Do I make DD give up rainbows/brownies because of school?

[RainbowsBrowniesLove]

DD is 6, very nearly 7 (end of July). Year 2.

Every week she has spellings and 2 pieces of homework to do.

If they get less than 50% on their spelling test on a Friday morning they lose 15 minutes of golden time on Friday afternoon.

If homework isn’t handed in on Thursday they lose 15 minutes of golden time on Friday to do the homework – so can lose half an hour.

They can also lose up to 15 minutes for bad behaviour throughout the week, so in theory they can lose the entire hour of golden time.

DD never does her homework. We do the reading and spellings but never the homework so she only ever gets at most 30 minutes of golden time.

1 night a week she swims for a half hour lesson immediately after school, we come home and she’s often tired but will attempt reading and sometimes spellings. If she’s too tired we read again in the morning, and I try and test her spellings on the walk to school but she doesn’t always want to.

1 night a week we go from school, have a quick bite to eat, change into rainbows uniform and off we go. This is currently a few nights after swimming but when she moves to Brownies after October Half Term it’ll be the night before swimming (Swimming is Tuesday and Rainbows Thursday, Brownies will be Mondays)

She will have to spell between 8 and 12 spellings, she usually gets between 0 and 3 right. School are saying she needs extra practice an extra night a week. Spellings are given out Monday after Fridays test so can’t even do extra practice over the weekend.

Part of me thinks she should give up Rainbows/Brownies to help school work as she can’t give up swimming for safety and medical reasons – we live in a town with a fast flowing river, a canal and a small lake, and she has a medical issue that’s greatly improved by swimming, school do 1 term of swimming in year 4 that’s it due to where the pool is compared to school (it’s not easily walkable so they have to charge parents to go and they never get 100% payment so it’s not financially feasible to do it more often) so she needs to learn to swim and the effect on her medical condition means I will not be stopping those lessons.

But then another part of me thinks that she was behind when she started school in 2018* and she benefits so much from Rainbows – she talks about it for days afterwards, has invited some of the girls from there to her party in July (she doesn’t know they’re coming though, as I haven’t told her yet) and it’s the one place she’s not with classmates (like at swimming) so not comparing herself to others. It’s one of the few places she’s her for her and not for her difficulties – she does everything at the same time as all the other girls, wears the same clothes/uniform and no-one but the group leader knows of her difficulties (none of the other leaders/helpers know as group leader felt it was need to know only). So I don’t want her to give that up. Also selfishly I was never allowed to join guiding as a child and always wanted to so the fact DD loves it also makes me incredibly happy.

*When she started school in 2018 she was 12 months behind and spent parts of the day in Reception out of the classroom with a TA trying to “plug the gaps”. Because of lockdown and her being unable to engage with most of the home learning (and school refusing her a place despite me, DDs paediatrician and DDs teacher begging for a place for her) and some medical treatment before Christmas where she missed a few weeks she’s now around 18 months behind. She has a communication disorder caused by joint problems that also cause mobility issues, she can also have issues with making it to the toilet on time. School also think she might be dyslexic and/or have hearing issues but won’t refer her for dyslexia assessment until the Christmas of year 3. She is also not currently getting targetted support school say due to covid, and it's obvious she's struggling with the actual work as well as spellings.

My ramblings come after we walked back from rainbows and I was testing her spellings for the week and she can’t spell any of them. We’ve practiced 3 times this week and she’s not got any right despite the practice.

For added context I am a single parent and she goes to ExH EOW, he will not take her to any activities, and she often misses parties of her friends if they fall on his weekend. He will not do schoolwork with her so an extension for the homework would only help on my weekends as I get her back from him too late on Sunday to do anything.

So do I stop rainbows/brownies or keep her there? Basically WWYD if it was your DD?

I apologise in advance if I drip feed I don’t know what other information people might want from me

I totally disagree with the school policy on golden time whatever that is but basically if it were me I would definitely let her go to rainbows and brownies but I would firstly ask for the spellings the day she does the previous week’s so you have the weekend time when she is at home but also ask the school for strategies to help support her spelling, they should be working with you to improve it. For what it’s worth my daughter used to regularly get 1-3/10 for spellings and now in year 4 gets probably 90% right, strategies really help.

Absolutely not stop her extra curricular activities.

It’s swings and roundabouts - educational vs social. She gets education from both brownies and school.

Can you explain the situation to the teacher? Perhaps ask for the spellings on Friday? Also agree the removal of golden time is awful.

That school sounds unbelievably shitty. How dare they treat your poor DD (and presumably others?) like that?

I'd visit the other schools you mentioned and see what adjustments they can make for your daughter.

Are you appealing the refusal to carry out an EHC Needs assessment?

If she’s only getting 0-3 spellings right out of 8-12 it sounds like they are too hard for her. Do all of the children in the class get the same words or are they differentiated by the students writing ability?Instead of focusing on her learning all 12 I would just choose 4 or 5 of the spelling words each week and focus only on learning them. Ignore the other words and only if she starts consistently getting all of those 4/5 right a week would I be working on trying to learn a higher number of the words.

If your main worry is her golden time you could reduce time on the spellings and start doing the homework which will probably be quicker and where if she hands it in she’s guaranteed those 15 mins compared with the spellings where even if she’s worked really hard in learning them she’s still not guaranteed to get them right ; if you don’t agree with honework anyway you could spoon feed her the answers so that all she has to do is write them down, it won’t take very long and that way she is at least getting the homework golden time.

@Ellie56

That school sounds unbelievably shitty. How dare they treat your poor DD (and presumably others?) like that?

