'They will catch up'

[digthroughtheditches]

If I say I'm worried my 6yo will fall behind, I'm being constantly'reassured' they will all catch up. Or don't worry about it, just do a little bit or 'sack off schoolwork, all she needs is love' she's the youngest in her year.
Where I appreciate the sentiment and during the 1st lock down I agreed to some extent and did take it easy on myself, doing what I could. Reassured in the knowledge that when she got back she'd catch up.
But here we are, tears every day during maths that she doesn't know stuff she's 'supposed to know' by now. Stuff that was covered in the last school year that I clearly didn't teach very well.
The teacher on the PowerPoint telling the class 'you know this by now year two' and she doesn't.
I emailed school about it but didn't get a reply.
Homeschool is a disaster, she hates it so much. I push on trying to get through all the work but it takes hours. Yet if I don't do it she is going to fall behind isn't she? it's already the case?
Just looking for reassurance I guess, from others or teachers. Should I go easy, will she REALLY catch up? She doesn't speak up for herself in class I don't think so the fact she doesn't know this stuff has possibly gone unnoticed.

I work with refugees who come over as teenagers after living through horrific circumstances, god only knows when they last stepped into a classroom. Most manage to catch up and obtain GCSEs so yes, your daughter really will be ok.

Ok thanks. I do realise I'm being overdramatic perhaps when there are people worse off.
Just overwhelmed with the upset today I guess.

She will catch up. I missed loads of school when I was in the first few years or nursery and primary school due to illness. I didn’t even attempt any work at home as I was unwell and the rest of the class were in and so no resources. By year 6 I had caught up and managed good SATs grades, and went on to get good GCSEs, A levels, a degree and a masters. I haven’t even given it a thought really.

What I would do in your position is to concentrate on the basics of the core subjects. Writing and basic maths skills. Forget about all the filler stuff if she’s not coping well but get the core learning done.

Hi OP. I get where you're coming from, without having to consider the impact of a pandemic.

DD is Y8 now and has always struggled with maths. For years I stupidly let myself be fobbed off with comments similar to you (often by parents of kids who were either doing ok or excelling so very easy for them to say). I would pester school like a dog with a bone and met wit( her class teacher every term to sit down face to face and discuss her (lack of) progress. I'd ask for what they were covering so we could reinforce at home and would religiously do these things with her. And it often ended in tears. For both of us

Our small turning point came when she hit Y6 and we arranged for a tutor once a week for 45 mins and boosted her confidence enormously. She also engaged with her in a way I couldn't. Our plan had been to start those sessions back up at the start of last year . I get that we were lucky to be able to afford this and not everyone will have that luxury.

So yes, I think you need to be firm and polite but persistent with school because maths is like a ladder - once you start to struggle and fall behind it's very hard to catch back up again. I bitterly regret not pushing it with school more and not getting a tutor sooner (I waited for the last one as I accepted all the assurances from school like "don't worry, she'll get there". It's on me for accepting this). She's still struggling and to be honest I'll be very surprised if she manages to get a GCSE pass without the help of a tutor. And without that it narrows future options massively. This thought makes me feel quite sick.

I would get in touch with school in writing ASAP and discuss how (yes, I get there is a pandemic and it's going to be hard work for all concerned) you can work together to give her the support you need. Because not all kids will catch up if you leave it too late. I'd agree with mouse to concentrate on the basics and operations to get the foundations solid.

Sending you OP, I know it's tough. And apologies for dumping my experience on you! Hopefully you'll be on the right track soon.

I'm inclined to agree with previous poster--parents who keep coming out with the "cool laid back parent" comments are often those who either have kids who are naturally very able or are actually pushing and working with their kids a lot more than they'll let on. Don't panic. But do get the foundations right. It sounds like she's wobbly with a lot of stuff they're expected to know by now. Can you afford tutoring? Six is quite young, but my own daughter started online tutoring at about that age. Just having someone who is not a parent there might really help.

I have a year 2 DC August born and this is my worry too. Thanks for posting

Perhaps buy the KS1 Maths learning and question books and sit on the sofa and work it out together, slowly and calmly no expectations and look online for handy exercises that you can incorporate in your daily life that covers the same thing.

Rather than have battles online.

I agree with Mouse. Focus on the key skills, numbers, reading and writing and take it back to as basic level as she needs. Communicate with her teachers, tell them where the gaps in her knowledge and understanding is, ask for support with the teaching. If you haven’t already, get yourself a Twinkl account, the resources on there is what they use in schools anyway and it goes down to preschool level. In free time you can add in music, art etc and make sure that she’s not being run into the ground with just academic stuff but drop back on the complex level if it’s too much.

I think the key point is who are they catching up with? All children are having their education disrupted to some extent and some will be more disadvantaged than others but there isn't a level that all children need to be at at a specific date.

What every teacher looks at is where the child is, what they are aiming for and how to get there. That won't change. In every class (even without a pandemic) children are at different starting points and progress at different levels.

