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 work in primary. I’m a HLTA and cover all classes but am based in year 1 and 2. It’s an Ofsted rated ‘Good’ school and our only homework at that age is reading at least 3 times per week and learning spellings. We provide a login to times table software and encourage practising 2s, 5s and 10s.
I am just noticing big improvements in reading and confidence in year 1s. Progress isn’t always linear. Keep up the basics, they work.

I don't know why you have been told that ADHD or sensory issues won't affect learning! What a crock of shite! Being able to concentrate plays a big part in being able to learn and with the added distraction of having sensory issues, especially if noise levels are something that causes difficulty, I would think it would be quite obvious to someone professionally trained like a teacher that the child is going to struggle in some areas.

No criticism of you of course, I just feel for your daughter, being seen as a failure so early in her school life.

Are your DC’s happy? Enjoying school? Enjoying life? Because all I want for my dc is for them to be happy.

The last 2 years have been hard on all children. They are very young and they have time to catch up.

Both my dc have ASD and eldest possible ADHD, I am happy of they come home from school smiling. I would never label them as failing for not hitting targets.

OP if it helps when I was in year 1 I was in the lowest group with kids who had significant learning delays. End of next year, top of my class (where I stayed through uni), not because anyone did anything crazy, I just wasn’t ready to read and write yet.

Younger ds 2 seemed totally in unacademic all through his school years. Age 17, he suddenly surprised us all and bucked his ideas up. He’s now at university in his third year. There is no way in our wildest dreams we’d have predicted that.

They’ve got to want it.

Having said that, adhd does hinder the ability to focus, so might be worth researching what you can do to help your oldest dd , op.

I was going to ask the same as @robostripes before you panic double check with school that it is not year end targets.
First time I encountered it when dd1 was yr1 I was like wtaf but now it's the first qu I ask.

We tried putting pressure on, taking pressure off, all sorts.

In retrospect I wish we’d just stepped back a lot more and let them get on with it in their own pace.

If you were forced to guess the reason why they're falling behind, what would you say? I often find that deep down, people always have an inkling what could be the cause. They're usually a reason for these things. They don't just randomly happen

I find that people just don't want to say it because they're ashamed/embarrassed/don't want to admit to themselves. Am honestly curious, given the OP hasn't given much detail on what they think the issue might be

Hmm. Are the class sizes very small? My DS is now in year 5 but did KS1 in a private school in a really small class of around 12 children. All the way through infants he was set unrealistic amounts of homework, which he totally failed at, and ridiculous spellings. Every report was 12 pages long, detailing all the areas in which he wasn’t meeting expectations. This school was rated ‘outstanding’. We pulled him out for many reasons, but the constant lack of praise or positivity was definitely a part of it! Since starting at a very nice but totally standard state school rated Ofsted ‘Good’ he has come on absolute leaps and bounds. Private school does not equal good school.

A friend of mine found out when she moved her daughter at the end of year 2 from a private school that she couldn’t read properly as they hadn’t done phonics effectively at all and her maths skills were two years behind.

Please try not to get disheartened, it sounds like you’re doing loads to support at home.

Mine is doing GCSEs now. Spends hours on her homework. Gets really stressed out. Sometines I telk ger to put her pen down, we're going out. Jyst a walk, or a visit to the shops, or a nearby museum. It calms her down and reduces what we call, fizzy brain. Then she's ready to study again.

I like the Danish model of education where children go out, play, and learn together. I think OP's too structured. I think the school expects too much. It will cause problens further down the line. OP needs to take the children out, maybe with paper and a pencil, so they can draw and label what they see, or play hopscotch, or make up silly stories on their walk. And, God, yes, read and read and read...everything else follows.

I was told by the Teacher that my Summer born Yr1 Child was behind for his age. He wasn’t - he was behind for a Yr1 child. He had barely turned 5!

Most of the Gove expectations are just far too high Particularly for the current pandemic generation who didn’t have the opportunity to build enough preschool skills.

He is now In the top set for Maths And doing very well in his other subjects at Secondary school. We don’t all make progress at the same rate and the government doesn’t seem to understand or acknowledge this

@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!

Is the reason that they think adhd won’t impact her academically because she is quieter or just not running around and shouting a lot

Who ever thinks that any form of adhd won’t impact her is talking utter rubbish
You definitely need to pursue it as it will impact her.
As someone who was diagnosed very late in life I look back and see how ADHD has wrecked my life.
Next they will say her problem is not because she has ADHD, but because she is just lazy.
As a girl with unmedicated and undiagnosed ADHD she will work a 1000 times harder than everyone else and not achieve as much.

I have been where you are but no one mentioned adhd. No one mentioned dyslexia (it was dismissed when I mentioned it as I think they thought I was coming up with excuses)
Both were diagnosed with dyslexia but not until they were 16/17 years old
Adult Dd and I were diagnosed with ADHD last year. Ds is in line for his assessment soon.
I think all of our lives would be much better if we had been diagnosed at a younger age.

Adhd is a physical disability. Our brains lack the ability to make enough dopamine.

The best thing parents can do for their children is talk to them, ask questions, share ideas and have discussions. Too many children are left with a screen, minimal conversation or interaction. Children are in school with no attention span, ability to talk, engage or be active participants in learning...

