Reception

[nocheeseinhouse]

I've posted before asking how quickly sounds are being taught for other schools, and definitely think our school is slow. DS has spent a whole week on one letter, and has only learned 17 sounds since September, whereas his friends at other schools have at least learned all 26 alphabet letters and their sounds, often plus some 2-letter sounds. He is given the same book for up to a fortnight, which appear to be old look and say books. When I've raised this, I've been told it's the pattern of the story that's important, but I don't get the point if he cannot decode, and therefore read it? We read plenty of books at home, surely the point of a reader is that he can read it? At home, he can decode, with expression, books with blue bands from phonics schemes. All the pupils are learning sounds at the same rate, regardless of past knowledge, there is no 'setting'.

All of this, I was gritting my teeth and letting slide... until I looked at the Ofsted dashboard today, and the school is in the bottom quartile for key stage 1. So, not only am I surprised as a parent at their methods, or lack of them, they appear to fail the tests, too.

So, now I'm really worried. My DS is averagely bright (I'd like to think above average, but he can take a while to 'get' things, so about average I would expect), and I am anxious to support him. However, I am sending him to school to learn, and if this is going to be of life defining importance, I will send him privately. He loves his school, so this is big. He is exhausted at the end of school, so teaching him myself may wear him out, as it will be more work at the end of a school day, when tired.

There are no vacancies for school governors. I don't want to be 'that' parent, but there are a few of us now who are concerned. The teacher herself is wonderful, but I think overstretched (they've had to take more pupils than there were space for originally, and it's a mixed class with year ones.)

Sorry, this is long, but I'm feeling really concerned, and wondering what to do?

the teacher shouldn't be overstretched. Surely class numbers are still 30 as standard across the board for KS1? It would be interesting to know what the Yr1 half of the class are being taught...

I can only say what is done in my daughters' school but in Reception they cover all the sounds by Feb half term if I remember right from last year (this year they are on ing etc at the moment - one is in R and one is now Yr1 so I can just about remember from last year). They seem to do 4 or 5 sounds a week although they had a consolidation couple of weeks before Christmas. DD2 is reading book band 5/green and they have been proactive with moving her up when they think she is ready. Books are a mix of phonics ones and ORT but more phonics based than I think they were last year although DD1 started as a pretty fluent reader so they never sent her home with the earlier books so I am not too sure.

As for what you do I am not entirely sure. I don't think you can afford to ignore it, it does sound worrying to me. Perhaps you could contact the head and ask for information about what they are doing to address the issues raised by the Ofsted thing (I am not sure what the dashboard is) as you are concerned. It isn't accusatory as it is offering them the chance to reassure you BUT it is raising it.

Just a thought (which you're welcome to tell me if it's a crazy one!), when did the class start full time? I know some schools do half days until half term. This might slow down how long it takes to learn all the sounds.

The DC's school only does 10 half days then they start learning sounds. They've done all of them now.

DS2 is in year R book. His sound book came home with 'v ' in it today, so a total of 20 sounds completed as a class. It doesn't bother me because DS2 knows all the basic 26 letter sounds and several vowel and consonant digraphs and reads well so we just sort of do our own thing at home.
I am aware some schools are moving quicker, but DS's school is clearly getting results with their system and is rated outstanding by OFSTED.

Our school sounds similar to yours. I have taken to buying our own books because dd was making little progress with the ones she brings home, which are look and say.

They've learnt their letters though and are now moving onto two-letter sounds.

Don't know what to suggest really. Private is no longer an option for us so we'll be doing a lot at home ourselves. I try and reassure myself by keeping in mind that I did not go to a particularly good school, my parents never looked at my homework, and I did ok!

Best of luck!

It might be worth talking to the head about your concerns and seeing if this is maybe a new scheme to try and combat the low KS1 scores rather than what caused them.

We went private for DD because the only state option for her was a school that is very similar to the one you describe, a lot of people had already taken their children out for the same reason so we refused the place she was offered, however private is not always better and you may be better off trying to get on the waiting list for other state schools.

Also if you are thinking about changing schools look into what your options are before mentioning it to anyone, you don't want the bitterness you'd experience from other parents at the school gate.

DD had done the basic alphabet sounds by October half term and 2 and 3-letter sounds by Christmas they are on tion and ough this week. looking at the timetables we got sent home they plan to be done with sounds by the end of the month.

