AHHH!! What are they doing at school???

[onebadbaby]

Am angry!

Just been reading with my 5 year old dd- yet again she she failed to recognise numbers beyond 12 in the book we shared.

My dd is an August born baby and she will be going into year 1 tomorrow. I think she is doing fine until she has to recognise, write or use logic with numbers. I wonder what they have taught her in Reception as when she started she could recognise numbers to 11 and count to 20 and also count objects to 10.

A year later she has some recognition of the numerals between 12 and 20, but is certainly not secure and becomes easily mixed up. She counts confidently to 30 now.

She is still not 100% certain of one more or less. I feel she is a bright girl and would expect a child entering reception at the level she did to have made more progress at school. I can only think this must have been poorly taught at school.

Will be closely monitoring her teacher in year 1!

they dont learn things like you are saying about till they start school

reeelax

she will pick it up

In reception she will have been following problem solving reasoning and number of which number is a small part and problem solving ie using maths

what I mean is they dont worry about that in reschool
they want to socialise, teach witing, taking turns, communicaton, confidence all very very important

then comes the formal learning

and if she could do that at the beginning then she should be able to do it now as you would ahve been playing with her and reviin with her

dont keep a close eye on her teacher, you'll just just end iup stressed, its their job, give them a chance

I feel the same way, hoping for a vast improvement in yr 1!

in reception they follow the early years foundation stage and follow the same curriculum as in nursery too - so maybe its worth you searching it up.. if she knew if before she started reception she should know it now then... if you have been helping her too..

very true cat64. i thought that too, if there was any problems then sort it out with teacher during the school year. maybe her daughter was fine during the school year and now is starting to foegt as she will start school???

I havn't just tested her, this has been an issue for a few weeks and I will be addressing it in year 1 if the problem continues. The reception teacher seemed to have a massive emphasis on phonics and nothing much else- there have been times in the year when I have thought about seeing the teacher about this, but as she is at a perfectly acceptable level for her age I feel a bit .

"this has been an issue for a few weeks"
erm... as in 6 weeks maybe? The length of the summer holiday? So she was fine while she was immersed in the learning environment provided by the school/Reception teacher but has forgotten things whilst on holiday? Well you've just described most school children from 4 to 18!

"Will be closely monitoring her teacher in year 1!"
You sound like a 'nightmare' parent - rest assured, you will be talked about in the staff room often!

lol @ woopwooop!!!!!

You sound like a 'nightmare' parent - rest assured, you will be talked about in the staff room often!

Have you thought about doing some number work with her yourself?

Sorry, but I also found your post rather odd. You say that your child failed to recognise numbers above 12 "yet again", and then below, you say that this has been an "issue" for a few weeks.

Personally, though I agree that most kids of 5 probably would know their numbers from 12 to 20, I don't happen to think it's that big a deal that if they don't - I think there are many far more important things to be learned in reception.

However, as this "issue" clearly matters a lot to you, what I don't get is why you haven't just taught her yourself? You say that she is a bright kid, I'd have thought this is something that you could pick up with her really easily, couldn't you? Why the big deal about monitoring the teacher?!

If your child could already recognise numbers to 11, then this should have been consolidated on at school and taken further, by activities that stretched her. There should have been lots of work with numbers as well as phonics - so the children became familiar with number recognition through games, songs, something as simple as a freize and simple counting activities on a daily basis.

Learning school rules and how to share are an important part of the Reception year but so is learning ABC and numbers!

Yes, you could do it yourself, and no doubt do - but many parents DON'T - and that is why we have schools in the first place: to give everyone an equal chance by educating them.

Thank you bullethead.

I know my post was a bit ranty as I was feeling cross with school. I haven't really concentrated much on numeracy with her at home, not in a formal sense anyway, only games and play which is hard to engineer at home to target specific areas. ( also lack of time and tired child-after all she was only just 4 on starting full time school) and if she had started school at a lower level than she did I would be happy with what she can do now.

I just feel in a year they could have taught her to recognise numerals to 20 (even without help from home). If she was a child in my class and I was comparing initial assessments with end of year ones I would be wondering why she hadn't met this criteria on the foundation stage profile.

