What are your Y2s doing?

[crumpeteater]

I know this kind of thing gets done to death but....
My DC have previously been home educated, they've just started school for the first time, they've taken to it really well and seem to be enjoying it. DD Y3 seems to be doing well, she's learning new things but not finding the work too hard. So everything seems fine there.

DS Y2 seems to be doing very basic things, like counting and putting numbers in order, and he says he has a phonics lesson every day. His reading is very good for his age so I'm not sure what the benefit of doing phonics is. His maths, I think, is about average for his age - I'm surprised that a Y2 class is still doing this sort of work TBH. I don't know if it's just the teacher easing them into the new school year or if it's because he's in a mixed Y1/2 class and she's catering more for the younger group. I also don't know if I should say something - I don't want to hassle her so soon, but DS is complaining of boredom and I'm realistic enough to know that if he's bored he'll misbehave.

So is it normal to start off the year with relatively easy things until everyone's settled in and the teacher gets a feel for what the kids can do?

My dd has just gone into Yr2 and we were told at the end of last term that the first couple of weeks will be spent trying to find out exactly where the children are after the summer break - particularly in maths. This will the enable the teachers to group the children and make sure no one moves into Yr3 with any gaps. Maybe its the same at you DCs school?

I think they are being assessed. The kids say everything is 'easy' so far, and it seems to be... they were given books to choose from that they read a year ago and the counting is all along a handy line. But they are still in the same groups as last year, and I'm sure there will have been changes of the holiday break, so I expect that the new teacher (who hasn't been a class teacher before in this school) is just slowly working it out. I'm watching for a good month or so to give everything time to settle.

Oops, I did post but it disappeared, I'll try again...

Thank you, it's reassuring to know that things start out gently. I think I was a bit worried because DD's teacher seems to have got stuck straight in. I guess DS's class are a bit younger though.

We've got the same thing going on too at the moment, but what I genuinely don't understand is how you assess a child if they're doing work that is way below what they are capable of?

DD is reasonably good at maths, and is currently doing work that she was capable of in reception, so I can't quite see the point of this, but perhaps someone can enlighten me.

dd2 is already (first full week back) in her groups as per last term in Y1 - they are being assessed, in case they need to move up or down etc, but they aren't all doing the same work by any means.

In Literacy she is doing self-tests for spelling, finishing stories, etc. In maths I'm not sure, tbh - but her homework was easy: partitioning, but with optional extension work (also easy).

She's definitely not bored - though she's already caught this term's tummy bug

DS2 is in year 2, they practice counting daily - but that includes counting forwards and backwards in 2s, 5s, 10s etc. Then they go onto do the actual maths of the day, whatever it might be. He is in a mixed year 1/2 class and the teacher is very good at differentiating work, so if they are in the group doing maths word problems for example the questions of different 'hardness' are on different colour cards for the children to choose the right question level easily.

His school do phonics all the way through to year 6, this is a fairly new initiative for us, but made a significant difference to all reading and spelling ages throughout the school.

Thanks again, I've just picked him up and he says he had the best day ever! Apparently he did some quite hard maths questions and was told he did excellent work in phonics.

His reading and spelling are both very good (they're his strong points, I'm not claiming he's good at everything). I'm hoping he'll get something out of the phonics lessons though, even if it's just an extra bit of confidence at the moment.

His teacher seems very approachable so I'll book a 'how's he settling in' type chat in a couple of weeks, and in the meantime try not to worry. A few of the other parents from his class have said they think the Y2s are still doing Y1 work, hopefully the difference will become more apparent soon. It's hard to know what they've been doing though really because 6 year olds aren't terribly good at reporting back.