Concerned nursery parent

[Joefish03]

Hello,

This will be a bit of a long post but I want to try and paint as full a picture as possible and would be very grateful to hear the thoughts of more experienced parents.

My eldest son is 3yrs 9months (born May 2014) and started in the nursery class attached to the local primary school in September. I had a routine meeting with his class teacher yesterday and was expecting to hear all was well. The opposite was the case. I was told my son has trouble concentrating on the carpet and is slipping behind in his phonics and is now one of the bottom of the class. She also said he does not concentrate and often is reluctant to do the work. She said he needs to be more independent and is one of the only children who doesn't take his own coat, hat off and hang them up correctly. Most worryingly she said he does not seem interested in playing with the other children and is the only child in the class to make no friends. As you can imagine I was pretty upset by hearing this. It is an ofsted outstanding school in a deprived and very multicultural part of London. They get very good results but are quite academically pushy. He has not been invited on any play dates or to any birthday parties since September and I have no idea if other children have been doing this. I don't know the other parents as I work three days (teaching) and therefore only do two days pick up/drop off. The teacher suggested I initiate some play dates but I'm really not sure where to start. The parents are not unfriendly when queuing up to collect but they seem to be in groups that already know each other. I have no idea who is whose child and whether my son has any rapport with them.

To give some background on my son, he is very articulate with a verbal age well beyond his years and an incredible imagination but he has never sought out other children's company. He can be quite disruptive, at football he refused to play the organised games and just pretended to be a dog. At group swimming the teacher found him difficult as he just wanted to play his own games and wouldn't listen. He didn't enjoy playgroups, I took him to as a 2year old and he preferred to spend time with me alone. His old nursery also reported that he liked to play alone and didn't have a group. He does, however, have a couple of good friends outside of school who he plays with very well so I know he can play with others and he really values those friendships.

He currently is obsessed with the film Moana and wants to be the demigod Maui! Most of the time he is really only interested in playing games related to this and he is happy playing on his own.

My question really is, should I worry and what can I do to help? We are going to try and encourage play dates and work on his phonics so he doesn't fall behind more but, to what extent is his behaviour normal? The fact that he is the only child out of 30 who hasn't got any friends does alrm/upset me.

Thanks so much for any thoughts you may have.

My DS is almost the same age as yours and at a standalone nursery school. He has many of the same behaviours as yours. The nursery environment at your school sounds dreadful - far too high expectations. Every nursery and reception class we've looked round says it should be almost all learning through play at this age. Do you have time to choose a different school for Reception - and can you withdraw him from the nursery and keep him home until then? FWIW I don't do playdates either - it's almost impossible to fit them round full time work, and I figure there will be plenty of time when they're at school. Don't be discouraged - your nursery teacher sounds unhelpful and like she's teaching the wrong age group!

That sounds mad! I'd be proud my son was refusing to play ball with their ofsted rating driven bollocks. Please don't worry. He sounds completely normal.

Hi there OP, we're just popping by to let you know that we've edited the name out of your latest post. Hope that's okay and if there's anything we can do, give us a shout.

The sooner you get him out of there the better!

His teacher is being very uncooperative. You listened to her advice and are trying to organise playdates and she won't suggest a child. I think that's ridiculous.

She might be an indication of the ethos of the rest of the school.

Run for the hills!

Worksheets 😮 Near the bottom of the class for phonics 😮 I'd run for the hills. Believe me, he'll be picking up on their view that he's not up to their ridiculous standards.

Is it an option to give him a break before starting somewhere else? I agree with pp that he might have picked up unhelpful messages from them.

I would also write to the governors and LA to inform them of your experience.

I'm an Early Years Teacher and have had a conversation with the nursery staff this week about the fact that children categorically do not need to be learning formal phonics. What they need to be able to do is begin to play with sounds in words - identifying verbally the intial sound, building up to sounding out the three sounds in simple words like "hot", "bat", "pin" etc. Most children aren't ready for the formation work yet - their shoulder, arm and hand muscles aren't yet sufficiently matured. Your child's nursery sounds far too formal, and is going against the principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Regarding the social skills however, the description that you give would cause me a few concerns. By 3 years 9 months, most children are becoming interested in playing alongside or with others. They are able to show awareness of other children and make friendly overtures to them, or join others in play. If your ds was in my nursery, I would be considering referring him to the Speech and Language Service so that we could all have a conversation about his Social Communication.

As for the nursery saying that you can't have another appointment because your other one was too long, well that's absolutely ridiculous! I would suggest that you ask once more, and if the answer is still no, then speak to the headteacher about it. Tell them that the teacher has ex

Oops - posted too soon.

Tell them that the teacher has expressed lots of concern about your child and you need to opportunity to discuss it further with your husband present.

I rarely suggest going to the headteacher, but if the teacher refuses to see you, then you really have no option.

Haven’t read all the posts but we encourage independence skills as the top priority over academic stuff. For example we work teaching independent toiletting/ coat and shoes on etc as this sets them up ready for learning at Reception.

We work with phonics in a low pressure way in the summer term or sooner with the older or more interested ones but they don’t get judged on their ability, it just goes on their school handover so the new teacher knows where they are.

I’ve noticed the friendships properly start building from 4+, although some are sooner. I’d be worrying more come June time than now, although keep an eye and deal with any concerns you personally feel. They seem to suddenly click sometimes once they turn 4 in all kinds of areas.

In your shoes I would accept what the teacher is telling you, nod, say thank you and discuss how you will move forward. The ball is always in your court.

What you can do is encourage independence at home - take his own shoes off, show him how to put them on, try to get him to recognise his name and ask your teacher to see how it's written on his coat peg at home. Encouraging independence is another way of encouraging self confidence.

Encourage him to choose between activities at home. Play basic phonics games with him (I spy something beginning with sssss) and try to learn the phonics yourself using youtube. Watch the alphablocks together, and other youtube videos about phonics together. Say things like guess what we're having for tea, it's starts with the sound sssss Yes it's spaghetti!

Listen you can either take the bull by the horn and something about it, or try to change the school's attitude (unlikely), or take your son out of school (not a good option in my opinion).

It's not about worksheets, there is so much you can do at home to support his early learning, activities that are fun, interactive, games-based.

Aren't 3 year olds supposed to be playing with slime and colouring in?! Can't believe what the teacher is saying to you - what are her solutions? I would be expecting some academic solutions from the teacher rather than a suggestion for play dates. I don't like this teacher, she sounds cold and unsupportive. Your son isn't doing anything wrong.

Ok the nursery sounds a bit odd with the phonics groups but surely if you already knew he had trouble forming friendships and can be disruptive in extra curricular activities then you can’t have expected to have been told there were no issues.