Year 2 is sats year so it's clear where they need to get to. Have a look at the sats papers.
My dc1 is very bright- years ahead on reading. But summer born. Got a bit behind in yr 1 maths. So in yr 2 we did some extra at home. Using Mathseeds and cgp books etc.
I definitely found the weird way maths is done now lots of number bonds and jumping to get answers instead of column add sub didnr help. Once we moved to that in yr 3 that helped

I am quite relaxed because of my personal experience.
I moved to different country when I was secondary age, didn't speak the language, so most of year+ was spent just learning the language. I caught up. And again, I went back to my own country after 3 years, missed all the education exclusive to my native country like language and history for all those years. Still caught up.
As long as you keep up with basics, the children, especially younger ones would be fine.

I started school at 7 yrs old, in a foreign country, not speaking a word of arabic. Then 6 months in moved to an int'l school and I did not speak a word of english.
Then went back to home country when I was 11 - totally diff curriculum, but at least I understood most of what was said. There was almost 2 years worth of gap at that point.
Finished all my schools on time, have multiple diplomas.
Your daughter will be fine.

Also: don't "teach" her math. Use it in everyday scenarios constantly. It's basic 1-100, +, - at this point. You can incorporate it into everything almost.

What I found was even if I tried incorporating "casual" learning into the day I.e "Ooh look DD, Squashies are on offer this week, how much cheaper are they than last week?" or asking how much change we'd get from a tenner after paying for a cinema ticket, she'd sniff it out a mile away as Maths Learning and would get flustered, stressed then refuse to even try. It's remarkable how, despite everything you try not to make it such, quickly it becomes a battle.

Appreciate I'm maybe too invested in this due to how close she is to GCSEs now and my regret for not being more pushy is seriously clouding my view.

I think it's a bit unfair to say that parents shouldn't worry "because imagine what refugees do". On that basis very very few people have any right to post on anything worrying them.

Hippoay correct me but I assume they're not just put in with their peer group and expected to figure it out themselves.

Op of she's behind you need to talk to school. She's 6, if she's sitting quietly in a zoom class of course the teacher can't know she's struggling so contact them, tell them and ask for help.

I'm a secondary science teacher with a Y3 DS. Homeschooling is hard. Here is what I am doing:
Read every day to them, from a book just beyond their own reading ability. Really enthuse about the book and say things like "ooh I wonder what will happen next" or "I wonder why she did that".
Plan out your fun activities for the day in the morning, but get them to write out the plan, like a story "today we will...".
This is like hiding veg in the dinner... don't make it explicit "teaching".
For maths, I have a CGP 10 minute weekly workout book for year 3. Here, I result to bribery. 1 hour in the garden for 1 ten minute worksheet.

I would ‘reset’ for a week if you’ve had crying every day. Just stop and do fun things.

Then after things are generally less stressful work out what works for you. We do one maths sheet a day, one writing sheet and the read some books together. Any resistance or any day he doesn’t feel up to it we stop. The lack of pressure means he’s actually more likely to engage the next day after an ‘off’ day. He’s 6. We usually get 3/4 good days out of the week then a couple where he just won’t engage so I leave it.

I get you’re worried about them being behind but if they are in a state about it they won’t be learning anyway.

I agree with tellmewhen You're not being over dramatic at all .And I'm afraid that there is often a lot of "don't worry/reassurance " from school which can often be missplaced .

Lots of bright ,motivated people do catch up but I think they are the exception not the rule .

I often feel like those that miss lots of school and catch up without issue are hiding an awful lot of kids who survived war zones or whatever the circumstances and didn't thrive or succeed. I'm not sure we want to hear those stories or maybe they don't get spoken of.

My kid is struggling with reading. He hates it and it has become a battle ground. I'll be finding money for a tutor in the hope it helps him. I have zero confidence he'll magically catch up given his frankly pretty lazy temperament ☺️

I think that most children do catch up. However, having seen how our kids' education has more or less been parked for two entire terms, the people who used to insist that term-time holidays are "terrible" for a child's academic progress and want parents fined for taking their children out for a couple of days here and there can shut up for good!

I've worked with sick children who had years out of education and caught up.

I worked with adolescents with mental health problems a few years ago too who maybe only had a 20% attendance at secondary school, caught up with a 3 of them a couple years back for this service peer review thing, one had gone on to study medicine, one nursing and while I don't know what the third was doing they appeared well spoken and together.

Not saying this applies to everyone. But in a lot of circumstances it definitely is possible to catch up.

I found the same thing with my DC last lockdown. Having always been told they were fine and middle of the road, it turned out that they were quiet, caused no trouble, but had large fundamental gaps in their learning. I got the CGP books for their years and went through the lot, stopping at every point they didn't understand, to teach the missing information.

They went back to school this september having improved far beyond their expected level in maths (a problem area for maths). Achieving this took about an hour and a half of focused, guided one to one each day, just for maths.

It was time-consuming, but fairly easy to teach. Very heavy bribery was involved in getting them to do it. The CGP books are a godsend for telling you what they should know, I recomend them.

I hate this notion of “they’ll catch up”. A lot of them won’t. It’s usually spouted by parents whose kids don’t need much encouragement, are keen to learn and have natural ability.

We will be feeling the effects of this missed schooling for years to come. Kids will be joining secondary not secure in the basics and they will be lacking confidence.

I also have an August born year 2 daughter and its such hard work getting her to do anything. I'm. basically just trying to get her to do the Maths, English, Topic of the week and reading. Im not pushing all the other bits.