Issues in Year 1 - at a loss

[skinmysunshine]

Hi

I'm hoping someone might have some advice for me. Apologies in advance as this is going to be long.

I have a DD in year 1 at our local Primary school (I also have a DS in year 3). Both DH and I work f-t so we are very rarely at school for drop-off (breakfast club) or pick-up (nanny), although we do try to go up to the school for all events etc.

Last term we received a post-it note out of the blue asking us to speak to DD. Apparently she was approaching the adults in her class whenever she had a question, or had finished her work, instead of following the protocol and putting her hand up. The off-shoot was that she was interrupting when other children were recieving attention. We spoke to her about this, then DH went up to the school and asked her teacher to let us know if anything else happened.

A couple of weeks later was Parents' Evening. The school measures children across four areas: Concentration, Behaviour, one I can't remember and Respect for Others and they are rated as Good, Poor, or Needs Improvement. DH and I sit down and the teacher shows us our DD's report. She had been rated Needs Improvement across all four areas.

DH and I were pretty shocked by this to say the least. Apart from the post-it a couple of weeks before, we were not expecting a wholly negative report at all. Our discussion with the teacher centered on the fact that DD's behaviour wasn't good as per the note, that she lacked concentration and hadn't improved over the year as expected, that she is popular but that she was bossy and dictated the games that her friends played. In fact, until we caveated her viewpoint with our own perspective, she didn't say a single positive thing about DD.

At the end of the meeting we confirmed that we would speak to DD and we asked that the teacher would let us know on a weekly basis how she was doing.

We got home and spoke to DD who also didn't seem to expect to receive a negative report either.

We've since had one of these teacher notes home, then nothing, until last night when we received another note. This one asked us to speak to her regarding an incident yesterday where she had told the teacher that she had an operation on her knee to get out of PE. 'This was a lie and made us worry about her'. Again we spoke to DD last night stressed the importance of being truthful, not using lies to get out of things etc.

We want to go back up to school and address some of these things with the teacher but I'm keen to understand what other people think as, while I understand that issues need to be dealt with, I do think there are mitigating factors and I want to ensure that I frame the conversation correctly so that we get a good, positive conversation and a practical and useful way forward. From our perspective:

• We understand and support the teacher in disciplining DD when she has stepped out of line
• DD is the youngest child in her year (end August) and while I don't want to use this as an excuse, it certainly does make a difference
• She has always had a vivid imagination and has imaginary friends and makes up narratives all the time. Everything we have read about this advises us go along with this rather than try and stop it as she will use these to work out issues she is experiencing; however, I did stress to her last night the importance of using her imagination in the right settings i.e. when she is playing or writing a story and not in a real life situation where someone might take her seriously
• DD seems to be bright (she is certainly way ahead of where DS was at her age). At home she is incredibly self-motivated and has a real love of learning - spends a lot of time reading and writing. This does not seem to be translating to school and I don't know why
• Because she is the youngest (and also the smallest) child in her year, we have spent a lot of time trying to encourage her to be independent and confident which may be coming across as bossiness and dictating
• I'm concerned that everything that we are receiving from the school at the moment is negative and doesn't seem to be tempered with anything positive we can give her. While I want to know concerns, I refuse to believe my child does not have any good points and this seems to be knocking her confidence
• I also have a further issue that DD is struggling with a girl at school who is excluding her from games and circles. DD has mentioned this a few times and then one of her friends spoke to my DS about it. I've tried to encourage DD to resolve this herself by speaking to the girl or her teacher.

Overall I guess I'm concerned that there is something going on underlying this and I want to help DD to succeed while not leaving her in a situation that makes her unhappy, which I am increasingly seeing.

Any ideas as I am at something of a loss right now?

Gosh - this is the opposite of the line my children's school used to take. They were always slightly taken aback when I wanted to talk to or discipline the dcs about something that had happened at school.

We had one parents' evening with ds which was wholly negative. He was in Yr 3 and the negatives were all about his personality and the fact he was loud - although never disruptive. We immediately asked for a meeting with the head and I would suggest you consider the same.

