Are schools pushing reception children too hard?

[gingerhousecat]

General questions to both parents and teachers/assistants alike.

Background as to why asking: My little boy is in reception, he's one of the youngest and loves going to school ( other one is two). I've just started going into the school to volunteer mostly because I want to see what they are doing and how they do things so that I can help at home......

Oliversmumsarmy it sounds like your son's teacher wasn't very good, but a good teacher would use that play to extend their learning. By following lines of questioning, working with children to learn how to negotiate situations. Play is great for learning with the right scaffolding at the appropriate level.

That being said I don't agree with children having to go to school at 4 but that's the system I currently work in so I will do what I can to preserve play in Reception

I don't feel that my ds was pushed in Reception. He did fine, met all targets and seemed very happy. He was towards the top of the class and the new curriculum seemed fine for him.

Agent, I haven't said anywhere in any of my posts that they're allowed to play till 7.
What I have said is that learning through play, if done properly , will equip them well for more formal learning in subsequent year groups. Teaching in reception was for me by far the most difficult year group to teach because you have to be creative and think outside the box continuously.

Basically, everything greyvelvet said

Agent you can get them to write sentences and read through play! I've had the most success with reluctant writers through play who would just outright refuse to engage during sit down lessons.

Also due to the nature if reception you can get higher quality interactions rather than 30 children sitting at tables where you can only ever really support one "group" at a time.

No. It's learning through play for most of the time

Just came to agree with greyvelvet.

My ds is in Nursery still. He does daily phonics sessions (phase 3) daily maths and guided reading. Is in a read/write inc group and starts each day by writing a sentence with his name in it. He also gets weekly homework with 4 or 5 tasks on it. He seems fine with this but it feels like a lot of formal stuff to me!!

No I would say reception is 90% play.

onmyknees - I'm sorry to say that your ds's nursery provision sounds completely inapropriate and goes completely against the EYFS for such young children. Just out of interest, is it a nursery in an independent/private school?

DD was in reception last year and I don't think she was pushed too hard.

I was impressed by the phonics teaching but I certainly don't think there was overload on anything. As far as DD was concerned she was playing most of the time.

My local school sets written homework in reception. Is this normal? I was wanting DD to go there but now I'm questioning it as I don't want her having homework so young. Do all schools do this now?