Thinking of skipping reception year....can't be the only ones surely?

[kitmil]

Hi

We have 4.2 year old twins. They've been at home since birth with mummy always around, and often daddy too (self-employed, work from home, flexible sort of thing). We've had a couple of fab au pairs in the past which has worked brilliantly. They recently attended a nursery for a couple of weeks but we pulled them out as one was clearly not ready emotionally, and we were also concerned that they were going to learn behaviours that we consider unacceptable (screaming, shouting, standing on tables etc.). Also noticed that on busy days they were often left to their own devices without being properly supervised (not necessarily through fault of the key workers). We feel that this age is still too young to attend nursery or school and are now considering skipping the reception year entirely - we want them to enjoy learning and finding out about things in their own way, and can't understand why it's so important to start reading and writing at such a young age, even if most of the activities in reception year are still play-based (which also begs the question 'what is the point of a reception year then' - seems to be about convenience for parents). We're finding that people think we're a bit odd, and are being told that the twins will 'miss out' on a year's learning, but quite frankly we find that completely ridiculous. Why is the emphasis on getting kids into school at the earliest possible opportunity? They'll learn to read and write in their own time. Is there anyone out there who feels the same way?

dikkertjedap - "I think that given that you are in the UK, you are better off to have your kids entering reception as they learn about how schools work and quite close friendships are established. They are all in the same boat in reception. It may not be ideal but it is the society we live in."

I agree with you. We live in France and my DD started école maternelle to schedule, at 2.10. It felt pretty young, but if I'd kept her at home she wouldn't have had any friends to play with or any alternative activities as her peer group was all at school. And she was ready to spend part of her day with other children, and away from me, by that time.

Yesterday I had a meeting with the (French) Headmistress of an English school in Paris. Her school teaches a modified version of the National Curriculum and children start to learn letters and numbers in YR in her school. This Headmistress, who had wide and varied experience of different school systems, said that she thought the British system was by far the most gentle on children, teaching them the basics slowly from an early age and ensuring lots of other non-formal learning activities went on in the classroom. She contrasted the British system to the French system, where the children learn very little for the three years of école maternelle and then have to work very hard and intensively indeed for the five years of primary. Her opinion was that the French system was a lot tougher than the English one for fragile children, who were better off starting school earlier and learning more slowly.

That's interesting Bonsoir and not something I had considered given the criticism of the UK system

It was a fascinating conversation, mrz. It's so rare to encounter Headteachers with hands-on experience of both the French and English systems (let alone experience of yet more). She was the founding Headmistress of the school she is at currently and takes all the decisions on which curriculum to use, which examinations to offer etc. She basically could pick and choose from around the world (for an internationally mobile client base). Fab job!

Something that is not always apparent to British parents (or teachers) who envy the later school starting age in other countries is just how many children are labelled "school failures" (en échec scolaire) at the end of the (very intense) first year of primary...

kitmil 'Children move schools all the time - where's evidence for this being a problem?'

If you think that's true, it may be useful to look at this:SCISS

I have to say as a parent and teacher I would like to see smaller classes in the Early years but I don't really see age as an issue because it is a gentle start

Yy, I agree re school starting ages. I have family in Germany who are invariable aghast at the idea of children starting school at 3 (nursery) or 4 (reception). But that's because they base their idea of school on the German model where they start at 6 or 7 but from day 1 the children are sitting in rows at desks doing proper work. School in Germany is about transmitting a body of knowledge to the kids, there's very little interest in the social and emotional side, nor in differentiation - if you can't keep up with the class target you're kept back to repeat a year, if you're bored and find the work too easy, tough.

So I always have to explain to Germans that nursery and reception are about learning basic maths skills by sorting plastic beads by size, colour, and shape by playing at the water table filling different size cups, or building 3D mazes out of wooden blocks, and English involves acting out traditional tales, making pictures of them and 'writing' their own stories. Once I've outlined that, and explained how the teaching becomes a little more formal year by year throughout the infants, so that by about Y3 the kids are in what the Germans would recognise as a proper classroom situation, but without ever having that stark contrast of suddenly going from free play all day to sitting in rows doing formal work. At that point they invariably start talking about how they wish they'd had that kind of gentle transition for themselves or their own kids.

The English primary school system gets knocked a lot, and for sure isn't perfect, but on the whole, and in a well-led school with good teachers it can actually be brilliant.

I don't know why everyone's been so vile to you on this thread OP. Actually, yes I do, because when someone challenges the status quo, it threatens people who subscribe to it.

Anyway, you're not the only ones. In fact, there is a growing number of people who think formal education shouldn't start until the child wants it to...and they decide to home educate instead. So you're not alone. You do need to work on how you say things, though! Your wording is not very accepting of other people's choices and has put their backs up and made them completely reject what you've written.

I don't think anyone has been vile to the OP. If you ask for opinions don't expect everyone to agree.

Thanks Bonsoir and Anaxagora for those descriptions of other European systems. It does help, because I am always thinking: why do other countries start later yet everything evens out in the end. It must be very hard to go from freeplay to lots of work. But even since my Mum stopped class teaching 10 years ago or so, Reception has changed so much and she is really surprised how gentle it is these days.

I am also LOLing at the idea of school being "convenient" for working parents. Arf.

No, you're right, mrz - I am just being defensive, I know.

It's really refreshing to see the flip side of our school system from the European persepective.
I feel 4 is too young, anything 4.9 up perfect. But both of mine are autumn born so not something I have to face.

It depends on the child. Some 4 year olds are raring to go at 4. Some are still emotionally very young at 5.

In Ireland, we used to do half days for the first 2 years which I thought was a good compromise between the English and European systems.

I also agree that 4 is young to start full time but I think you could work out a more flexible schedule for your DCs. In a lot of other parts of the world children don't start as young as they tend to in the UK.

I think at age 4 anything school can do you can do just as well if not better (certainly better than the appalling nursery scenario you described). You can adequately prepare them for Y1 by gradually expecting them to perform their own self care and providing more and more of their own entertainment (tying shoes, dressing, buttoning and zipping coats and putting on their own gloves, waiting for your attention, working out disputes between themselves, and amusing themselves for longish stretches).

The best case scenario some have described here can be fine for children as young as 4 but you might have to do a lot of searching for something that would really benefit your children. I would ignore the arfing/suggestions that your DCs are PFBs in response to your preference for an orderly environment for your children.

My oldest son skipped reception. Basically because we hadn't managed to get a place at a school we liked (moved house at the wrong moment), and since he has an August birthday and was at a good nursery we decided to hold out and hope that a school we liked would have a place at the start of year 1 - which thankfully it did. The nursery teacher was trained as a primary school teacher and did quite a lot of work with him with letters and numbers so he wasn't at all behind, and since he is a sociable outgoing type he made friends fine. I sometimes wonder if missing out on all that repetitive letter formation practice they do in reception is the reason his handwriting is not very good?!, but basically it worked out well for us. Luckily my next son has a September birthday and so seemed very ready to start reception when his turn came around. I would only say, be careful reeception intake.

Is this a wind up? I am reminded of "help my DC touched a working class child" or "we don't want our DCs picking up bad table manners" Daily Mail stories and we are getting close to April 1st.

If genuine, I think you will find that many private schools will allow children to drop to a lower year if the parents think they aren't ready for school, so your DCs can start reception one year late. They probably won't thank you for it when they're older.