I'd visit the other schools you mentioned and see what adjustments they can make for your daughter.

Are you appealing the refusal to carry out an EHC Needs assessment?

Yes I am appealing but with lack of support from school regarding an assessment I’m not hopeful we’ll get it.

I’m definitely going to look at my options with other schools.

Rainbows all the way!

This happened at a school my daughter went to in Y5 - dd2 was enraged on behalf of others (one poor girl was so stressed about it all despite trying her hardest she started bedwetting - obvs dd didn't know this but knew the girl cried a lot every Friday ) so used to get 0 on purpose then refuse to stay in. She'd just walk out of class. She'd ask them to call me if anyone questioned her... they never did! (I'm a teacher and think it's an appalling idea.)

I changed their primary school - no way was dyslexic ds ever going into that awful woman's class.

Dd has always been strong willed - went on to study Politics at university!

Spelling is important, but Brownies is importanter.

And I say this as a teacher. I’d much rather have a happy child who can tell me about the fun she had camping, or building a den, or showing my her badges than a stressed sad child who can spell. Teachers can help with spelling, a happy child is much harder to achieve.

Just wanted to agree with everyone else. Absolutely no way would I be giving up Rainbows / Brownies. Extracurricular activities are important.

I’d move school to one which was less of an arse about homework. Seriously.

Next time you send an email requesting a reply from your dd's class teacher, copy in the Chair of Governors and your dd's paediatrician.

That should put a rocket up the secretary's arse.

Don’t stop the after school stuff. My dyslexic DD has got so much from brownies and swimming and it’s been just what she needs for some self esteem building as she struggles so much in school. School should be looking at the spellings and either focusing on half or having some differentiated ones.

We do homework in the mornings between breakfast and school.

And look at Sound Foundations, and their Apples and Pears and Dancing Bears books for supporting her reading and spelling in a gentle way.

How dare they set her up to fail so badly. I would be furious. Actually I would complain and challenge their punitive use of golden time whilst finding a better school. She doesn’t need more spellings - she needs fewer ones that are more appropriate and if school don’t know this then they don’t know their job.

Also, I was awful at spelling as a child. One thing that really helped was making the words in a way other than writing to help lock it in. So like tracing them in sand, using letters on the fridge, a wet paintbrush on the fence.

Turns out I have dyspraxia, and still need to write the word down to “Feel” how to spell it.

Don't stop Rainbows please, she desperately needs that to keep her self esteem up after the way school are treating her. So she is being punished for being dyslexic?? I'd complain to the teacher, then the Head, then the Governors if need be. Failing every week at her spellings is terrible for her self esteem, she needs some differentiation or at least the weekend to practice. Also could you go through the spellings while she has breakfast if she's tired after school/activities?

If the homework is inappropriate for her and the teacher can't be bothered to differentiate for her then I would do it myself. For example if she had to write ten sentences about something and couldn't manage that then I'd get her to write one and draw a picture, or I'd get her to write one and dictate the others to me to write. Then put why the homework is different to that set.

She's coming to the end of the school year so hopefully she will have a more clued up teacher next year if you stay at the school. It sounds like you are doing an amazing job though.

So in your school dyslexic children are punished for difficulties with spelling by losing Golden Time?
I wouldn't have been happy with that at all.
Speak to the school,explain ExH will not do homework,and what she has is too much/ not at an appropriate level,and deginitely keep her in Brownies!

This makes me livid.
Education should be totally Golden Time.
It stinks.
There is tons of research to show homework is an utter waste of time.

However, I would keep her at Rainbows and go through the motions with the spellings. Maybe write them out and stick them somewhere prominent....do 2 a day or something?

Dont give up the rainbows/ brownies. Much more important than spellings.
8 - 12 words is a lot to try to learn for a child currently getting between 0 and 3 correct. Can you just choose 5 or 6 to practise - I appreciate that she will be unlikely to achieve the 50% passmark as they'd all have to be correct. However if she got even 1 or 2 correct then that would be a boost confidence wise for her ( and you) and you could build from there.
Does she have to write them in the test or spell them out loud? Try singing them or drawing the letters in sand, bubbles, paint etc to develop the muscle memory.
Is she on the Senco's books at school?

I'm in agreement with everyone else: school are awful. They are discriminating against your DD and others; a lot of children can't spell at that age. I would be having words about how unfair it is. (My DD would have been clueless about spelling at that age and homework remained a battle until secondary. She's done fine.)

Rainbows are fun and your DD should stay.

1. Stay at Rainbows.
2. GTFO of that school.
3. You are both great.

Rainbows my ds academy lack of support and actual outright fight against him getting the ehcp helped me.

They aren't actually the assessors and should just give evidence on the child. Instead they decided to try and suck up to LA and accuse me of all sorts.

The judge saw through it because when a school starts disputing camhs and sensory OT reports which they have no qualifications in it's obvious they aren't trying to do best for the child!

Can you afford to have private assessments done?

I am a teacher and feel so sad to hear this! Learning at that age should be fun and engaging, not filling them full of fear and worry about what they can’t yet do. Keep her at Rainbows and make sure she know you aren’t at all cross if she ‘loses’ golden time. Speak to the school ASAP- it’s an awful system they have in place. If she genuinely needs support with her spellings, take a look at 5 Minute Mum who has some really lovely games to support spelling and homework.

I was undiagnosed as dyslexic as a child and spelling was a nightmare, reading wasn’t too bad. Maybe try out different ways of learning with her. Everyone is different. I also hated school so much that I wanted to leave it. If the school are going to knock her confidence she will also develop a dislike to it.