DS is at an 'outstanding' state school, he's yr 5 now but I still have his homework diary with the sounds charts and the last one on there (ing) was signed off by his teacher in the January, last letter sound was November (I dug the diary out the other day as his school printed a really good list of tips for parents in the back).

The bit of all you've said that worries me most though isn't the speed they are working at, it is that there seems to be no differentiation in the work at all, which means either slower to understand students just get left behind or everyone is held back til the last one 'gets it,' either way that's not good.

The school is Ofsted 'outstanding', and their KS2 results appear fine. However, the teachers have been moved around, so I wonder if the previous infant teachers were better, and that's still paying off in KS2?

They all started full time straight away, and the class has 31 in it, I think, due to an appeal. It is certainly fuller than we were told it was going to be on the open day.

Everyone is learning at the same pace, whether they're already readers, know their sounds and are beginning to read (my son), or cannot blend, and knew no sounds in September.

So, I am sure they're going slowly. I am unhappy they're not differentiating. I know my DS doesn't read as well at school as at home, as the books are look and say, and he has been taught to sound things out, so gets frustrated, and wants to go and do something else. I understand the teacher won't be able to tell the difference between that, and someone who cannot read. However, any phonics based books he gets, he says are easy, and gets very positive comments in his book.

Private would be a struggle for us, but I honestly don't feel I can bring up my concerns at the school. I just don't know if I can rescue this at home? Has anyone successfully brought up concerns like this, and had anything change? Can they advise?

why don't you feel you can bring your concerns up?

Yes you can rescue most things at home by working with him in the evenings/weekends, 1 crap teacher/way of teaching things can be cancelled out by enough support at home but only if your child wants to learn and you can find ways to make it fun. What are they like on everything else in KS1?

My sons primary were quite bad with lumping everyone together for numeracy in year 1 and after a few meetings with the head and threatening to write to the governors they did start setting harder work for the more able children to do with a TA but I had to bring it up quite a few times before that happened, and there were 2 other mums who kept bringing it up too.

I would not take a lot of notice of the ' outstanding' ofsted.

No idea what stage our class is at - i am pretty sure that they have done the single letter sounds but am unclear about how far they have got with the letter groups. i dont know about differentiation within the phonics group but i know that they assessed the whole class in the first few weeks and sent some of the kids off to read with the y1 and y2 groups. we used "fun with phonics" bbc dvds after nursery started ds on phonics last year. they are nice programmes and typical cbeebies learn without realising stuff. maybe use this to supplement out of school? maybe see if you can catch the teacher to ask about differentiation before taking it to the head?

Are they being taught as a whole class or are they in groups?

Whole class, from what he tells me, and from the chat at the school gates.

There are other areas where I'm very happy with the school.

I don't feel I can bring it up, because we're right at the start, and I don't want to appear fussy already.

And TBH, I did take no notice of the Ofsted, I wanted somewhere he would be loved. I thought all school did phonics only these days, and just expected it to be done well!

I'd talk to the teacher - at ds's school there is whole class phonics teaching which involves sitting on the carpet and is apparently boring, but that's less than 15 min a day and the rest of literacy is in small differentiated groups. The class did a few letters a week and now are starting on 2-letter sounds, while ds and some friends are doing other combinations on their table. All their books so far have been pure phonics.

Just ask about it and say you're confused by something your child said - the amount of odd stories they come up with could explain any question!

I've questioned once why we got a non-phonics book, and got explained (in the diary, in words of one syllable) that this was a patterned story.

But what's the point of even a 'patterned story' if it contains words he cannot decode?

I think my DS will be okay, as I'll help, but what about those whose parents cannot help?

From September all schools will have to "do phonics"

Statutory requirements
Pupils should be taught to:

apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words

respond speedily with the correct sound to graphemes (letters or groups of letters) for all 40+ phonemes, including, where applicable, alternative sounds for graphemes

read accurately by blending sounds in unfamiliar words containing GPCs that have been taught

read common exception words, noting unusual correspondences between spelling and sound and where these occur in the word

read words containing taught GPCs and –s, – es, – ing, – ed,– er and – est endings

read other words of more than one syllable that contain taught GPCs

read words with contractions [for example, I’m, I’ll, we’ll], and understand that the apostrophe represents the omitted letter(s)

read aloud accurately books that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge and that do not require them to use other strategies to work out words

re-read these books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading.

This might help people who are not familiar with all the TERMINOLOGY