dd started school in September in the equivalent of reception. She loves it - has made lots of friends, is coping well in the playground, loves phonics and is sounding out words all the time, etc. Most importantly to me, she goes to school happily every day and comes home with a smile on her face.
This morning I happened to be walking out at the same time as another mum from dd's class, and I asked how was her dd getting on as I know she had trouble settling in the beginning.
The converstaion went something like this:
Me: how is your dd
her: oh, we are very worried
me: oh no, what's wrong?
her: we are very worried about the academic standard of the work she is doing and we feel that her concentration is not as good as it was when she was in preschool
me: well the curriculum for this year is play based so she is learning in a different way than she did in her (very accademic) pre-school. Is she happy?
her: oh yes, she's perfectly happy but we are very worried about her standard. We are worried that the school isn't pushing her, and we spoke to a maths teacher at X school(one of the best known pushy private secondary schools in the country) and he said if they don't establish good habits now, it will be very hard to get the results in secondary school and get into a good university.
Me: she is only 4 years of age . Oh gosh there's X, I really need to talk to her
I feel so sorry for the little girl.