I wrote a long letter to the head in advance of the meeting setting out what had happened in my view. I was deliberately non-confrontational and approached it from the perspective of how upset we were that nothing positive could be said about our child and that we though if there were problems at this level, something needed to be put in place to support him and we wanted to work with the school to determine what that might be. Current approached were clearly not working.

Before the meeting I sat down with ds and asked him to talk frankly about how he perceived his behaviour and what he thought any problems were.

Because we took at very concilatory (but proactive) approach, the head was happy to meet with us and admitted that she thought the teacher lacked experience and had done completely the wrong thing. It turned out that there was a lot going on for ds and, for a variety of reasons, school had become really hard for him. You might find if you delve deeper that your daughter also has stuff going on that you are not aware of.

My feeling is that your DD is behaving in the normal range & you just have to keep bumbling thru with what you're doing. Boudaries, consequences, rewards, encouragement, etc. (Who said that parenthood was easy?)

The social exclusion thing is something you can raise but is a slippery problem to grasp; might suddenly disappear on its own or get worse; very common this age group.

Did the teacher really not start the teacher evening with a single positive statement? DS has chronic behaviour problems (he really is a complete PITA) and his teacher evenings always start with positives; it's obviously a technique that every teacher in the school has learnt or been advised. DS school is in no way "outstanding" so I imagined that the "open the parent evening with positive comments to get off on a constructive foot" was universal, and especially important for the truly difficult kids (or parents?!).

I suspect that if you could open up more regular lines of communication that you wouldn't find things coming out of the blue so much.

I too have a young-in-the year DD who is very small for her age. Personally I don't think these issues have impacted on her behaviour at all. She can be bossy but has been very stubborn from the beginning. I think partly to do with her character and also having an older brother who she needs to stand up to. At school she has learnt to tame this to some extent,, after we have reinforced teachers messages about listening to others, taking their views into account and taking turns (she is Y5 now). I wonder whether this side of your DD may be influencing the friendship issues that you mention?
With regard to the school - if you rarely are up at school it is likely that you may be missing out on the more positive side of your daughters behaviour. The teacher is unlikely to send a post-it home saying she said please or thank you. She will need to raise matters of poor behaviour/concern.
My main concern would be whether the school have put in any measures to help your DD - methods to aid her concentration, a reward chart to help with behaviour etc. I would centre any furture discussions on what you can do to help the school by way of reinforcing their approach so as not to confuse your DD.

Hi skinmysunshine

First off - She's 5 - Five year olds don't get waiting their turn, rarely appreciate that an adult is talking/ reading/ listening and can't respond to their query/ needs instantly. Five year olds are typically selfish and demanding little people - but most grow out of it.

Several things occur. You seem very aware your DD is bright but I don't get the impression from your post that the school appreciates this. One of the reasons may be that all they see day to day of your DD is someone who is demanding time of them they don't really have - she's needy, waste times and doesn't get down to doing the work. Day in and day out this can result in an incredibly negative opinion of an otherwise lovely kid.

So my advice is use a bit of psychology on your DD. If she wants to please her teacher(s) - and most kids do - persuade her that sitting quietly, raising her hand, doing what is asked prompty and trying her best will get her more appreciation from the teachers than anything else.

For you and your DH - tell yourselves that this is a phase and that she will grow out of it.

In terms of the girl in her class who's excluding her/ ?bullying her/ ?teasing her - I'm afraid around here this happens to most kids. My advice is going forward try to encourage your DD to find kids she can play with or activities she can do on her own. It's not ideal of course - but it does mean that break time is more enjoyable than watching a group of kids you aren't allowed to join in with play and have a good time. Have a look around the playground - and point out things your DD can do on her own or alongside other children. See if they are allowed to use chalks on the playground, or bring out paper and crayons and draw. See if there isn't a bit of garden somewhere where she can sit and watch butterflies/ insects. Try and find her things she can do that she will enjoy - hop scotch/ monkey bars/ climbing frame/ swings/ etc...

HTH

Honestly this late in the school year I'd do absolutely nothing, but cross my fingers she has a teacher she gets on better with next year.

