Being kept back in nursery for a year

[pepsi]

Can anyone help me, my little boy is 4 and is at a private nursery, he is due to go up to reception in september when he will be four and half. His nursery doubt he will be able to cope as he doesnt hold a pencil properly and doesnt join in answering questions or in talks about what they did at the weekend end, he is very insular at nursery and is happy to play by himself, thus most children dont involve him in play now. When he was alsmot three he had grommets put in, before then he suffered terribly with ear infections and sickness and his speech was below average, since the grommets his speech has improved greatly and he doesnt get sick anymore. Apparently he was 50% below normal hearing up until then.

At home he is different, he talks all the time, asking Why to everything which he doesnt do at nursery, he plays with other children, initiating it himself, he has a sister who is two who is very advanced for her age. He is the most lovely little boy, sleeps well as is very loving and likeable, everyone we know loves him.

At nursery he has seen a special needs teacher and they have their concerns, dyspraxia has been metnioned but nothing certain, we are waiting for an appointment to see a specialist to check this out further, but Im not convinced, he loves being read to at home, can pedal a bike and is a wiz at making wooden train tracks and enjoys cooking and is good at climbing and playing in the park.

This week the nursery suggested he stay in nursery for another year to increase his confidence, whilst I can see the logic in this I have my reservations as it would mean he would be five and half before he started reception. Has anyone got a child who has been kept back a year who could advise me on the pros and cons of this. At home he can count to 10, recognise his numbers (after a lot of effort) and is now recognising his letters and sounds, mainly t, a, s, e, m, n, but is really getting there, at nursery he doesnt display his talents. I think he is really bright, its breaking my heart so any help from anyone would really be appreciated. Im wondering if a private nursery is just too much for him and he would be better off in a good state primary, but Im worried about changing schools and getting it wrong, he likes smaller groups and works better in them so a big class probably wount help.

Kittypickle.....What you have written really helps and something that I will mention to the specialist when we see one. Out of interest did your daughter have problems in crossing her legs sitting on the floor. When Ds first started at nursery the teacher asked me to practice this at home as he was struggling, it took a few weeks but then he got it, although its not his preferred way of sitting. Other children seemed to manage this effortless, it is the case that our Ds really needs to be taught how to do some things over and over, he can dress himself now but only when he wants to and if he can be bothered. Was your daughter interested in jigsaws?

Everyones being so kind..........I think I might cry....especially in my current state......... you are all really helping me. Theres so much to say and its hard to condense everything from a 4 year olds life so that everyone can get the best picture.

Ive just thought of something else that I should have mentioned. Our Dd is due to start in Ds's nursery class in April 2005 when she will be 3, if he was kept back it would mean that until September they would be in the same nursery class, same room everything. Dd is really bright, she is just 2 and already can count to 10, beginning to recognise numbers, knows her colours and some shapes and talks non-stop, her vocabulary is advanced for her age, I really do have the two extremes on my hands and although its great to see her doing well, it hurts to see the gap narrowing between their abilities. I dont think it will be good for our Ds to be with her, esp if she continues to progress the way she is now. Has anyone thoughts on this?

Pepsi -- I have no real experience of special needs, unlike a lot of people here, but I do find it surprising that the school/nursery seem to view your ds as a problem, since what you are describing wouldn't seem particularly out of the ordinary in my children's very mixed inner-london primary school. Their classes have ranged from kids two or three years ahead of average to children several years below, and taking in some pretty extreme behaviour on the way.

Do people think that perhaps a private school might be used to a more homogenous intake, and less relaxed about coping with behaviour that doesn't fit in with their fairly narrow expectations? Certainly in the state system it can be quite hard to get children put in classes outside their age group -- I have a friend whose twins were 12 weeks premature and August birthdays to boot, and despite them really struggling, the school are resisting putting them back a year.

Sorry, no particular suggestions as to how best to meet your son's needs, just the observation that the state schools of my acquaintance work very hard at meeting the needs of all the children (lots of small group work) without stigmatising them, from whatever point they're starting at.

I would urge for him to be kpet with his age group, his social development and "fitting in" with his peers is essential and schools are so much better eqipped if there is a true problem such as dyspraxia etc... My son had a boy with dyspraxia and quite severe learnign difficulties who stayed with his year group all the way so far and has improved so much along the way with the support of the other kids.
From the sounds of it he is not feeling free to express with his nurseery, a school would work with you as well, the numbers may be an issue though, it is pretty hard to get numbers under 30 in most areas nowadays.
Hope it all goes ok
xx

I'd also have misgivings about having both potentially in the same nursery class, even for just a term. Think that could be more damaging to his self esteem than moving on.

Hope the visit to Reception goes well tomorrow. As another thought do the kids who are moving up from the Nursery spend any time in Reception this term to acclimatise ?

