Kids not meeting expectations

[followthenoise]

Feeling like we may be failing our DC5 and 7 (yr 1 and yr3) Both have received mid year reports indicating they are below expectations. This is despite us doing around 45 mins of homework /reading with them a day. Both are (early) summer born, and both DH and I are in professional roles with masters level qualifications. We try to foster learning in all activities / aim for a growth mindset, but they both appear to be falling behind. I'm not a pushy parent and would be happy with whatever they want to do, but I am at my wits end on how to support them. Eldest DC likely has ADHD and some sensory issues, but we're told this shouldn't impact her academically particularly , youngest seems fine (apart from academics!). School feedback is that need to write more at home, need to improve - but it seems beyond them when I sit down and do it with them!

I would take them to the library and enjoy stories with them, I would read to them at every opportunity. That's what i did. At 7 my son couldn't read and used to cry about it, but he loved stories and his comprehension was very good - it was just the mechanics of reading he struggled with. So i just read with him and we both enjoyed it. One day it clicked and it seemed like he learned to read chapter books overnight. I'd accepted I had a slightly behind child, but now he's exceeding expectations, can read any book going (I have to be careful as he'll pick up my books and start reading them) and I'm impressed at his comprehension and insight.

My DS struggled to read and write until age 9 , He was diagnosed with Dyspraxia and was always behind the rest of his class. By age 12 he started to flourish he was given a lap top to help with written work. He got 5 A’s at GCSE’s the rest B’s. He got 2 A’s and a B at A level and a first at University. Many of the same children who seemed to be streets ahead of him at first school have not had anything like his academic success. I would always go with your gut instinct I knew by the questions he asked and the interest he showed in things he was a clever child it just took awhile for others to see it too.

@Phenomenology

Please just play with them/let them play by themselves rather than so much homework.

This They are so young, there are countries where they wouldn't even be in formal education. Keep it play-based

Just make sure they’re well loved happy and know their own minds and feel valued, the rest will follow. If they both love doing the work 45 minutes a day is great, it’s impressive a year 1 child can concentrate for that amount of time, but it sounds like you’re getting stressed over this, unduly. They are very young, there is absolutely no need to do this amount of work with them each day, this is pushing them. Help, guide, let them be who they are and understand how they do in primary school is a predictor of success or failure!

Summer born children can take up to age 11/12 to catch up their peers. On top of that, keep in mind how much school the children have missed due to covid! Do what you can at home, and take the teachers suggestions but you are by no means failing them so please don’t think that!

My sons always struggled a bit academically. However is a very talented sportsman, great at drawing and loves reading. So that's where we focus our time and attention is on the things he's good at. As apposed to where he struggles. Our evenings are spent running between sports clubs and he reads every night. He will never enjoy maths or excell there. It causes him a great amount of stress so we only do the basic homework set with it once a week.

I know what you mean, I presumed mine would be born bright. My eldest is very average academically (probably won't go to Uni), middle child is intelligent and artistic, but lazy; my youngest will either be the head or a boardroom or a prison gang, she's 8...I still don't know if she is particularly bright or not, people seem to
like her, she has a great vocabulary. I think I'm just waiting to see how they turn out. They go to good schools and we encourage them, but you can't force it as it takes the fun out of learning.

I think tey are in danger of being pressured at such a young age. Let them be kids.

45 mins homework and reading after a full school day is ridiculous. Not all kids are academic and even if they are they all progress at different times. You're being much to hard on them and yourselves..maybe they'd do better if you eased up on the after school work. My children are the same age and no way would our school expect them to do what you are doing. One of mine does 30 mins of homework on the day they get it, done, nothing more for a week and reading book after dinner or at bedtime. My second child does the same but as only 6 homework only takes about 20 mins and we do the same with reading books. Both are where they should be and love learning. Give your kids some wind down time,they've got years ahead of them for school work, poor things having to do so much,not necessary, sounds quite sad for them,hope you can change this

My DH privately tutors and for a child of 5 he doesn’t exceed 30 minutes focused work a session, 45 minutes every night is too long. You say that it’s a struggle to keep them motivated - I’m not surprised if this is every day. They are drained so probably going through the motions rather than absorbing anything being shown or taught. School is exhausting in primary for children and so much is crammed into each day. There is so much to catch up from lockdown and ALOT of pressure for parents to gap fill and do a lot at home. For a child to learn they need to enjoy being educated and it doesn’t sound like they are, if your little one is comparing themselves to peers with reading levels etc.

