How many subjects does your Year 2 child take?

[Grumio]

My DS is in Year 2 and seems to be struggling. He's really tired and says school is too busy. His teacher says that he struggles with transitions and that's not helping. I've just looked at his timetable and he has a total of 16 different subjects which seems a huge amount to me. I seem to remember a total of about 9 or 10 subjects when I was at primary school.

Of course a lot of those subjects are similar (e.g. games and PE or phonics and literacy) but they are taught in different places in the school by different teachers which makes them feel quite different to him I think. I think I'd struggle with this as an adult let a lone a 6 year old boy. AIBU to think this is way too busy?

How many subjects are your Year 2 children having?

Is he at private school?
In state schools they tend to mainly have the class teacher with other teachers for cover

So DD used to have (roughly):
Mornings: Maths & Literacy incl phonics
Afternoons: Art, Music, Topics, PE.

Yes it's private school.

Is he at a state or pre-prep?

In state schools it is normal to now have PE, music, modern languages, and art taught by specialist teachers as this gives teachers their PPA time. I am a teacher and the curriculum is packed: maths, literacy, phonics, reading/reading fluency, humanities (hist/geog), science, RE, PSHE, RSE, art/DT, PE, music, assembly, hymn practice, modern languages, and computing.

I'm not going to tell you what I think about this overstuffed curriculum which allows little down time or time for fun....

Schools must offer the full national curriculum subjects or at least match the NC if an academy or free school. I’m surprised he has different teachers, although sometimes a PE specialist may come in to deliver lesson a for example. Computing will have to be taught where there are computers and maybe the school has rooms for art and some other more specialist subjects although this is rarer in primary than secondary. Many Y2 still have phonics in addition to English / literacy. My Y2 does not have as many as 16, more like 10.

It sounds like it is a similar set up.

My y2 wouldn't have been able to tell me what different lessons she was having, because it was all learning and 90% with the same teacher, and most in the same classroom.
One of the things you pay for with independent is specialist teachers and specialist facilities, which means moving rooms.

Well there’s your problem, but you must have known it was like this as I’m assuming you researched the school, looked at its curriculum offer and still decided to send your child there?

This is what I was going to say.

State schools cover all sorts of subjects but in the same room (mostly) and with the same teacher (mostly). Less stressful. Far more suitable for most little children.
But you have chosen to send him to a school where they seem to be treating him as if he were secondary age.

Yes but we didn't see the timetable in practise and to be honest just assumed it would work and trusted the school to manage it. It was fine in Reception because they did a lot of learning through play etc which was still going on in Year 1 as well, so this year seems a lot busier.

Isn't this one of the reasons people choose private schools, the greater range of subjects at primary level? Is this over typical school hours 9 to 3:30ish or an extended day?

@UsingChangeofName Yes I agree with this.

@Pipistrellus well it sounded great when we were shown round and we swallowed the schpiel and just assumed the school would have the best interests of the kids at heart and make it easy for them. I think we didn't ask the right questions.

Is he young for the year?

I'd want to find out what year 3 will be like. This step up in year 2 could be followed by a bigger step next year when he moves from a pre-prep to prep year.

I guess if it’s your first child and experience of school, you just don’t know how they’re going to react. It’s no more subjects than a state school - but with your mention of struggling with transactions, has he got more than one teacher? At a state primary, there’s less feeling of change - especially as multiple subjects will be taught from the same topic.

Hi Op, my year 2 child in state does reading, maths and English in the mornings and gymnastics/ PE, history, RE, geography, music, science etc in the afternoons. She moves classes a fair bit as they set by ability and have some specialist teachers. She's buzzing at the end of the day and has lots of energy. But she does go to a quiet lunchtime club as was finding the playground too much. Is something like that an option?

DS is 6 and at an independent school. He has:

• English
• Maths
• Phonics
• Science
• German + German support
• Topic
• PE
• Positive Education/PHSE
• Music
• Art
• Library

Most of his subjects are taught by his class teacher in their classroom, though. German, Science and PE are taught in German (school is bilingual, hence him needing additional German support...English is definitely his stronger language).
They don't end to move around too often, only for PE, Library and Music.

He also does Football and Guitar at school (in German) as part of the after school programme and then swimming outside of school (his teacher also speaks German).
I wouldn't say that DS is terribly stressed out by that but I can imagine moving around and having several different teachers can be tricky at that age.