Do I need to consider private schooling or keep hassling the school?

[finefatmama]

This is a rather lengthy one so please bear with me.

DS2 5yrs attends reception in an oversubscribed catholic school (DH's preference not mine) but I don't think the school is working well for him.

Since starting reception, his teacher has complaining about his refusal to spend 80% of his time playing. He sneaks back indoors to turn on the interactive whiteboard or computer thus refusing to follow instructions. He's a september baby and bigger than most of the kids so he plays roughly with them (he also does martial arts) etc. He eventually got the class reward cuddly toy because he didn't have to be told off over the course of the day.

He now thinks of himself as a naughty kid but claims he can't help it (I don't believe that). During parents evenings, she usually has odd feedback ('he can read the whole word but can't sound out the individual parts when I ask him to break it down', 'you haven't taught him x' - often said smugly, 'when I left the class to go for my lunch he scattered the contents of my filing cabinet which I forgot to lock', 'he can count to hundred but most kids learn this by rote at home and don't know what these numbers mean so that doesn't mean he's brilliant', 'no he can't be extended because I have 30 kids to deal with and some don't even know the alphabet which is a priority', 'I know he's bored but I can't give him more work as it HAS to be 80% play for all our children', 'He has poor social skills which is why he won't go out and play' - very smug look). He once had a supply teacher who allowed him to work on the whiteboard and rewarded him for doing a correct sum which resulted in a negative number but according to him, his regular teacher would have told him off.

We have been working with him at home and he has just started year 3 maths and is currently reading Through the Looking Glass and Horrid Henry. We were ok with doing the extra work at home and trying to convince him that the teacher probably didn't mean that he's no good.

Most of the supervision is done by dad who works 9.30am -2.30pm about a mile from home. Fortunately and unfortunately following events at work, he's been promoted to a full time role in London and his current role is no more. We are now very concerned about leaving him to the mercy of the school. They have't been v helpful and have hinted that they are oversubscribed anyway and will have some kids waiting to take his place. our local authority has a shortage of primary school places already so a transfer is unlikely. If we keep fighting the school, we may end up making enemies instead of gaining allies.

We are now wondering if we should tighten our belts and pay for a good independent school where he would be taught at the right level, have access to sports activities, music lessons (dad currently takes him to flute lessons as the school dont allow for under 8s to learn instruments) etc. Or am I just romanticinsing the private school idea?
What other course of actions can anyone advise that we take to ensure a good education? We moved here to get DS1 into a very good special school and I'm not sure if we can keep the special school place if we move to a nearby LEA.

Op, do you think maybe the tutor is exacerbating things? Are they teaching your ds to run before he can walk?

*disclaimer I'm neither a teacher nor a mathematician.

nrich.maths.org/2756

www.math.toronto.edu/mathnet/answers/infnotnumber.html

Infinity is a numerical concept (meaning limitless) not a number.

I quite like this fun example from the maths forum

1/infinity = 0

In words, if 1 chocolate bar is divided among an infinite number of people, no one gets anything!
Where did the chocolate bar go?

Doesn't it imply that 1/infinity = infinitesimally small?

I dunno, it sounds like you are way too involved, if that makes any sense.

By all means pay for a private school. Class sizes are smaller, music is integral to the curriculum, sports are better, etc. I think its benefit for you would be greater - you would (hopefully) feel able to relax and stop helicoptering.

If you are going to continue helicoptering may I respectfully suggest that you focus on the social skills side? The hallmark of a gifted and talented child is that they self-start. The GCSE maths can come later. For now just focus on getting him to behave acceptably and support the teacher.

Yeah, that is kind of the point I was making Hopefully. That the OP would be happier with a prep school and that might make them all happier.

Greythorne,

It'd be loads of fun. Rumour has it that rectangles with the golden ration in relation of width to height are far more appealing that rectangles without, and, so the rumour goes, that doors, windows, photographs, picture frames and the likes often follow this principle. Well, with a tape measure and plenty of opinion from the child/children, we'd test the rumour out.

I am starting to think aspergers might be back on the table. We feared that he might be high functioning for the first 4 years as he didn't have a lot of social interests. i couldn't get him to play in the garden or stay in the park for long periods.

