Do you think our educational standards are too low by expecting too much too early

[ReallyTired]

Ie. in Europe many children start school at seven after several years in nursery. They develop good fine motor skills and spoken language before they are expected to learn to read and write.

My son is six years old and is expected to write a story for homework, but he finds it a nightmare even to form his letters. Is this a homework for him or for me?

Prehaps there would be fewer dyslexic/ SEN children if children were taught to read and write when developmentally ready. A very high proportion of children with statements are summer born boys!

I think that year 1 children are expected to be able to run before they can walk. If children in the UK spent longer on the basics ie. If they spent time learning to add and substract before being asked to apply their maths knowledge to situations. Prehaps young children are better at improving their spelling and writing rather than writing in different genre.

Countries like Finland over take the UK and have better educated adults. No one there seems harmed by a later start to education.

I agree. There is too much pressure too soon and it can put kids off education at an early age especially if they are made to feel thick.

Hi! I'm Finnish and I have to agree with you. The Finnish kids start shool at seven, they have long summer holidays (10 weeks), shorter school days, free lunches, lots of music sport and art, and no league tables or SATS. The teacher concentrate on the lower achieving students a lot, hence no big gaps between top and bottom groups. This is better for the whole society I think. All the teachers have to have Masters Degrees to teach, no teaching colleges there. Teaching is a highly regarded profession, and competition is quite fierce to get into Uni to study teaching. Also in Finland the "working classes" want their children to do well at school, and encourage learning. Excellent libraries help too. What am I actually doing in Britain, can someone remind me?

Actually, I don't agree. DD learnt to read in nursery but wasn't allowed to read write or count for the first two terms in reception. Bored stupid. Lost interest. Still hasn't really regained it. I think that too little is expected, and there is too much worry about them being bored, ie learning tables by rote is boring so do it some other way so they're still learning them at 8 instead of having them off pat by the time they're 6. And what's this rubbish about 'understanding' multiplication? Learn the tables, then you'll realise at some point that it's a quick way of adding up - so what?

How do you actually know though that she is "bored stupid"? Surely she is developing her social skills etc.at school? The Finnish children never start any formal learning until they are six, but regularly come at the top of the tables in the world. The UK ranked 22 this year I think. Even Poland and Estonia ranked higher. Something is not right, don't you think?

yes i agree with you op 100%. my ds(6) was referred to speech and language at 3.5, then occupational therapy. realistically i don't think they have done anything useful really (and should have been used for children who really need the service). he is catching up naturally now.

and it has just caused me years of worry when i should have just been encouraging him to go at his own pace.

and i do think girls are different, to me it seems to be the summer born boys that struggle (ime) ds is still only 6 and in year 2.

barnstaple, reception is about learning social skills. Most children love reception.

I think its quite important for children to understand Maths. Children need to apply Maths in real life and this is impossible to do unless you understand it. What is the rush, why do children need to know their tables at six years old. I think that six year olds are better off playing with mathematical malipulatives like cuisaire rods, than chanting tables.

Countries like Hungry where they are strong at Maths, start school later than us and spend a lot of nursery getting children to understand mathematical language through play.

Having just spent the last hour with DS (6.5 and an August b'day) getting him to do his maths homework, I totally agree. He is struggling a bit with maths so the teacher has given him extra to be done at some stage but having had a battle royal to get him to just do his basic homework I am dreading it.

And ReallyTired - am laughing to myself as guess where we are? Hungary! But DS is in British school.

My daughter started in French system French-English école maternelle here in Paris, aged 2.10, last September.

She has done half days in a half size class with children born within six months of one another for the first year. She is now 3.6. Since September she has learnt a lot of social skills and has started to write letters and use numbers (count, add and subtract) up to ten, as well as paint, model etc to develop finger strength. She sings nursery rhymes in English and French and the children are all going to be in the school end of year show on 20 June.

So far I am very happy, and although there are many things about the French educational system I don't like (lack of sport and creative subjects), I love the emphasis on the basic tools of literacy and numeracy and am glad she has another two years (of full days) of this ahead of her before proper school.

I think that any teacher worth their salt would spot a very able child and provide provision suited to that need. The same applies to any child who is working at a different level. However, I think that the European way is far better than the British way and yes I agree too much is expected in year1.
I think a more 'Reception' orientated style of teaching in Year1 would be far more beneficial [learning through play] especially for boys. For example, boys muscles in their arms and wrists actually don't develop as quickly as girls [I think I read somewhere], hence boys more often than not seem to be lagging behind in handwriting. Later on in school life I think it shows that if your child was quick to pick up writing and number work early on, you will also find most other children catch up to the same level at some point also.
Children in other parts of Europe do far better than ours [leaving 'formal' teaching to much later], and there is far more to Education than the 'Three R's!'

My children have differed hugely in how they are when young. Daughter 2 was reading at three. Daughter 1 was nearly 6 but they ended up at 18 with virtually identical exam results. They were just very different personalities. When daughter 2 was doing school entrance tests at 5 they couldn't find a book she couldn't read. It would have been a shame not to have taught her to read when she wanted to learn - she learned at her first pre school.

