Struggling Year 1 advice pls

[X2mum]

DS is an August born child in Year 1 of a highly selective academic prep school. Teacher has said that he is struggling and always needs help from the TA in yr 2 they have no TAs and they are worried how he will cope. We have been invited in to observe how much help he needs compared to the other kids in the class (find it demoralising for me which I know is wrong !) Any advice on how to handle this situation?
Don't really want to move as his sibblings go there too but want to do right for DS. Also what school do I move him to we live in Radlett. What's Aldenham like? How do I mange 3 kids in 2 different schools? Really worried thanks for your help x

My summer-born (not as late as August though) DS found Yr1 particularly difficult. They were not joining up writing at all - that didn't start until Yr2. He found Yr2 much better though.

"First off I think you have to see this as the school reaching out to you asking for help"

whaaaaaaaat??????????????

You mean like if you were in a restaurant and ordered an omelette and the chef reached out to you for help and said "sorry I'm not very good at making omelettes- you'll have to make it yourself"?

Is repeating y1 an option OP?

Repeating Y1 for free, you mean?

I wouldn't want to be paying twice for the same faulty service.

PastSell are you actually serious? Pay all that money and then basically educate at home as well??

This child is 5, clearly not a natural academic at the moment, and your advice is basically to cram him so that he remains within the narrow boundaries of what the school deems acceptable?

Bloody hell. I am, by many people's standards, a pushy parent. But that takes the biscuit.

Thanks for all your advice taken on board. Anymore welcome. Husband does not want to move him thinks he will catch up I just want my little boy to be happy.

Sorry folks - I get that it's a private school - but hey my kids are at a state school and basically I am paying all those taxes to have to teach them at home so I see little difference.

Maybe things are different where you are (either private or state) - but here I've had to teach how to add, subtract, multiply, divide + grammar + supply books, because the library day doesn't happen and no books come home from class (as they did in KS1 with guided reading).

Our school kept saying 'They're doing just fine' when we were saying - hey we're a bit concerned DD1's friends from nursery are adding numbers up to ten now and DD1 is still colouring in chains of beads in patterns.

School: Oh Mrs. PSBD you shouldn't compare us to other schools. We are delivering the national curriculum.

Year 1: I'm still a little concerned. DD1 can add up to 10 now, but not beyond and can't subtract at all. Her friends from nursery at school A, B, & C not one mile from here are all doing this.

School: Oh Mrs. PSBD you should not compare us to other schools. Your DD1 is on target and we are teaching to the national curriculum.

Year 2: We're seriously worried now. DD1 can only add to 20 - but has to count on fingers and still can't subtract. I'm more concerned because trainee teachers from the University were able to teach her about fractions and even how to add quarters to make a whole using pizzas as examples and she totally got that - so I can't understand what the problem is with whole numbers. She still has never had a maths homework with actual numbers - like 5 + 15.

School: Oh Mrs. PSBD you should not compare us to other schools. We are teaching to the national curriculum and what you need to understand is your DD1 is just a little bit dim.

So personally I would far prefer a school telling me - say in Year R - DD1 wasn't getting it/ keeping up/ was falling behind and asking me to do a bit more at home than say nothing.

And since we've started doing more - it's given her confidence, it's meant she has learned all calculation skills and now actually really enjoys math. A fringe benefit is that she's moved right the way from bottom to top table over 2-3 years of seriously hard, remedial work (about 1 - 1.5 hrs a week of extra math work with me at home) - and she's unbelievably proud of that achievement.

but I do take the point that some parents may actually believe that if you're paying for private school - you're paying for them to do all of this and release you from the 'burden' (?) as a parent.

HTH

They have said that if he was in reception then there would be no problem with his work so surely he will catch up with himself?

If I was paying £££ for school and teaching at home I wouldn't be a happy bunny.

Column

I totally sympathise

but for every academic with a child in a state school there are 4 single/ couple academics without children also paying taxes for state education

THUS MY RAGE that I'm having to go part-time so I can teach my DD1 maths/ english & support learning because our school's highest standard is scraping NC L4 - they rely on parents to do the rest and benefit from this being a strongly competitive catchment for 11+ (state funded here - so free but entrance by performance on exam).