Recognizing numbers to 20 is part of the foundation stage curriculum for reception. I am aware that there is a lot more practical and problem solving using lower numbers as well, but this target is easy to measure so it is more obvious that she has made little progress in this area.

Ok have read your post again and apologise as you didn?t actually say that she had forgotten, more that she has never learned them.
I think that you?ve had a bit of a negative reaction to you post because 1) you seem to suddenly see this as a problem at the end of the summer hols. Yes you say a few week, but it gives the impression that you haven?t had much interest in her learning for the last year (am not say you haven?t, just that it gives that impression) and 2) I feel that your line should at least read ?Will be closely monitoring her learning/progress in year 1!
You say that she is bright. Have you tried teaching her to recognise numbers past 11? If so, do you find that she is confident in the short term and then has forgotten them when you come back to them? I.E, if you go through the numbers together can she then repeat them to you a few second later, a few minutes later, an hour later, the next day? Or are you basing her not knowing them as in, you picked up a book and she couldn?t tell you the numbers (i.e without any input from you in the first place)?
The same with one more and one less. Does she understand it as you are explaining it to her? Can she do it with a number line in front of her? With counters? Or are you expecting her to do it in her head?
Another thing that occurs to me is that it kind of sounds like you are just comparing statements from two reports (again apologies if you aren?t). Is it that her nursery/pre-school said that she could do this, this and this and now she doesn?t seem to have progressed? It may be that her nursery had different expectations ? e.g. she could give one more/one less with support/number lines/ counters/ etc and now you are expecting her to do it unaided after 6 weeks off school.
Back to you saying that she is bright. Is it that she is articulate and reads well? As quite often children can have a real block with maths. Once you stop counting actual objects, some children really struggle with the completely abstract concept of numbers. I have taught children in Year 6 who are reading and writing at level 5, conducting scientific investigations independently but cannot add 10 to a number without counting up on their fingers (and this is after HOURS and HOURS of one-one teacher support using number squares/objects/money/etc.). This is an extreme case, and I?m in no way suggesting that your child will even have any difficulty in maths. Some children just keep up with the concepts as they are taught but quite often some children seem to be ?behind? with grasping the concepts and then suddenly something just ?clicks?, maybe in year 1, year 3 or year 7 and they suddenly ?get it?.
Please try and work with the teacher next year. I would suggest that you give her time to settle in ? at least up to next half term. If you are still concerned, speak to the teacher about what she needs to work on and how you can support her at home. The teacher may suggest flash cards for the numbers that she is struggling to learn, counting songs/rhymes, number bond recognition, etc.

The fact that she is an August birthday may (or may not) be significant too. She is still very young and at her age I would be focusing on whether or not she enjoys going to school, if she is making friends, if she is making progress with phonics/reading, if she is developing socially (learning to share, show empathy, ask questions) whilst gently supporting her in maths by using it in everyday situations with her.
Another possible explanation may be that she?s had an absolutely crap teacher and has learned absolutely nothing for a year. However, even if this is true, please think about changing your attitude towards the school as you really will get absolutely nowhere if you carry on like this for the next 11 years! By all means, if your child drops significantly behind and you continually get no support from the teachers/head/SENCO/governors, then you will be well justified in wondering what the hell they do in school, to monitor the teacher and to complain to the LEA. But after one year where you maybe think that she may not have had the teaching/learning opportunities needed in one area of learning. I think that your attitude is way OTT.

Wow - sorry for lack of paragraphs - they were there before!

Yes recognizing numbers to 20 is part of the foundation stage curriculum for reception, so I'm sure that she will have had a lot of experience of this during focused learning time. Some children are good at absolutely everything at school some children are poor at absolutely everything but most children have stregths and weekness. Maybe this is something that your daughter struggles with.

If you are saying that your daughter is bright and that she would have picked these things up easily then it must mean that the teacher has not taught these things to the class, therefore none of the children going into year 1 will be able to these things either (so the year 1 teacher will be just as angry as you x30!). All I'm saying is that it is a different teacher next year who has had absolutely no input in your child's education so far (i.e. it's not her/his fault!) so if you go in all guns blazing, making demands, then you are likely to get her/his back up from the outset.