Also for those of us wanting our children to pass exams for some of the better schools at 7+ or 11+ if they get ahead I'm afraid that does help them and then those schools tend to get better A levels and then right through life that child is doing well. Of course you can opt out of that system perfectly easily but if you want the child to have that leg up and help and IF the child is clever or advanced at a younger age then it's a great start to give them.

treaclepudd - there is no "European way" though.

In France there are three years of highly structured école maternelle. The teachers are primary school qualified teachers and the children are at school for 24 teaching hours a week (used to be 26 - the change is happening this September). Children start école maternelle in the September of the calendar year in which they have their third birthday and stay there for three years.

Each country is different.

I have no objection to children learning through play or attending nursery. A good nursery will stretch a bright child without making a less developed child feel thick.

My son year one class has groups for numeracy. The top group is called pentagons and the bottom group is called circles. There are five groups and the greater the number of sides, the higher the group.

My son made the comment that the "circles" group have no brains, which is why their shape was like a zero. I told my son off, but I felt sickened he had come out with comment.

In year one differences in ablity are mostly age related. A lot of the children in the circles group are summer born boys, where as the pentagons are September born girls. My son is in a middle group as he was born new years eve.

I think that labelling children into such blantently obvious groups must damage children's self esteem and make other children very pig headed.

yes i agree rt and splitting them at that age is just awful. i blame the SATs for alot of it.

my older son is september born and has always got along fine at school. i just can't understand why we want them to grow up and conform so quickly (or institutionalise them).

SEA: Yes why do we wish our childrens' childhoods away? They are little for such a short while.

who knows, i just hope that it can catch the children with dyslexia earlier than before

southestastra
Do you think that dyslexia could be caused by having certain stages of education at the wrong time. Ie. if you try and teach a four year old phonics and they don 't get because they are too young. The structure of the national curriculum makes life hard for later developers.

In countries like Finland children learn to read in a term. Admitally Finish has a far easier phonics structure than English, but it must help that conditions like glue ear are very rare in seven year olds.

i have no experience of dyslexia rt but just hope this constant monitoring of children would can help the children that need it.

Yes I do think we expect too much of children to early.
Wales is going to be doing the foundation phase from September for all 3-7 year olds. This is learning through play. This is basically learning through play( structured play) The children won't be put undre presure to perform for tests.

barnstaple on Sun 18-May-08 17:42:14
"Actually, I don't agree. DD learnt to read in nursery but wasn't allowed to read write or count for the first two terms in reception. Bored stupid. Lost interest. "

Xenia on Sun 18-May-08 18:17:18

"When daughter 2 was doing school entrance tests at 5 they couldn't find a book she couldn't read. It would have been a shame not to have taught her to read when she wanted to learn - she learned at her first pre school."

My experience of the Scandinavian system is that a child as able as this would have taught themselves to read anyway long before school. I certainly did and so did those of my friends who were ready for it. It's not as if letters and books are not available outside of a school environment. Those who were motivated did it for themselves. The rest picked it up in a couple of months after starting school at 7.

The main difference was that we also learnt a wide range of practical skills: preparing a basic meal, baking cakes, basic sewing (very basic in my case), using tools, skiing, skating and a wide range of outdoor survival skills. Noone could possible be bored stupid doing all these things.

I am amazed at how little dc's friends know outside of their school work. I know 11 -year-olds who can't even make a cup of tea, let alone fix themselves lunch. When I was that age I could cook a 3 course meal.

The difference is that it takes a lot longer for english children to learn to read and write than scandanavian languages. It take 18 months compared to just a few months in most european languages. Americans who don't start until 6 are 18 months behind by the time they are 10.
Also the english system is a lot more gradual with a lot of play in reception whereas I know in germany it goes from play all day to full time formal schooling and it is a nasty shock for the children.
My son is dyslexic and didn't click with reading until he was 7, but he does read well but has problems with writing and spelling. He was more than ready for school at 5 because he was very bright. People on these boards seem to think infants is just about reading and writing it's not. My children did cooking in infants, they played a lot, they learnt about growing up .
My son is 12 and can cook home made pancakes for breakfast, scrambled egg on toast etc

cory - same here in France, the children don't seem to have any practical skills at all

When I was a child in England in a private girls prep school, we did lots of practical things; my SAH mother taught me masses of practical things too, and Brownies filled in the gaps.

My sister's children at school in Holland seem to do the most amazing range of practical skills, starting age 3 - my niece has learnt to do her own hair and ride a bicycle at pre-school, in her first year.

Cory, you are so right. I knew an English boy who went to live in Finland with his parents. In the Kindergarden he basically jumped off a big cliff thinking he was Superman and could fly. Any Finnish boy would have already at that age had a far greater range of physical skills and would not have got into such trouble.

Agree with OP.
I have two children who were damaged by a school system that hasn't got the time to let them develop at their own pace.