My 5 yr old DS is in Yr 1. Reception seemed to go OK - he had his friends although was prone to wandering around a bit on his own. Yr 1 has been hard though. He is a lovely sociable little boy but seems to find it hard to deal with lots of children in the playground and now says that no other children will play with him and that all the other children have friends apart from him. He is fine playing with children one-to-one - eg if they come to tea or he goes there, but if he is in the playground from what I can make out he will not join in games or if he does will soon withdraw. I think he sees any rough play as malice towards him and he becomes upset. He will also interpret a friend playing with someone else as meaning that they are not his friend anymore and becomes upset. He is also finding it difficult to focus on his work and teachers have told me that he is really slow with reading. This bothers me because at home he has made loads of progress and is not slow at all.
He is a little different from other boys his age (but all kids are different aren't they?)- he is August born so is young in his year - and young for his age as well. His speech can seem a bit muddled and he is very naive, but he is friendly as does want to have friends. He is quite obsessed with superheroes but I would have thought that would stand him in good stead.
He is miserable about school at the moment - and resistant to any ideas or discussion about improving things - he will withdraw and change the subject. There is a woman in the school who is trying to help him. We have seen his teachers a number of times - and the headmaster but we are nearly half way through this year now and nothing has improved.
What I would love to know is if anyone had a child who at this age found things difficult but settled in when older. I'm hoping that this is just a hard time for him which will pass.