Don't really see that it's a whole lot different - but get that you are paying taxes + private school fees.

Just out of curiosity - does your child do homework at school with teachers supporting that and read to teachers each evening? No idea how it works in the private sector.

No he has reading every night home work at weekend and some extra stuff 3 times a week which I have to do and spellings

X2:

genuinely - I think he will catch up - my DD1 was effectively 2-3 years behind at start Y3 where she should have been (my understanding is a 1C is notionally where children are leaving Year R and starting Year 1).

Solutions:

regular nightly reading. At first letter her read the 1/2 words she could in a story & me reading the rest. Then gradually working on sounding out new words and adding them to nightly reading. We also read to her (because her interests in books often exceeded her abilities) - so she could get the benefit of hearing the story, talking about it - and maybe reading a sentence or two. Gradually she got to reading whole sentences & DH or I would read rest of paragraph & then whole paragraphs. From there the ball was rolling and it's been onwards and upwards ever since.

With DD2 we discovered jolly phonics workbooks - which are a lot like colouring books/ hand writing practice books - where children write out letter sounds on lines, practicing shaping letters & can colour in pictures. DD2 responded well to this & it really helped her - picked up how to read within Year R (but obviously benefited from sitting with her sister for nightly reading I suspect).

DD1 & DD2 used mathsfactor to learn basic calculations skills. We liked an on-line tutorial because basically children had the freedom to watch instruction video again, play as much math games as they liked and get lots of practice. Plus we were constantly informed on what they were doing, why it's important to learn this now and what's next. Others here have praised maths whizz, mathletics and Komodo maths. There also are more and more APPs appearing out there too.

My genuine advice is slowly but surely - nightly reading (maybe 15-20 minutes) and about 1 to 1 1/2 hrs a week on maths (5 maths homeworks on mathsfactor) just totally turned things around.

At first I was heavily involved with maths work because DD1 needed help typing at age 7 - but by 8/9 she totally took over and now I just get called in to see something cool.

I don't think you should 'blame' the school in the way collumn gollum is suggesting - he's not 6 until August when most of his peer group probably are late 5 or already 6 - that's a huge difference at this age. Do what you can but know that time is your friend here. In a year or two he'll catch up - but clearly he is going to need a bit of extra help/ support from you.

And I suspect, if the school is worth its salt, they'll try and help as much as they can too.

Between you you'll get there.

I will go against the grain and say that sometimes children are just not ready - this is nobody's fault, just a developmental issue. I would consider repeating my child to give them a solid foundation, not just for the year they were in but going forward. I doubt the school are offering a faulty service otherwise they would all be behind.

This is said with the benefit of hindsight. Ds1 is the youngest in his year and has always struggled, especially with maths and self management. Ds2 is the oldest and has always been very self reliant, organised and does very well academically.

No amount of tutoring would have significantly helped DS1 at age 5/6/7 as he was too immature to benefit from it.

Is your son demoralised or happy?

i would worry that your son is being set up at a ridiculously young age to feel like a failure.

I am aghast that they would invite you in to witness your son lagging behind (rather than invite you in, say, so you could offer your input in how to constructively help him).

It's hard not to conclude that they simply want him out because they have a set way of driving students to top marks, and attracting fee paying parents.

Sounds a horrible place.

I think the school sounds shockingly awful.
You are paying for this?!
Are they trying to say can't/ won't offer extra support. Sounds like it.
If highly selective imagine highly crap at differentiating.
Sounds horrible and would be tempted to move my child, noisily telling everyone how crap and unsupportive they are.
[State school an option for your son [?] who sounds great by the way].

"And I suspect, if the school is worth its salt, they'll try and help as much as they can too."

There is no evidence in anything that the OP has said that the school will do anything of the sort.....

If it's private & he's so young, can't he be moved down to be educated with the current reception crew, and stay with that yr group until further notice? I would have thought this would solve a lot of problems and perfectly possible in the private system.

Teachers at selective schools don't always have experience of teaching less able children. They must teach to the majority who are at least 1-2 school years ahead. As they accepted him, you should ask the school what they are going to do to support him. You are paying after all. Having said that children who go to academically selective schools when they are not able have a thoroughly miserable time in my experience.