WWYD- DD in YR2 being lazy

[Bananamash]

Hi,

Apologies if this is long....

I was just looking for others opinions on this, if there are any suggestions we haven't thought of that other people may have found useful.

My DD is 7. She is very bright BUT and it is a big but, I am very worried about her education at the moment.

During nursery and reception she absolutely flew along. She was very able at reading and mathematics in particular (several comments at parents eves and on reports).

During yr 1 she had a teacher job share (one teacher mon-weds and another thurs and fri). I got the impression on parents evenings etc that she was being a bit lazy, which was a distinct change from before. This year their class has had another job share.

My Dd's class has a very wide range of ability, from one little girl who i suspect is truely gifted rather than extremely bright, down to three SEN children who are VERY challenging and disruptive.

During yr1 annd now in yr2, the teacher and TA sit with the SEN and bottom ability group and the middle and top set are set work to complete independently.

This may work well for some children, but not DD!

I was disgusted at the amount of work she had done at a recent parents eve. We were told in oct that she was lazy and needed nagging to get on with work and that really she needed to learn to self motivate. But the problem has just got worse since then.

We don't see their exercise books on a daily basis (or since last parents eve in oct) so to see what little and poor quality stuff she has been doing was both upsetting and enraging. I don't understand why this has been left to go on for so long.

The teachers basically said there is nothing more they can do as she needs to learn to motivate herself rather than chat to her friends etc.

I feel she has just shut off. I think she has worked out that the teachers are so busy with the challenging children that there are no real consequences for not doing her work, and no real praise/reward for trying... so why bother at all? :( Why make an effort when you can have a mother's meeting with her friends?

Has anyone any ideas for effectively dealing with this?

The class teachers were very unhelpful. We are looking into private, but it is a very big choice to make.... she is happy at her current school/has friends/ i have friends there etc. It is rated as either good with outstanding features or the other way round.... it is considered a good school but for the last 18m i feel it has been failing my daughter.... :(

Well, you could be talking about my daughter!

I hope to hear some wise words on this thread as I'm going round and round in circles in my head, and now can't see the wood for the trees.

Last parents evening in Feb was shocking. She isn't progressing and teacher seems to be at a loss too.

Sorry I've nothing of value to add but I understand the frustration and helplessness you must feel.

Ijust feel it is such a waste of potential- her report in yr 1 graded her a 2c but the teaher pulled me over said really she can work at 2a, if she wanted to, but i don't have enough evidence to back it up at the min.

I feel she is just slipping away and getting further and further behind what she should be attaining now and i worry whether she will ever be able to catch up and how much further she might slip....

sorry for typos- one handed whilst bf-ing the baby!

Do you do any work with her at home? I have never done any formal 'homework', you know the 'at 5pm we will sit at the table for 45 minutes and you are going to do xyz' type of thing. But I'm starting to do that now as all else is failing.

My dd is lazy now in all aspects of her life, can't be arsed with horse riding and swimming (which she was doing with great enthusiasm a year ago) and while that can go, I can't let her education slip.

I'm now putting my foot down and insisting she does some work at home and it is slowly sinking in that 'this is what we do'. I honestly don't know if this approach is the right one, I always wanted learning to be fun for my children, but I cannot do nothing. I've allowed her to do as she pleases for a year and this is the result - a waste of a years education.

School sounds useless - she's only 7, they should be teaching her how to self motivate, not expecting her just to be able to do it. Also, why aren't they moving her from her chatty friends if it's disrupting her/ their work.

Just so you can compare DS in yr2, state primary - they do things like pairing children for tasks - the pairings are fluid dependent on the task, but it means 2 overly chatty friends would definitely not be put together. Also, children are rewarded for effort as much as achievement. They need to do well at both to get green time at the end of the week. If a child's regularly missing green time, they work closely with them to sort it. Does your school do anything like that?

Since parents evening we've been doing a lot of work at home- about 45min to an hour per day.

It has heelped a little but doesn't make up for doing SWA for 6 hours whilst at school!

No of course it doesn't but I'm hoping it will improve the attitude. The, 'I'll do it when and if I like' vibe that she gives off.

You're doing well with the every night thing, we do an hour 3 times a week (if we're lucky).

DS is Yr2 also and while I don't think we've had the stagnation that you describe, he is definitely a lazy one and needs to be pushed. I'm afraid if the teachers really think a 7 yr old is going to self-motivate they are setting themselves up for some serious underachievement in their classes.

All I can say is what we do with DS:

20 minute maths per night (this is the area we're most concerned about)
read an "easy" book a night (by easy I mean a Horrid Henry or similar)
OR
a few chapters of a harder book like a Horrible History.
This is on top of his normal homework which he does at weekends.

We have said that if he can show he has received work based praise points during the day he can skip either the maths or the book. It has made a big difference. I don't think you can change a child's basic personality, DS will always be someone who does "just about enough" and being blunt I am the same but at this age, coasting can have some serious long term consequences so we just felt we had to do something.

