DD1 is 5 in March. She started at her school in September, but most of the class had been to nursery - she is quite a timed child anyway. Well, she is opinionated and bossy and home, and very upset if things aren't done "right", but clams up in company.
Anyhow, she had her report home at the end of last term, it could have been about another child - it said she needs to work on counting to ten and learning her letters when she is independently doing much more than that at home, which I checked with teacher family members - she is obviously not showing her skills at school. I told the teacher this and she said she had her suspicions from a couple of things that DD had been doing when she didn't think anyone could see. We left it that we would all try to encourage DD to be more proud of herself.
Whenever I ask DD about it, she giggles and says that it is a funny secret, because school don't know she can do things. We can't get any more out of her than that. She does clam up quite a lot with things like this - she claims not to know things, until you say it wrong and she corrects you, that kind of thing. She used to say she couldn't read, untill I would write something like "DD2 has a smelly bum" and she would collapse in giggles. I once saw her tell someone she has never heard of the moon - this is a child who, that very day, had been telling me that shooting stars are really called meteors and that the sun is the nearest star, and that is why it looks so big and lights everything up.
She is definitely starting to be more confident at home now though - she has stopped hiding her workbooks (she was doing the work, and would beg to have more workbooks, but didn't like a fuss making) and is reading everything in sight. She is easily reading ORT level 6 read at home books - she stumbles over maybe one word in twenty, but gets it by sounding it out, and apart from that is fluent and can explain the story and so on, whereas the books coming home from school are level two. She also reads stories to her sister and likes science books very much.
She has workbooks for key stage one ( a mixture of year one and year two) at home that she quietly gets on with, or sometimes asks for help with, although she gets very annoyed if her two year old sister disrupts her work or gets questions wrong etc when they play schools.
I'm not so much bothered about her being "challenged" at school, she is only in reception, but I am worried that she is maybe feeling a bit self concious or anxious. It also seems to be a bit of a waste of time for her to be whizzing through her reading books in five minutes - we have out own books at home, of course, but five minutes a week doesn't seem right for school reading books.
Typing this, I'm starting to second guess myself- do I even need to say anything? I was considering sending in some writing she has done- eg today she made a sign to use in a game saying "Exhibition today. Art by DD1 and DD2 at " - she had looked up exhibition in a dictionary, but still, that's good in itself, right? I was also thinking of asking the teacher to just give her a level six book and see what she does - I have found that she pretends to struggle with easier stuff, because she thinks that is what to do, but with harder stuff it is making her concentrate, so she forgets to pretend, if that makes sense?
I can't do dropping off, and there isn't really any chance to see the teacher at picking up (she sends a TA to pass the children out of the door one by one with their coats etc all on) so a note seems to be the best way - it doesn't seem to be worth an actual meeting, and I don't want to her feel I am complaining - I know what DD1 is like in this regard. I've seen her do a messy homework, then do some lovely writing on something else straight away.
Gah. Any ideas? Or do I just let her get on with it, doing her little signs and reading/doing sums/talking about the world at home and pretending not to be able to do that at school? Or do I try to encourage her to give things a try at school?