DD2 liked inventing non existent school trips, which she'd tell me about in great detail and being very bossy at that age. It wears off (well the tales do), even at 13 DD2 does like to organise people.

DD1 utterly wound up her Y2 teacher, in retrospect I know exactly why and it would have been pretty much impossible to sort.

Thanks for the responses. I appreciate people taking the time to read such a long initial post. In answer to points/questions raised:

• Gooseyloosey I definitely want to go up to the school and discuss this further, especially as there is no Parents' Evening in the Summer Term. I'm unsure whether we shouldn't try and discuss this further with the teacher before we consider raising it with the Head. I agree we need to try and understand things from our DD's perspective but I do find that her view changes quite a lot so it's hard to work out if anything is regularly bothering her. The only thing she has consistently mentioned is the issues she's having with this one girl. Part of my problem is that some of the things the teacher is expressing as negative I don't necessarily see them that way.

• HolidayCriminal I agree re. the social exclusion thing. As said above it is something she's mentioned quite a bit but I do expect it to resolve itself and my last instinct is to go haring up to the school about it but I do wonder if it's part and parcel of the issues. And yes re. the positive thing - I was flabbergasted. As a manger of people I have been coached on how to give feedback and it is always positive - negative - positive. The PE was so shocking to us as the only positive things we heard was the teacher's agreement to things we raised in answer to her points. I do think she handled it badly.

• Seeline what I mean by her young age impacting on her behaviour is less about her being bossy - she too has an older brother and, as I mentioned we have encouraged her to be vocal and independent. I do think it impacts the 'lying' though as I don't think she fully appreciates how other people see her coming up with these stories and the full consequences. I tried to talk to her about it last night but whether I got through I don't know. We have also tried to reinforce the message about sharing, listening etc. but clearly the teacher isn't seeing evidence of this. It certainly could be influecning the friendship issues. With regards to our being rarely at the school I'm not sure this is impacting the communication as parents are not allowed to go up to the classroom door at drop off or pick up so don't get that kind of interaction. And what I mean by the positive things is that we specifically asked the teacher to send us a note home weekly telling us how she was doing but this hasn't happened until the negative note last night. I do appreciate that they need to tell us about negative issues but I do think it isn't good that the only things our daughter currently hears from school is when she has misbehaved and not when she has improved or done anything well. In terms of measures I haven't seen anything to suggest they are helping her. The impression I got from PE (although I may be wrong) is that they have placed the ball firmly in our court.

• PastSellByDate the teacher did agree with us when we said we thought she was bright; however, that didn't come from her so I don't know whether this was a platitude or something she does believe.

I'm more than happy to discuss things with my DD and try and resolve issues with her/discipline her. I know she's not perfect but she is also a wonderful little girl in many respects and it makes me sad that people might not be seeing that.

I guess the things I need help with are how best to frame this to the teacher. I want to be supportive, but do want to raise the concerns I have while also agreeing a positive way forward that helps DD and the teacher.

Nocomet that's exactly the kind of things she's doing. In her first year at school both her teacher and one of her friends broke their leg and another friend broke his arm. It has become something she's a little obsessed with and she often walks around the house with a long sock (plaster cast) on with baseball bats (crutches). I think she's taken this a bit far by doing something similar at school without understanding that people who don't know the history might take her seriously and then accuse her of lying. She claims she didn't want to get out of PE - I don't know whether that's true or not.

I was wondering whether we should let it go until the new note but, at 5 years old, a whole term is forever so I'm wondering whether we should try and do something. Appreciate your insight.

Hang in there skinmysunshine

As noncomet suggests - the school year is winding down and shortly will be over. Next year will be a new teacher and a fresh start and your DD will be a few months older - this may well all blow over with no effort at all.

Work on encouraging good behaviour - so if your DD interupts you all the time at home don't blame her for treating her teacher the same. Start the encourage her to learn to wait her turn. In fact our poor DDs are so used to raising their hand and being patient from school that we've found them doing much the same at home when they want to join in conversation. It made their grandmother cry, she was laughing so hard about it.

Genuinely - don't worry too much about this - she's 5, she'll grow out of it.