Does the school have any kind of Golden Time/ Choosing Time during the week? If so, could you maybe request that she misses out on this in order to complete work from earlier in the week? If not, maybe ask if she could miss playtimes, or a 'fun' lesson like P.E. or art that she enjoys doing, to get the work done. Once you and her teacher have made it clear that this is the consequence of not doing the work when she was supposed to, it should hopefully help her motivate herself to work a bit harder.

ds has always been like this. he's yr4 now, and the teacher just thinks that at some point he will do something great for the world, and is occupied with higher level thinking in his head, so isn't going to bother nagging him to do any work.

he works if he feels like it, or if it's interesting. otherwise, he just sits and daydreams.

they have tried the keeping him in at playtime/ lunch, but it has no effect at all.

they all know what he can do, (and occasionally does) but not how to get him to it if he isn't motivated by the topic etc... that said, i still haven't worked out what motivates him - he's a carrot not stick boy, but even then, if it's something he isn't interested by, it's the devil's own job.

he's moving to middle school in the summer. i am curious if there will be a change for yr 5.

in yr2, btw, he got half way trhough his l3 sats paper for english (or whatever it was) got bored with the story he was writing, and essentially wrapped it up in a one-liner because he cba. i thought the teacher was going to have a coronary.

he had to go to adjudication to get a l3 because he just didn't produce enough for the paper. i'm not a big fan of sats lol, but i can see the same thing happening with his gcses and a levels if i'm honest.

(in fact, for the sats papers, they drafted in the ht to stand behind him.)

You could also be talking about my DS yr2 he has just spent 2 years abroad and came back ahead of his year group, but now is lazy and is starting to fall behind. Parents evening was awful, his teacher said she knows he should be a high 3 maybe a low 4 but as he won't do the work he is now grading at a low 2. We have sat him down and spoken to him till we are blue in the face. So far the only thing that has worked is removing all his video games and not giving them back until he has proved that he can be good and work, then in order to make him start catching up again we are bribing him with new video games if he can show us marked improvement. We are also sitting down with him at night and going through some yr 3 workbooks we got (although I fear this may become harder as the sun shines more). I think the issue is he thinks he knows it all so doesn't need to bother, it was boring at the start of the year for him whilst they worked out where he should be (new school etc) but he sat back on his laurels and now can't sit back up. Really worrying for us as we don't want him to be behind when he goes to prep school next September.

Maybe we could get all these kids in a MN free school together, they are obviously all going through the same thing :)

I am v.interested in this thread - i think working with kids at home is fine as far as it goes. But kids (mine) see the mismatch between the stuff they are doing at home (in what should be their free time) and what they are doing at school (not much), and rebellion is often the result. It's effectively home educating, after all, and they know it. I don't think class sizes should be a problem. I have been to Japan where 30 to a class meant no less learning and no less discipline. What is the problem with our primary schools - don't get me started...

It sounds as if you need a carrot and stick approach, and one which is easy for the teacher(s) to implement as they seem lazy themselves tbh about dealing with the problem.

Why not send dd into school with two stamps (you can buy them on amazon, in smiths or whatever), one for good work, say a star, and one which says "must concentrate" or words to that effect.

Word process a chart with 5 columns for the days and however many rows for the weeks to half term. If she has concentrated well that day, she gets a star for that day, otherwise she gets a "must concentrate" stamp. Five stars in the week and she gets a treat after school on a Friday, or whatever you think will motivate her.

Put the chart in the reading record and it should be easy enough for her to take it to the teacher at the end of the day and ask if she has done enough for a stamp. The teacher only has to stamp the chart, so minimum effort.

For maximum efficacy, I would try to meet with the teacher(s) for 5 mins after school, with your dd, so that you, she and the teachers are clear what warrants a star.

The stick should be finishing her work during golden time if you have it, also missing out on her treat, or if she gets more than a certain number of "must concentrate" stamps she could maybe lose a privilege at home?

Anyway, just a thought, I do it with one of mine and it works (when the parents don't cave and the child gets the treat anyway...!)

wheels I agree with you and now that my DS has settled down a bit the work at home is getting less frequent. We did consider HE for a while as we do wonder what is going on in schools, when DD10 was younger all the schools she went to were great, we go abroad for 2 years come back and now struggle to find a good school in our area!!

indeed - there's something going badly wrong in primary schools if we are all saying the same thing. Just opened by dc's homework btw - y1 - which is writing a row of cursive 'g's'. FFS, she was doing that a year ago. Time for some

my son worked very slowly in year 2 but the teachers were actually a bit bland and the work rather dull. Roll on year 3 and the teacher is inspiring, fun and demanading. He is really blossoming now.

This sounds like a teaching and motiviation issue with your child.

Quite often, when a child is labelled as lazy, it means one of three things. The work is not understood. They would prefer to be doing something more fun. They don?t see the usefulness.

It sounds like your DD comes under the third category and the teacher hasnt found the connection to make her interested or want to participate.

What does your DD say about her lack of work?

You cant always go on what is in school books (you certainly cant in our school) because most of the learning is verbal and conversation.

You probably need more dialogue with the teacher on a regular basis and try and find out the root of the problems

You need to find out exactly what your child isnt doing properly so that you can focus on one thing at a time - is it finishing worksheets, writing, story writing, using her imagination, copying work from board, what maths activities are. How does the school teach maths? is it filling in worksheets or do they do practical learning?

Consider changing schools (or at least go through the motions of looking at schools so your DD is aware that you are concerned and the reasons why)

We switched one of our kids back on by sending her to a tutor for a term. She was given work at her actual ability by the tutor which meant she started doing the work properly in school which meant she started getting work at her appropriate level. Prior to that she had been given work way below her actual ability because she couldnt be bothered so the teacher assumed she knew nothing.

I have found different teaching styles is making a huge impact on how effective my kids work in the classroom each year.