Is this par for the course in Year 1?

[Goldberry]

I had hoped to avoid being a pushy parent, but I'm a bit concerned about dd's school. She goes to a VERY small village school.In Foundation last year she read with a teacher or TA very regularly and was given a new reading book every few days at least. I had sort of expected that in Year 1 there would be a bit more learning and a bit less play, drawing etc., but I am getting the impression they don't really do anything much at all.
Dd hasn't had a new reading book for 2 weeks (again), meaning she hasn't done any individual reading during that time. It's Book Week FGS! When I ask her what she's done at school, she rarely mentions much that I would consider to be very educational. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting her to be sitting in silence doing quadratic equations aged 5, but I don't want her to think school is for just mucking about.
The school had an open day yesterday and I went along to show willing. I would have tbought they'd be trying to show themselves at their best, but the Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 children seemed to be sitting drawing or wandering about aimlessly without much supervision.
Am I just being old-fashioned or am I right to be concerned. (Ishould probably mention that I am a Secondary school teacher!)

Have you got time to offer the class some reading time? I have to say that my DS 6 and they are changing the reading books twice a week but only if the parents are helping the kids to read at home and record this fact in the diary. I have decided to get involved in PTA as I feel I'll be kept in the loop then.
I work part-time 3 days a week. So I think I could spare 1 hour maybe a month (not a lot but it would seem less pushy if you could see with your own eyes what is going on and assist.
As far as what children tell you goes on I think My Ds's whole school have just made paper aeroplanes for the last 2 weeks! The Big kids are making them for the little kids and that all they talk about at the mo!

Thanks for replying, Nuttybear. I shall soon have a bit of time, as ds is starting pre-school after half-term. I would be more than happy to do it, but I just wonder how they don't have time to. There are so few children (fewer than 45 in the whole school!) and what seems like a surprisingly large number of staff. I'll offer my help though- I hope they don't realise think I'm interfering!

Goldberry, just so you can compare, every half term we get a curriculum leaflet which tells us what the children will be studying in each subject. Also at the start of this term we had a meet the teachers session where they talked us through the weekly timetable the class would follow. So I'd say go and ask if they have a timetable/ curriculum information they can give you. If they can't do that, then yes worry! We're a fairly run of the mill, inner city primary and I don't think our being given that level of information is exceptional.

You know what you have to do as a spy Keep your mouth shut, ears open. I must admit I'm not good at that ha! ha!

Thanks, smee. We were offered a chance at the beginning of term to make an appointment to talk to the Head of Teaching and Learning about what the children would be expected to be doing this year. I made my appointment, looking forward to finding out what would be going on. However, it turned out to be a 3 minute meeting where he showed me a slip of paper showing the expected levels for a Year 1 child in each area of the curriculum. This did not really tell me anything about the content of what they would be learning. He also showed me a copy of dd's report (which I already had), about which he made some very vague comments, showing that he did not know dd at all (hardly surprising as he only started in September) and that he had made no effort to check details about her even though he was having a meeting with me. I just feel like they are going through the motions of communicating with parents, but without actually telling us anything useful.

What did the last Ofsted say about the school? Are there any alternatives? Might the lack of learning be why there are only 45 children?

We are Year 1 here and there is a massive change from the Foundation Unit. We turned up the first day to find all the children sitting down at tables etc - and they study subjects like history (toys) now. I understand that they are doing the properties of 3D shapes in numeracy. We have yet to have our curriculum talk for this year yet, so I will know more then.

They do have a little 'choosy' time, but only after they have finished work. We get reading books changed once a week, and 10 spellings per week and a test on Friday.

For book week all the children had to write a book review at home, a real life famous author came in (sorry, I never heard of him) and events were ongoing in the children's library. Some classes were taken to local public library to hear yet another famous author (sorry the name escapes me again).

DD's writing has really come on leaps and bounds, but DD wants to go back to the Foundation Unit where they could play all day!

We are a fairly small one-form entry school, so much much bigger than a village school but small compared to lots of other urban schools.

DD2 is in Year 1. She is heard reading individually two or three times per week and brings a new reading book home most days. They do maths and literacy every day. She has also started French. We had a Year 1 newsletter at the beginning of term, telling us what topics they are doing "all about me" and DD1 tells me that they have been learning about the five senses.

And this is at a school which is very far from being an exam-factory and generally has a nice, relaxed, child-friendly atmosphere. So no, I wouldn't say that your experience is typical and I'd be asking lots of questions and/or finding an excuse to go in and suss things out for yourself.