LIZS, Go straight to the Head's room and then bring me 50 lines "I must agree with Davros"....

I'm embarrassed to say that I'm not sure if she had problems crossing her legs, she can OK now but hunches forward when she sits like that and doesn't look very comfortable. As she finds things hard to do she got into the cycle of saying she couldn't do things and wouldn't try. She took a long time to consistently get dressed on her own, even now she has times when she can't be bothered at home and wants help. Get a big box of tissues, sit down and have a good cry and you will feel better I promise ! Then you can carry on thinking about what to do.

pepsi- if you suspect dyspraxia see if you get a copy of Madelain Portwood's book "developmental dyspraxia". It's often easy to get in libraries aand well worth a browse. It will help you find the right questions to ask anyone who does assess your son.

ONe good teaching method is "backward chaining". So if you are teaching your son to say put on a sock you start by leaving him to do the very last bit, gradually giving him more to do as he masters each stage. We've used this to teach my 5 year old son everything physical pretty much although we haven't managed putting on shoes, socks or trousers yet- although that may be becuase we haven;'t got round to tackling it. It takes time but it does work.

My son is also dyspraxic and he had to be taught everything to do with movement- eg drinking from a cup took about a week of me holding my hands over his tipping the cup back etc- having to teach movements can be a sign of dyspraxia. He is quite good a familiar puzzles but again its just practice for him. My younger son (2) who I think has verbal dyspraxia is having to be taught how to say a lot of words- luckily he picks it up pretty quickly - but I have noticed with speech he needs that "teaching" and that's partly why I suspect verbal dyspraxia with him.

Somehting else that can really help dyspraxia (and there are now studies to show this) is fish oils. Efalex available from Boots was used in some studies. If you get no response after a couple of months (or a bad response) it is worth changing brands as they have slightly different combinations of oils. That's an easy thing to try though- and can have very good results.

To me it sounds like the biggest problem is your ds's nursery. I would highly recommend putting him into reception, (as he sounds absolutely fine at home) BUT doing it in another school. Maybe he needs a school that is less rigid or more encouraging of his desire to do things differently. I too hated to sit with my legs crossed at nursery. I prefered to sit on my bottom with my legs bent behind me. It's a position that is extremely uncomfortable for most people, but very comfortable for me. When I was in nursery, I was put in a nursery that tried to insist that I sit cross legged instead of in my own "weird" way. My mother took me out after a week and put me in a different nursery where I thrived. (I have since managed to acquire 3 degrees, so I don't think not crossing your legs is a sign of future performance in school). By the way, it must be genetic, as both my children sit in this odd way and people are always commenting on it. Anyway, I digress. I suspect that you will find that your ds will thrive in the right school AND with the right teacher, as he is clearly thriving at home with you. (So what if he doesn't like jigsaws. Neither do I...think they're moronic.) It's certainly worth trying for a term at a new school. Maybe you could even contact your local state primary with a nursery attached and see if they could take him for the rest of the summer term and see how he does. Not every child will be a confident one and a good teacher should be able to teach every type of child, not just the confident ones. Good luck. Your ds sounds lovely and way too underappreciated at his current nursery.

Jimjams have you any advice on how to get them to take fish oils, I have tried halib orange fish oil and the one from Child of our Time, the name escapes me at the moment, have tried vanilla and lemon, he took them for a while but I put it in an anyway up cup and most of it stuck to the lid, he went off it overnight and refused to take it. Ive tried it in a cup but if he can see the oil floating on top he thinks its dirty and doing it on a spoon....well impossible.

My hubbie thinks I should have expressed further how bad his confidence is. Although he is great at home over the last few weeks at home he has started to say he cant do things, I dont know if this is just a phase that they go through or something he's heard othes say or if he really means it. I will try JimJams method on getting dressed as well. The nursery seems to be getting a real slating, in their defence they really have been trying with Thomas and really do want to help, his teacher has 4 boys, three of whom are dyslexic so she is not unsympathetic, I really like his teacher. I really wish my ds could explain exactly how he feels, at this age I dont like to ask to many heavy questions. Oh well, off to bed now to hopefully sleep and not lie awake, will let everyone know how I get on tommorrow. Thanks to everyone.

I put the oil on his toast (but let it cool down first- the oil shouldnt be heated) and then put jam on top. I have to start getting tablespoons of the stuff into him over the next few months so may have revise my method- but this has owrked well for a number of years. Works best with oils that don't have too strong a flavour (efalex is very fishy and eye Q can be very limey) and sometimes easier to do if you buy capsules and cut them open. For a long time we used Nordic Naturals Pro Efa bought from the States, which was in capsules. His nutritionist has put him on Nordic Naturals pure cod liver oil which is in a bottle- I do like Nordic Naturals though, unflavoured and not too fishy- and good quality (it must be good quality- check that the bottle says its been purified otherwise you'll be dishing out a dose of mercury as well!)