As a toddler he was fascinated with shapes, he refused to join the family disco till he turned 5 because he didn't see the point and was very self conscious about dancing, we couldn't get him interested in going out to the garden to play or to go the any playgrounds once he was on the computer. We put that down to the fact that he was learning through play on the computer and his brother was going though a major behaviour phase and therefore not fun to hang out with. As a guilty response to ignoring him to respond to his brother, we got him involved in other activities. Martial arts for the discipline, a tutor to give him more attention and holiday club to expose him to other children and flute for something more artistic (he uses a curved head flute which was recommended by the teacher)

We watched him carefully as did the health visitor till he passed the milestones on her checklist. Regarding social skills, he preferred adult company when he was at nursery and only knew the names of the adults in the nursery, he doesn't play with his cousin who's 3 months older. He ignores her to hang out with her older sisters two who are 2 and 3.5 years older. His previous nursery reported that he refused to play with the kids and only conversed with the adults in the first term. They focus primarily on social skills and the academic skills were purely incidental.We thought he could be aspergersas did the pre-school but by the end of nursery, they said he was fine with the kids and was doing well. He says he has friends in class and at the holiday club so we felt he was doing better socially.

The relationship with the teacher did break down and she first made the statements about rote learning and parents wrongly thinking they had brilliant kids at our first meeting before she met him. In fact she told us that the school knows that parents tend to think that their kids can count to 100 but everyone knows that they don't know what the numbers mean eg if you ask for 6 items, they can't give you 6 items. When we said he knew, she said it wan't likely. This was in response to the assessment from his preschool. IMO she's been working hard to prove herself right so that every time he did something, she had to prove that he couldn't be that smart. I suppose she's only repeating what she's been told as she's in her second or third year of teaching.

For the sake of argument we'd call the ratio "roughly" 1.5 to 1.

It depends where you live but some very academic private schools which are very good have junior departments and he might thrive there like Manchester grammar which starts at age 7 I think.

I'll try again. If it doesn't work this time, I'll bow out gracefully.

You are way way way too involved in what is going on in the classroom. I did not even know which workbooks the DCs were doing at any stage. I read at home with them because I enjoyed it because it is good for them to support their learning. I sent them to music classes because it is good for them. But the day to day stuff at school? I left it to the teacher. S'their job, you know.

Not being rude or anything, but have you got any hobbies to distract you?

Xenia I hardly think pushing this DC towards an extremely academic private school is going to help him in terms of his social skills and following instructions.

An assessment for some form of SEN might.

I amsurprised that given his the behaviour/social issues that you have opted to have a tutor for him rather than trying to get him to groups where he will mix with other children. He sounds really bright and if he has a natural ability there is plenty of time to develop that when he is older.

You sound like you are genuinely concerned and I am sure you will sort it out one way or another.

Also, my DCs are starting at a private school as DS1 does need challenging a bit more than he is getting at the moment but TBH I think there sounds as if there is a bit more to your situation than just the academic part.

I find it quite rude to ask her whether she has any hobbies to distract her. Putting "not being rude" in front of a sarcastic comment doesn't prevent what you say being offensive.

I wonder if you are so used to having a face-off with the teacher that you are unwilling to regard any of his negative behaviour as a problem. You say "he's bigger than the other kids so he plays roughly with them" - why are you excusing his behaviour which might well be making other children's lives a misery? Bigger doesn't necessarily equal rougher. Also, emptying things out of drawers - most kids know that if it's stuff you have to be asked to use "now everybody go over to the art corner and get your pencils" or whatever, that you aren't supposed to be getting them out the rest of the time. And coming back into the classroom when the rest of the class is outdoors. The main reason he's not allowed to do this, I would suggest, is not because the teacher wants to spoil his fun but because 5 year olds are not supposed to be unsupervised for their own safety.

I'm not trying to say he's a problem child, just that SOME of the things he is doing are naughty and not just down to him being bored or what have you, but the poor relationship you have with his teacher might be making you unwilling to accept any faults on his part, because you are so used to having to stick up for him. If so, I doubt that's helping anyone, let alone your child.

The teacher sounds like a PITA and you clearly can't stand her (you mention her "smugness" a lot) - will he be with her next year?

Hopefully is right.