One key thing that we’re told by our school and all of the schools my DH works in is reading, more than anything read, everything else will come. Reading helps concentration, spelling, obviously reading and many other elements. I know you say you’re making it fun but ultimately the children know it’s ‘homework’. Let them learn through play at home - children need downtime to absorb what they have been taught and process it - hence why they have regular breaks and make your ‘homework’ purely reading.

This is only a snapshot in time after very disrupted learning. Its such a narrow basis to be measured on (maths and English). There’s so much more like co-operation and collaboration, playing and problem solving, art and movement. I was a delighted Mum of a 7 yr old who exceeded expectations. However that was a snapshot! My friend’s daughter was graded at below expected and now 6 years later has surpassed my daughter in all subjects. The irony being that I did all sorts of extra-curricular activity such as reading, explore learning etc, sitting with homework. My friend’s attitude is much less hands-on and couldn’t tell you what homework her DD has, never mind the syllabus(!). Kids progress at their own pace. My daughter will never pass the marshmallow test and that apparently is a better indicator of potential achievement than any grades!

I haven’t read the whole thread but clearly your children are in a home where learning and love of learning are encouraged. Agree with pp’s that 45 mins a day is a LOT (and a lot for you to keep up) and if it is having no discernible affect then that might suggest the issue is not time spent/parental input.
Am just contributing because I have a close friend who has been through a lot with her eldest’s learning in the past five years - she could certainly have written your post way back when her child was 5!
You say one may have ADHD and sensory issues - if you’ve been told that won’t effect their learning then that is incorrect. My friend went through years of trying to help her eldest academically but in the end medicating for ADHD solved masses of issues and enabled them to actually focus on learning in a way that was not possible before.

My friend is also high achieving and found this process very difficult. She also had a couple of teachers flag potential learning issues for her children and approached this as a problem she could solve by teaching more, rather than picking up on the subtext of the messages.

Her biggest learning was that she wished that instead of wasting so much time trying to get them to get better at things, she had instead focused on what barriers they could be facing and how best to deal with those.

Her child’s learning is now falling into place much better (albeit with challenges) and she says it is such a relief because now she can understand the issue instead of just trying and trying to help but without any improvement.

It may be that these are not issues for your children and the other many reasons mentioned are the underlying cause.

But if you have had any indication at ALL that ADHD/sensory stuff could be involved then take all the energy you are using for their learning and direct it towards understanding these challenges, investigating whether they apply to your children and if so trying to combat them (and any of your own fear/disappointment about them) by all available means.

This will stand your children in better stead for their future wellbeing than any amount of home learning could at this stage. If the concerns in that area prove completely unfounded then rethink at that stage.

It’s hard for a child to overcome the feeling that they are a failure if it becomes ingrained and that will definitely impact their long term learning more than a bit of down time after school will right now.

I never allowed my children to do anything other than reading and spellings at home in years 1 to 6, they spend 6 hours in school and do not need to do it at home aswell, 30 mins was alls we did, each child had different abilities I found they all got to where they needed to be at their own pace, I'm sure your doing a great job snd I wouldnt push too hard

I feel your pain my son 7 was same. In lockdown we spoke to local library who took his reading group and interests and found books that excite him. I now work with the librarian rather than school to get right books.
On writing that has only now started to change, we worked on dictating stories to word to develop being able to structure a story the we had to type it as dictate stopped working for a bit(my IT guy disabled it) then I forgot my laptop so we had to write it.
DS loves wordscapes game on phone which helps with structure and spelling. It is slowly falling into place. He also has an amazing supportive teacher.
Final bit my DS stands to do work as he won't or can't sit!

What’s the marshmallow test?

What’s the marshmallow test?

to test delayed gratification

My daughter was the same - August birthday and only one who couldn’t read / bottom in maths at 7. I used to cry - just didn’t know what to do and tried everything (also an overachiever).

The answer turned out to be let her grow and make sure the senior school was absolutely right for her (also private) - not 100% academic and very nurturing. She suddenly caught up around 12 and then just grew all the way through. She’s now off to York/Exeter with no worries at all.