Best of luck for today, Pepesi. Let us know how it goes. xx

Or even 'Pepsi'!

Pepsi, the poor lamb! Having his confidence bashed at a young age His teacher sounds good, have you had a good heart-to-heart with her? THat might help.

Pepsi - re the fish oils. There was a tip on here about cutting up jelly sweeties (Haribo or similar), and learning to swallow progressively larger lumps: and then move on to the fish oil capsules. It never occurred to me that my boys (aged 4 and 6) could learn to take capsules in this way, but they mastered it in about 5 minutes. Now they take a huge (1000 mg) capsule every morning.

Hope you slept well last night. I was reading your thread yesterday and wasn't sure what to post. It's hard to get a picture of a child sometimes. My first reaction was that the nursery/school were rather pushy and expecting a lot of the children: none of the issues seem particularly acute to me, for his age. But you do seem to have confidence in his teacher; I would go in and talk to her again, and ask whether the 'staying back' would be her preferred/advised option.

How closely linked are the school/nursery? And how flexible are they? I know of a boy who sounds similar in some ways to your ds at this age. (He had major ear problems in his early years, and this affected his development. His speech and social skills were definitely rather behind.) The school arranged for him to go into reception as normal, but to spend some time in nursery in the afternoon to do some more active work on social skills with the younger children, who were at a more comparable level. He has come on tremendously in the past 6 months, and I think is in reception full-time now, and doing well.

Hi there, well Ive been to nursery today and spoke to ds teacher and the headmistress of the school. His teacher feels ds really would benefit from being held back by way of giving him a really good grounding on his letters and sounds and also confidence, but understood exactly where I was coming from with my issues. The Headmistress assured me that they would do everything they could to help and we can all have a meeting about it once we have seen a specialist and had our next hearing test, etc. she said he might be able to mix between both classes, get special help from the special needs teacher who they have come in once a week, whatever it takes really. His reception class will be a maximum of 15 so that in itself will be good as he is much better in small groups. I met both of the reception teachers and liked them both, especialy the one whom ds would be with, very enthusiasitic. I sat in with the reception class and had a lovely time, they are all reading now and what writing I saw was joined up like the date for instance. I have to say I cant imagine my ds reading by this time next year but I expect everyone feels like thats.......learning to read is just amazing isnt it. Both the nursery and receptions were taken to the park today too and I went along to help, it was lovely being at the park with them......I dont know how but I came back dirtier than all of them. Im helping out with a farm trip too now during which hopefully I can help ds to be more chatting to the other children.....again I didnt see him talk to anyone other than me. The headmistress agree that it would not be good for Ds and dd to be in the same nursery class and in any event she said that it might not happen anyone, it all depends on space at the time, she only goes for 1 day a week so it wouldnt hurt her to delay going in anyway.

I am reassured now that if he was held back it wouldnt necessarily be for a whole year, and as its a private nursery they dont have to stick to any rules so they can literally mix and match to suit him. Once again I cant fault the nursery. Perhaps in my ds's case everyone is just to advanced for him, I think he does what a normal 4 year old can do....oh yes and last night he made an effort of writing his name for the first time without a highlighter, we could definately see it was his name, a real moment and definate progress. The holding the pencil issue seems to be huge with the school....is it a big issue? he manages ok actually how he does hold it, at 4 is that important to get it exactly right? Off to get some lunch now.

Pepsi my heart goes out to you, you are in an horrible situation, but to re-iterate what others have said, please seek professional opinion and don't just take this from your school. Ed Pysch is the place to start. I would in your position keep an open mind about the choice for reception, but remember that many (most?) kids join reception from another school/playgroup so he won't be the only one starting over. Good luck

Sounds far more positive. ds is still inconsistent in his pencil grip but it is much improved in the past couple of months and his writing along with it. Reception is generally where most children learn their phonics etc and I'm slightly shocked that they are joining their writing so early but perhaps I'm just out of touch. If they have other children coming straight into the Reception classes from outside the school I doubt that they would be any more advanced than your son, if not less so. However it may be that they feel the social side is overriding the academic.

It might help you to look at the DES website which breaks the National Curriculum down by year and give you a feel for general expectations and work covered during the Reception Year.here for example which talks about Literacy. Of course it is possible that your ds' school does not strictly follow this.