I am not going from her nursery or school reports, only what she demonstrates at home. I know maths is not her strong point- she is more interested in writing , drawing and creative activities and would never choose number etc.

Tonight we were sharing a book which had some numbers in the pictures. I asked her what the number might be. It was 14. She didn't have a clue. In context of other numbers she might have. But if she was secure with recognition she would surely know 14 anywhere- she would if it was a number between 1 and 10.

I care a lot about her education and until she started school I was a SAHM and did lots with her and she learnt things well- counting to 20 and recognising to 11 is pretty good for a three year old.

I have worked with the school and supported dd at home, I have even helped out at school but I havn't expressed concern to them yet because I figured she was still settling in, making friends and getting used to being at school all day etc etc. It was only as the end of year loomed that I started to think that maybe she could have learned a little more.

If I hadn't made an arse of myself in the original post and had simply asked

"should my child who could count and recognise numbers to 11 at the start of reception be able to recognise to 20 by the end?"

what would the response have been?

I will not be going in guns blazing- am too shy in real life. Will be cursing her in private but discussing nicely with her in the classroom.

Another thing- dd held her pen perfectly until she went to school and now she has developed a weird way of holding it- says thats how x in her class holds it- I have to correct her grip every time she writes.

Another point - it may be that the school uses different mathematical language to you. Where you say 'one less than' they may say 'minus one' and I think this can confuse some children. It is better to be consistent and use one term for each operation whilst they are still grappling with a mathematical concept. I think the best ones are the simplest - 'add' and 'take away'!! It sounds like a small thing but sometimes I think by bombarding children with all the possible ways of saying one thing, just to demonstrate that there are lots of ways of saying it, it completely distracts from the issue.Keep it simple!
A great way to get your daughter to learn to absorb numbers and simple number bonds to twenty is to use posters near her bed so she falls asleep looking at them. Sorry if you think I'm teaching you to suck eggs- you probably have all that already, and all the practical stuff as well eg Snakes and Ladders: highly recommend.

In my DS's school they barely do any numeracy in Yr R - putting emphasis on phonics is pretty normal I would have thought. Numeracy started formally in Yr 1 (he has just finished yr 1).

Admittedly they were taught to count and write the numbers in Yr R but I don't see what your problem is tbh. Your DD has made progress with this. She can now count to 30 which she couldn't before, and she can recognise more numbers. Sounds OK. Did her school report agree with your assessment of the situation? Has she just forgotten things over the holidays?

I think you have perhaps too high an expectation of what should be achieved in Yr R and you are also expecting learning to be at a steady pace. It isn't. With all the other stuff they have to assimulate in Yr R it isn't surprising if sometimes one subject area lags behind the rest. If that is the case then blaming the teacher seems wrong and anger seems a bit of an overreaction - concern might be more appropriate. It could just be your DD was concentrating on other things.

I would also gently suggest you calm down a little for the sake of your DD. She is going to notice your frustration if you are as angry in RL as you appear to be on here (even if you think you are hiding it from her). The pressure may mean she might not perform as well when you are testing (neither of my two do as well as when I try and go over things at home as they do at school) or she could be turned off all things numbers related completely because she gets the feeling they are difficult.

Of course you need to keep an eye on her progress but I think 'closely monitoring' would be a bad idea at this stage. Even if she was badly taught in Yr R, why should the YR 1 teacher have to suffer the consequences? She should be allowed to do her job.

onebadbaby working with numbers to 20 is a target for children consistently working beyond the Early Learning Goals in reception.
Did your daughter achieve all the early learning goals for the number aspect of Problem Solving Reasoning and Number?

I often have parents saying my child can cont up to "x" when what they mean is their child can recite numbers to "x" so firstly a teacher would be working to ensure children can count up to 10 objects accurately every time ...
Then to know pairs of numbers that add together to make totals up to 10 (and if 1+4 = 5 then 5-1 =4 ...inverse) and to know 1 more and 1 less than "x" and to apply that knowledge independently to solve every day problems ...
and then finally to learn the same with numbers beyond 10...

you can do that stuff at home with her surely?

and the more she consolidates what she does at school at home the easier it becomes

She is 4. Relax!