I'm summer born, and aged 7ish had to have extra lessons in school. However I got straight As at GCSE and A level, and was best in my year at university in a STEM subject. So maybe they will be a late bloomer ! Sounds like you are really involved which is great

I would carry on as you’re doing.
It’ll help on the long run. If they struggle in class, it may put them off learning. Obviously, don’t put pressure on them but what you’re doing sounds fine.
Lots of reading and time outside playing will help.

Apologies in advance as I haven't rtft. I'm a KS2 teacher and we assess children against the end of year expectations so the majority of children in my class are not yet meeting expectations. It doesn't mean they're behind, we simply haven't covered everything yet and there are still several months left for them to achieve them. I would only be assessing a child as meeting expectations at this point in the year if they're a higher ability pupil. Hope that helps.

I am a summer baby and spent most of primary school in the bottom maths class (only moved up in year 5/6 and even then was at the bottom of the higher class). I went on to get an A* at GCSE, A at A-Level, and a 2:1 in a heavily mathematical degree.

I think it's often a summer baby thing tbh. Remeber they are nearly a year younger than some of their classmates, and when they are young that's a massive difference

Goodness me they are still so young and I cannot help but think you need to relax a bit about this. Kids develop at their own rate. By all means I agree with being supportive and doing things with them at home as long as it does not stress them or you out but they are summer babies so may well take a while to catch up with their peers given that they may almost be a year younger than some in the class. 45 minutes daily with 5 and 7 year olds when they have been at school all day sounds a lot.

It really is quite tough having to "be the best you can be."

Are any of us the "best we can be" every single day? Does it even matter?

You say you used to be an overachiever at school, and your OP reads as though you are doing your best to be an overachiever at parenting too - but there's no awards in parenting.

Of course you could always go on a parenting forum and say things like We try to foster learning in all activities / aim for a growth mindset So that everybody will tell you you're doing too much, so that you feel like an overachiever again...

Are you sure your children aren't picking up the vibe that you think they are substandard? That's the impression I get - you of course are doing everything you can. If it weren't for the shoddy raw materials you have to work with, you'd be bloody brilliant at... erm... fostering a growth mindset...

Remember that in many countries dc don’t even start school until age 7, and everything up until then is play based with no formal academics. Just like when they are babies and anywhere between 9-17ish months is normal for walking, so anywhere between 3-4&8+ is normal for reading and writing.. The arbitrary standards of English primary schools do not actually match the pedagogy! Have a look at the pictures of children's hand bones at various ages, and you can see they are barely physically able to hold a pen properly at that age. I would honestly encourage you to push back against the school, homework at that age has no actual value (studies have shown that it doesn’t improve outcomes) and push for the proper ADHD diagnosis for your eldest.

Year 1 TA here. Many kids struggle with the fine motor control aspect of writing. Sitting and writing won't fix this, but scissor skills, play doh, colouring and tweezer activities will.
Reading bleeds into everything so read a short book they are able to (not above their current band) every day. Keep rereading so they gain fluency and learn common words and sentence structure. Also, read TO them so they learn story structure and common plots of stories. I know less about maths, but continue to count everything- steps, how long they brush their teeth or wash hands, how many pieces of pasta they have. Take some away or add them and see if they can do lots of concrete and practical maths with objects like lego rather than written sums.

I sympathise. I was an early achiever at school and my kids have been anything but - it can be a bit of a jarring adjustment. Genuinely though, the best advice is to relax. There is almost nothing you can actually do to change things - more practice, less practice, more tree climbing etc will basically make very little difference either way. It comes when it comes. You really do have to think about some of the academic stuff at this age as being more like teeth coming through - it’s not something you can rush and everyone gets it at the right time for them.

I know that’s a hard thing to truly believe - but honestly speaking from experience it really is true.....

This may or may not help. My son was in P2 at the time of the first lockdown. To me he was clearly very bright but his teachers (it was a job share) had basically written him off. He was stuck at a table that the Classroom Assistant worked with and they clearly had no interaction with him. He would say to me (at 5) that he was ‘not smart’. I hate that he was made to feel like that. To cut a long story short I had him reading fluently within two weeks of lockdown by not using phonics - he has a mind that is better at remembering than sounding (especially when the sounds sometimes don’t fit logically). He’s now in P4 and in the top group in the class. They are tested relentlessly and he regularly gets 100% in literacy and numeracy (and he loves reading). Another child I know was in p5 and could hardly read before lockdown - she was clearly intelligent and had been tested for dyslexia etc (no issues). Her dad got an allotment during lockdown and the lady on the one next to it was a retired schoolteacher who had her reading in a few weeks. Sometimes the teaching methods in schools aren’t right for all children. You sound like you do lots of work with them. They will be fine.

Your DC will have absolutely no recollection of life before covid. They've not had a full academic year in school!

This all, quite frankly, sounds a bit mad. The school sound unhelpful, unrealistic, unimaginative, unsupportive and unkind.

Doing more formal learning at home is rarely going to be the answer. Share more stories, do more talking, read to them, point out numbers, times, prices etc but don't make them 'do homework'.

My year 1 6 year old is 'way behind'. He is barely coping with red band books and is reluctant to write his name, let alone anything else. School are being really reassuring and supportive and have rightly pointed out that he is socially capable, interesting and interested, articulate and imaginative - the rest will come.

If you think your dd has a specific developmental or learning issue then of course get all the assessment and help that you can for her, but in general I would take all this pressure off.