At my DCs school they are heard reading only occasionally (on the whole) but they bring home a new book almost every day (ORT etc.) and move on based on the parents comments on reading. They still do a lot of learning through play, but they can give you a curriculum web of what they are learning that half term, and there are weekly updates with what they have done that week, and will do the next week, together with ideas for how you can help.
They have group curriculum evenings at the start of each year where they cover what they will be doing, and warn you about big trips etc.
I would go and talk to the class teacher to start with and then move on to the head. You have a right to know what your daughter is doing, you can ask to look at her books and the room displays. Are they having a parent consultation soon?
Good luck!

It does sound like things are a bit slack - though don't reliy on DC's comments of nothing much going on, I'm sure only the play related stuff is related to you because it's what she likes best at this stage.

Comments about the lack of reading are worrying though. Same little book for 2 weeks sounds bad unless DC is having reading issues, in which case you should have been advised about it anyway.

Can you maybe compare notes with other parents? You should be able to get a "feel" for what's going on, and maybe if you have a meeting with the school (if you can think of a non-threatening reason), you could sound out some issues while you are there and see what the reaction is?

Primary in this area in year one are at least startin to write words and form small simple sentences, each has a book to work in and dated so that you are able to see what has happened each day. some take home slips of pare with words on to learn for the week

I work in a Y1 class and there is still an awful lot of continuous and outdoor provision - what many parents may see as "play" and where the children get quite a lot of choice. But the children are learning through this and the teachers do tend to be guiding children to ensure they experience all the activities out.

Example:

Literacy table - sweet shop beads that have a scoop and all have lower and upper case letters, strings to thread them onto or bags to pur "words" into. Writing frames for phonics based words and spelling.

Numeracy - magnetic numbers and addition/equal sides; number bind strings (10 and 20); lacing cards for numbers; tray of glitter for finger writing

Role play - currently set up as aquarium. Children made the whole lot - fact cards about the fish, tanks of fish, the banners and posters the art work. They have tickets to see, a cash register with money, guides, activitiy sheets, books.

Water play - lots of containers of different sizes; we mix colours in the water to change what colour it is

Book corner

Small world - currently set up with an underwater scene with lots of fish and mermaids to use an interact with

Construction - wooden bricks and lego

Computers - with educational software loaded

Craft - currently with art of the week (Van Gigh) with pastels and dark paper to recrreate their own version

Outdoor - taken out in groups; been doing chalk work. Dranwn out calculator for doing some addition work, number bonds hopscotch and I drew out a snakes and ladders board too.

In amongst all this we also have "proper" work going on. The teacher and TA work with groups on a set literacy or numeracy take, we may be doing a guided read or doing some IEP work.

There is also some carpet time every morning - literacy or numeracy based, and we have 15 min phonics every day.

During assembly some intervention work takes place too.

It's tken me a while to get my head round as DD's school is more traditional (which does actual suit her personaility more) but it does appear to work.

(I don't do afternoons so can't comment on that)

Our chuldren are reading and writing and doing maths, and they cover pther subjects such as geography and history, science, etc.

We have children at all levels from still learning letter sounds to being able to read books fluently and with comprehension. Similarly the writing varies. One child is still learning to form letters, most are writing words and sentences, some are writing over a side of A4.

DD is in year 1 and they are starting the more serious stuff in January - they see the first term as 'transitional' - so still a lot of play!
Not sure how many times they hear her read, but kids can change their books every day if they want to, or parents can do it for them. I pick a new book for DD every second day or so, at drop off or pick up time.
At the moment they are making little books about themselves.

What would you say is the average Hula for writing e.g. writing a few sentences or just one? I know that the normal range is very wide so I do mean the average.

Hmm - in the class I am in this year - writing 2-3 sentences would be average, using emergent spelling.

We had a slow book change in reception until i asked if i could just change the books myself. Relising how bright all the kids were and how keen most of the parents were, the class teacher soon allowed kids and adults to have full access to her Biff and Chip collection! They had almost all finished the reading scheme and were on to free reading very quickly as a result.

For my daughter the reception year was quite academic compared to friends schools - although there was still a good amount of play really.

Year one was a reasonable step up but still had some degree of free play. Year 2 was much much more academic with little thought to free play at all - although they were still very creative thankfully.

I second Hulababy's comments. Year 1 is supposed to start off as being very play-based similar to reception because it's a transition year from Foundation to KS1 curriculum. It should build up as becoming more activity based as the year progresses so that by the time they reach year 2 this is the norm. Saying that even in year 2 lots of the evidence gathered for SATS comes from observations of children completed quite open ended play type activities.

Remember children in most European countries do no formal learning at all till their 7 and have all free play until then. They make amazing progress after that because they are ready so in my humble opinion, the more play experience children have the better for their learning.

It's always nice to have parents offer to come in and help out in class as extra pairs of hands are always needed, but we're not daft. We know you're coming in to spy on us really :)