It sounds like you've taken some early comments very personally indeed, when, in general terms, the teacher was quite right.

You son may be an exception to this...but I think the important thing is to follow up the SEN possibility with the school now.

I think that is more important than changing schools at this point.

"now everybody go over to the art corner and get your pencils"

I'm not excusing the OP's DS for rifling through a filing cabinet, but no, it really isn't like that in EYFS. Activities are made available for the children to access and they are encouraged to choose things themselves. It would be very much a tick in a box if they went and helped themselves to pencils and wrote engaged in mark making.

The behaviour and social skills is only a problem in one setting which is why I'm a bit suspect tbh.

Part of the reason for tutoring was that teacher suggested we were teaching the wrong things or teaching it wrongly. So we thought we'd get someone who can steer us in the right direction. He was learning the stuff himself from the internet and from tv and coming back up with lots of questions.

we are where we are with the school because we stepped back to let them things their way. We gave our opinion at the start of reception, they politely declined, we do our own thing at home to engage him and leave the school to do their thing. They then call us for meetings and when we suggest that she should challenge him a bit more, she refuses and wants his child-led activities to conform to 80% play as his choice of activities is outside of her EYFS. we agree that she should send a note home whenever an issue arrises, scold him in front of her and tell him to listen to his teacher, we go away and she calls for another meeting because he doesn't do 80% play and leads them to academic stuff (showing off). and no she can't extend or differentiate. and so on. I once complained to deputy head when i was told that the school explicitly disallowed differentiation and she met with us to say that it wasn't true and that she would look into it ('btw the school frowns on martial arts coz its violent and we're a catholic school').

What's a helicopter parent btw? I take it to mean a parent who tries to tell the school what to do with their kid and how to do it. We don't do that. Maybe we should and then give up.

I'm only worried that if we have to withdraw the other stuff when dh goes FT, the behaviour could get worse or be perceived to get worse at school as he will then be bored all round and dh will not be available to deal with it effectively.

"he's bigger than the other kids so he plays roughly with them" - that's what I was told by the teacher and I accept her word. I asked her to observe and specifically describe them to me next time so that I can't demonstrate exactly what he does that he shouldn't do. He says he does and the's been really good he few playmates he's had. they've all asked to come back so he can't be that bad.

I haven't witnessed this myself and he doesn't do that in the holiday club or his after school club on days when he goes there.

Sorry but I don't think a tutor will be any better informed about how your son's school teaches than a parent

I think your actions, re the tutor/activities are completely understandable given the family dynamics and the not so healthy relationship with the YR teacher. It is clearly unknown at the moment whether DS2 has Aspergers or not.

Maybe you need to reassess what is best for him now in terms of activities/tutor/social stuff. Does he have friends round for tea, play in the playground/woods etc now? Does he have time to do his own thing away from the computer, whatever that thing might be? They are all still developing socially at this age anyway, autistic spectrum or not and am sure he is not the only boy in YR who hasn't kept to the rules (re what you should be doing when).

I think if I was you I would do stuff like have friends over, cut back on the tutor- ok not give up if he likes it, talk about keeping to rules in school and rewarding this, and yes, look at the private schools if you can afford it.

Why do they call you for meetings? My son spends his CHIL time often writing his own invitations/little books, writing out sums and doing them. This is allowed and counts as play .

It does sound like you have tried and failed to get onside with the class teacher. Only 6 more weeks then a new teacher .

From ur post op, to me it seems like the teacher is killing ur child's confidence. Even He should be encouraging him to talk more about infinity and negative numbers, not sending him out of class. I would talk to the head teacher and of that does not work, look for a new school. Not necessarily a private school.

You wouldn't even have to talk to the child about infinity and negative numbers, assuming that you didn't know anything about either, but you'd encourage the child to talk to you about them. Then you could ask the child to work something out. Say he knows that the square root of minus two is minus one point four something, which I doubt he does at five! Then ask him what the square root of minus eight is. You don't even have to know, because he probably doesn't and supposing he does, then encourage him to show you how he worked it out. And in your break or at home google some square roots for next time you have this conversation! But, above all, don't dampen a child's enthusiasm for learning, no matter how ignorant you are on the subject.

(one point four something, not minus one point four something.)