Thanks to all. Ive got a pounding headache now, too much thinking! Im not used to it. Have just contacted a state primary school to try and register there, just in case, its not in our catchment but has a good Ofsted Report and the headmistress of ds's school has recommended it for when he is 7 and leaves his current school. I want to take a look at it and try and decide if perhaps the state system, despite the larger groups, might be a better environment for him where children have a much wider range of abilities. I want to be prepare for any eventuality. The catchment for this school is very small so they do take people from outside, we are prepared to move and do whatever anyway if it is what we thought was best. All views appreciated. Educationally his current nursery I think is best, but socially I dont know, its a lovely place but as with everyone when its your first you just dont know as much as you would like.

Oh fergodsake what a crazy system!

Am I right in thinking your ds has just turned four? So he's only just finished being three? Maybe it's having been educated in a country where formal education doesn't start till 6 or 7, but I can't believe that parents and little kids who are only just off being toddlers have to get stressed out about how many letters they can write!!!

In countries where they start school later, children start in September after their 6th birthday, and by Christmas everyone can read. No muss, no fuss. Here it seems that they need to start at three, only to end up at the same point as Scandinavian children by the time they're eight or nine. Makes as much sense to me as starting potty training at 12 months when you know they won't be even vaguely ready till 2 years.

Sorry, Pepsi, that rant was no help to you, just expressing my sympathy that you have to feel as if your lovely little boy, who sounds totally fine to me, is somehow failing to achieve. At just turned four!!!

I'll put my soapbox away now. The (possibly) useful bit of information is that IME state schools put endless trouble and effort into helping children who aren't quite up to speed in all areas, usually involving lots of small group teaching. The actual class size is a bit of a red herring -- what you need to look at is which kids are where and doing what with whom at any given time.

If you walk into any infant class in my kids' school there will be some doing mainstream stuff with the class teacher, others in small groups in the library with classroom assistants or parent volunteers, and some having one-to-one. It's not a perfect system, and the so-called 'normal' kids can sometimes be left too much to their own devices, but it's definitely not one teacher on their own with a mixed bag of thirty-odd infants.

Hope this helps. Just angry really that you're in this situation.

Totally agree, frogs and SofiaAmes. I know it's not helpful but I can't help being a bit shocked- and really sad- at your son's school's expectations and attitude, pepsi. I have to say that I would definitely be looking for another school, if I were you. It sounds like the current place is a bit hot-housey and that may not suit your gorgeous sounding boy. One of my sons (5) is in a v similar place to yours by the sounds of it- total cutie, not great with a pencil yet, not really getting reading yet, etc- and his (state) reception teacher has no worries whatsoever about his progress. Her only concern was around him comparing himself to his twin who is in the same class and finding school work a breeze. I could have hugged her when she said that the ONLY important thing at this stage was to keep his confidence high. Good, non-pushy primaries where teachers genuinely value what each child brings are worth their weight in gold, I think, and this is sometimes where the state sector really shines, IME, though I'm sure there are some private schools that do this well too. I do hope things work out for your boy, whatever you decide to do.

thanks frogs for speaking out about what is really such a C**P system in this country.
So what- he can't hold a pen properly- I bet he will when it becomes interesting enough for him to do so... Far too much pressure these days I mean my god he's a little boy!!! Let him play for godsake.
Sorry.... rant.....@!!!

The confidence issue is something the nursery are really stressing to me, they do think holding him back in nursery will improve his confidence. It is worrying how he doesnt play with the others though. When I went to the park with his class yesterday, a mix of both boys and girls, none of them talked/approached or played with him and him likewise but they all interact with each other. It breaks my heart. I asked him yesterday who he played with, he said the name of one little boy.....he says this name every time I ask and his sister (who he sees at playtime), but no one else, I asked him why and he said no one else is friendly. Put a lump in my throat. But even the boy he says he plays with, whom we have had at the house to play and met at the park, was approaching him, although he did pick a buttercup and gave it to me and said that this was for my ds. Is it "normal" to be like this at 4. My minds racing with trying to sort it all out....if there is indeed anything to sort out.

Sorry, yet another typing error, meant to say, boy who he likes was not approaching him....rushing to get this done whilst hubby does the breakfast.

pepsi, my eldest is 4 in August and starting reception next year. Although there are plenty in her class who can write, she can't at all. In fact yesterday they came home with a castle they had to colour in - lots of kids had done it pencil perfect. My dd's castle was full of blobs and scribbles in the general direction and she had a sticker for good work!! This is because she had stuck at it whereas normally she would have scribbled for a second and given up!

She has been in this nursery class since January and it is only now that she has started actually playing with other children. Her teacher noted that before that she very much kept to herself and would watch from the outside (without being phased by it at all). They call these kids 'the observers' and there are plenty in her class. Their approach was to gently encourage her to play with others who were similar in nature to her. It seems to have worked because I've noticed that when I've asked people round, she has started (but JUST started) to actually play with them.

What I'm trying to say is that not all children are born social butterflies. It is perfectly acceptable not to join in - maybe he's not ready yet.