One other thing - my son was really early in the year, Sept. I compared their two books when they were effectively the same age but my daughter was the year ahead school wise - they were EXACTLY the same. But she was a school year forward. That’s when I realised the enormous disadvantage of summer babies. It will be fine x

As a primary teacher I can assure you that primaries are not bad at this. We are legally not allowed to act on any concerns without parental consent at a minimum (some departments actually want the referral to come from parents and only accept school concerns as supporting evidence) until children reach the age of 7. Only then can we even begin the referrals process, which (depending on the issues being referred) can take anything from 10months to 18months before the relevant bodies are able to carry out initial assessments. This is why so many children appear to get 'picked up on' in later primary/early secondary - because without parents supporting or pushing we are forced to sit on our hands and wait until they are of age where we can act independently of parents.

School reports are fiction. Basing this on some of the contrary statements made in my children’s secondary school reports. Including the ones where they received awards for their contribution in class that afternoon, when they’d been off ill .

Teacher here.
Few suggestions. Firstly 45 mins is far too much.
10 mins reading every day, make sure book is read 2 to 3 times before it is changed. Spend time talking about the book and asking questions to ensure understanding as well as ability to read. Look out for sounds they are finding tricky and put them on flashcards, go over these regularly and then show them these sounds in real and nonsense words. Focus on word level work for writing and build up to sentences and text. Be creative. Make stories you say a sentence, dc1 says a sentence, dc2 says a sentence, then back to you etc. Foam bath letters practise spelling words on the side of the bath. Follow five minute mum on Instagram, she has similar aged children. Buy her book. Good luck.

Aged 5 & 7 they will have had untold interruption to their learning so far from covid especially the 7 year old I'd be asking the school how they can help...

@NYnewstart

What’s the marshmallow test?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

@followthenoise

Don't wait for the school referral process for assessment for ADD/ADHD.

Go private. The sooner you know what you are dealing with the better for you all.

@MummyToOrla

As a primary teacher I can assure you that primaries are not bad at this. We are legally not allowed to act on any concerns without parental consent at a minimum (some departments actually want the referral to come from parents and only accept school concerns as supporting evidence) until children reach the age of 7. Only then can we even begin the referrals process, which (depending on the issues being referred) can take anything from 10months to 18months before the relevant bodies are able to carry out initial assessments. This is why so many children appear to get 'picked up on' in later primary/early secondary - because without parents supporting or pushing we are forced to sit on our hands and wait until they are of age where we can act independently of parents.

This makes me very, very angry to read. It is absolute rubbish. My son has complex PTSD due to the arrogance of teacher sure they can see any issues. Alice de Coverley, a specialist barrister, did a webchat on this and said parents finding schools refusing to believe there was an issue until profound harm was done comes up in almost all her cases. I am on so many parent groups and the loathing we feel for teachers like you is beyond expression. You. are. not. a. medical. professional and kids with these issues mask. Do you even know what masking is?!

There is nothing wrong with teachers agreeing that they don't know about these things, and why should they - how can they, when it's not their area of expertise? But my son has formally diagnosed complex PTSD because of primary school years - the LA and all professionals are united in this. He is 13 and he left school two weeks after he turned eight, in year 3. And I am on a group for EOTAS kids where thousand of us, literally thousands on one small group are in that boat. Our kids can't attend any school at all, some never again, and almost all have issues that stem back to smugly complacent teachers, confident that they knew what they were doing, and that they could identify any issues.

Truly, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

OP - Dr Maite Ferrin at Re:Cognition Health in London. Expert in ADHD, senior within CAMHS.

Aniesa Blore at Sensational Kids in London - you go down and get assessed there. She's in Surbiton.

Helen Pearson at kids-communication.co.uk in Sussex. She travels to you.

Aniesa's written a book, as a parent and OT, on being where you are, and working out next steps.

Ideally, no problems will be found. Look on it as akin to antenatal testing, where the aim and hope is that there are no issues, but if there are, it's important you know as early as possible.

If parents wait for problems to surface really strongly before they do all of this assessment, then by definition it is late intervention. Yet all the evidence is that early intervention is key. With my son, I found out I needed to do this much, much too late. With my daughter, I had her fully assessed at 6, when I knew there were issues, her lovely Yr 1 teacher agreed, and then we had the EHCP in place by the age of 7. Her mental health is much, much less of an issue than her poor brother's is.

Both my kids are exceptionally able. My son just got a 9 in his GCSE mock, and he's 13. He'd be in Yr 8 if he were in a school. My daughter has IQ results ranging from 96th to 99.98th centile. Yet both are autistic, both have ADHD, she has SPD, he's dyspraxic and with APD. They both have complex profiles they call 'spiky' and in both cases, they mask like absolute professionals.

Really good experts see past that. Early intervention and proper support is key. You can only get that with expert assessment.