children. Mine is now y6 and I just hear who 'likes' whom and who had a fight. School do put pictures onto the website and each class has a Twitter feed, although it depends on each teacher how well used it is. I've had to follow the other class in the year to have any idea what my childs class was up to.
You should have a settling in parents meeting around now where you often get a lot of information about the years curriculum and how your child is doing generally. Then parents eve at the end of the school term is more how they've achieved and strengths/weaknesses.

When my dd was in reception, she used to 'replay' her day while sitting on the loo. The only way I could ever find out what happened at school was by listening to her little role-play through the bathroom door.

I found it different after reception where we saw the teacher quite a lot. My dd is in yr1 now too and we don’t get much info - though we do get Marvellous Me messages the class about what sounds they’re on and how well they’re all behaving. They no longer bring books home. I found it v difficult to know how my daughter was doing academically.

Had parents evening by phone and had the most lovely report! She’s doing really well. But I must say, if she was struggling with anything I would prefer to have known before now. In reception she was almost mute in class and I didn’t find out until parents evening...

Mine are nearly at the end of primary and I still have no real idea. They do topics each term which they seem to enjoy. I just leave school to it. I am surprised that they've been learning Welsh since they were 4 and still can't speak it though; I thought it was meant to be better taught than when I was at school.

DC y1 teacher writes a dojo post every Friday about what they have been learning all week. Other DC teacher doesn't do the same so its down to the teacher rather than school policy.

The curriculum information will be on the school's website and you can also google it.

I was hoping to get a weekly update not day to day basis Why would you expect a weekly update?

Our school does a parent meeting at the beginning of the year to explain what will be covered and then a letter is sent out after. However if I ask my son what he's done today I get 'I forgot' so it's like extracting blood from a stone on the walk home but when we have mummy chats at bedtime, the opportunity to stay up a bit later is too much to resist so I get a more detailed breakdown of his day

The gin was meant to be a grin!

Sounds like the OPs child could be in year 1 with mine! We have heard nothing and no matter how I phrase it with DS he always claims to not remember anything! Class Dojo was scrapped the year before last (I miss that!) and homework has been scrapped this year - I had to email the teacher to ask because we hadn't been told. No reading books come home anymore but we have been given a laminated card with log ons and passwords to various educational resources which is great. Parents evening phone call is coming up so I'm hanging on for that.

It's interesting to see how different schools operate. I will just have to wait for parent evening. I didn't even know that spelling was common in Y1, learned that through MN now.

Thanks for all the replies.

We get a weekly blog post together with photos that sets out in detail what has been covered each day of the week. They also use the blog to suggest activities to do at home.

I would find it very hard knowing much at all without this. It’s excellent and I don’t underestimate the amount of time it must take staff.