What to do with my son...

[domesticsluttery]

OK, I might be overthinking this and being a little bit too MN, but I feel I should be doing something about it.

DS2 is 6, he is one of the youngest children in his year. He has just finished Year 1.

We have had a lot of trouble with getting him to settle down in class over the past 12 months, and he has got into a lot of trouble with his teacher for not doing his work, talking all the time etc. He hasn't wanted to go to school and we have had tantrums most mornings about it. However during the last half term (since turning 6) he has settled down a lot and his teacher says that he is much, much better.

Despite spending a lot of time messing about in class he is quite bright. He is very good at reading, in two languages (despite only having been taught to read in one of them). He is the only child in the year who has to go into Juniors to get his reading books. His imagination is fantastic (which probably causes him to daydream!) and when he is interested in something he fizzes with enthusiasm at learning it.

His writing isn't great, I think this is due to poor fine motor skills as he is brilliant on the PC and can type and spell very well. He plays a lot with lego and Hama beads, and does things like knitting and cross stitch, which I hope will help with his fine motor skills.

At home you can't stop him learning, he has a fantastic attitude to it. He loves going to the library, and borrows armfuls of both fiction and fact books. He loves going to the museum, and is especially interested in the Romans and the Celts. He himself will find games and activities online, eg on the BBC website, to practice his maths and learn about history, geography, science etc.

I just can't understand why this love of learning at home doesn't translate into him working hard in school! Is it just normal 6 year old behaviour? (although DS1 was nothing like this at 6). Is it that the teacher just isn't engaging him? Is it just that he doesn't fit with the school system?

I just don't want another year of him playing up in school and getting nowhere, when I know that he is capable of a lot more.

Has anyone got any advice?

Hi domesticluttery,

I think it sounds like he's just got so much going on in his brain, which will be developing so quickly that he probably resents being told what to learn and when. I have a 3.5 little girl and she's very similar. In a lot of ways she is very forward and has a scarily active and creative imagination, but on the other hand she is quite behind with a lot such as drawing and being able to sit and listen. She is usually the one running round in circles not sitting quietly twirling her hair.
Hopefully the good overall outways the bad ie he sounds very bright in most academic areas. It sounds much more of a social problem which is exactly the same for my little one.
Fingers crossed.
Suzanne.

Hi, I am a primary school teacher and have had experience of a lot of children who 'coast'.

I worked in an inner city london school with a lot of children who had no support at home (which doesn't sound like you).

TBH, I think it's a mixture of 2 things.

1. All of the children in my class learnt when they were intersted and on task.Usually this would be easy to provide by including interactive methods, such as write it on post its instead of always in a book or using magnifying glasses to look closer at a picture for clues etc.

Being very honest, of course you can't provide this for 30 children in 5 lessons a day, however I would aim to provide interesting and stimulating lessons in at least 2 or 3 lessons a day. The teacher has a duty to cater to all the needs in their class and so you do need to push the teacher for exmples of this. (Bear in mind you have parent's evening once a term, I would wait til the next one and broach this subject only if your child is still not achieving by saying something like 'OK, what do we do now?' thereby opening the dialogue to solving the problem without her getting defensive.

1. When your child comes home, ask them what they LEARNT that day, not what they DID. Doing this every day will get them used to the expectation that they have to retain information and knowledge because they know they will be asked about it at home.

Hope this helps. x

Thanks Sillyness.

All 3 of mine definitely learn the most when they are interested, you are quite right. In fact IMO DS1 learnt quite a lot during the year even though his teacher described him as coasting. OK the work might not have been all that challenging, but as they are still in the Foundation Phase it was all very hands on and he and the other children who were working ahead of the average were given a lot of freedom to organise work for themselves, eg when the theme was gardening they were allowed to look up different vegetables in books and online, then chose what they wanted to grow and were left to look after them fairly independantly. They were given use of the class camera in order to keep a diary of what they were doing to show the teacher. So he learnt a lot of organisational skills and a lot about working in a team etc.

DS2 comes home and tells me all about what they have done in class, if we go to the library at the weekend he will often look for whatever book they have been reading together and borrow it so that he can read it again at home. The last topic they did was dinosaurs and he spent a lot of time at home researching them. But he doesn't seem to be able to demonstrate to his teacher what he can do, which is frustrating.

We've been trying to work on his writing at home as this is a lot weaker than his reading and understanding skills. He has chosen a couple of those workbooks you can get, and is spending hours practising writing (his choice to do this, he does really seem to want to get better at it). We are also trying him with those triangular pencil grips to see if they help him to hold his pencil better, in case that is the problem.

I'm just hoping that in September things will click into place, as at the moment the situation is very frustrating for DS2, his teacher and us as parents.