PastSellByDate I have a teacher in mind for next year I really hope she gets - probably setting myself up for a disaster here!

I have discussed with other parents as I know the teacher had a terrible time the year she had the nursery children but everyone else really likes her so no-one seems to be having my issues.

Thanks for your advice. I have been trying with her as both she and her older brother are terrible for interrupting.

oh gawd, I hate organising people. That really is a specialist skill!!!

I feel quite cross when I read posts like this. We had a similar experience at parents consultation when my dd was 5.

I was extremely worried and wondered if i was deluded in some way, having thought dd was just a lovely bright girl.

It was an entirely different story when she changed teacher. The new one just seemed to get her. She recognised her abilities and brought her on amazingly.

She is only 5 and on that cusp of getting you have to put your hand up, you take turns, you have to listen. If she's the youngest in the year it's possible she'll get it after the older ones she's being compared to. Don't doubt your dd.

Mine told some whopping great lies that were really quite fantastical. All believed by her first teacher. They weren't particularly malicious - she didn't want to do cooking one day so told the teacher she couldn't hold a spoon. So we were sternly questioned about whether we used cutlery at home. DH looks and talks a bit like Hugh Grant and came in work attire - so you can imagine how ridiculous it seemed. Particularly as she was writing with a pencil and eating her school dinner with cutlery. We went home in shock from that parents evening.

Take it all with a very large pinch of salt. And carry on... Hopefully you'll get a teacher more on her wavelength next year.

Mine was slow with these things but once she got them, she didn't look back.

tbh whilst I can understand that it is hard to take she is telling you about incidents that have occurred. Your dd is not behaving that well, she is bossy and is having difficulty with her friendships as a result and has told her teacher a lie to get out of PE. This is not the end of the world and doesnt mean she isnt a nice kid, but she is obviously requires improvement and by telling you the truth she is trying to get you to support her in disciplining your dd in a gentle way. Maybe the girl who leaves your dd out is fed up of your dd bossing her around? I really do feel sympathy for you because we are simply not used to people being honest with us. The teacher is perhaps guilty of not using the shit sandwich technique of telling you a positive, then the negative and then finishing with a positive so that you feel better about the actual crucial bit of feedback. It may well be that your dd being an August birthday is making school harder for her but you need to know this. Personally I would try and step back and avoid over reacting in a defensive way. Keep touching base with the teacher, maybe ask her to do a reward chart of some kind or do something similar with your dd at home. I am absolutely sure she will be fine. Lots of children struggle to start with.

Quite often confident children appear bossy. Another child may well want to say what games are played and your DD does not like it. Clash of the big personalities and someone loses out. She appears to want attention all the time - is this what she has been used to getting from you or from her pre school setting? Or does she crave it? Being the youngest in the class is no handicap for confident children. It is an over used excuse. I think you do need to get her to wait for her turn, (board games are good for this) and not expect immediate attention. Don't respond when she interrupts. Teachers like children who don't give them any trouble, so getting to this position is what you need to aim for without squashing your DDs personality. My DD learnt at Nursery that she had to take turns, put her hand up, not shout out. She was an August birthday. If you encourage her to be over confident, it maybe the teacher does find this tiresome and she is probably not the only one in the class either. Move on to next year after spending the summer working on how to have good classroom manners and you will all be fine.

• rowna thank you so much for that. It really helps that someone else had a similar experience and it all worked out. I think the teacher is a lovely lady but I do think she doesn't get my DD, otherwise the love of learning that we see at home would surely be coming out.

The thing is she does get a lot of this stuff. She's reading and writing pretty well, her maths is great, her gross motor skills are good. It's other things that seem to be letting her down.

• cansu thanks also for your post. I know on here I am certainly being defensive, and that's part of the reason why I came back here after such a long hiatus, so I could get a lot of this out. However, I am most definitely not showing this to either my DD or her teacher. I have been supportive of the discpline the teacher is trying to instill and we have talked to and punished DD for her behaviour. I do still have concerns though that we didn't hear anything positive. I think that is a real issue. Yes I get that she wanted to get her points across and didn't want to frame them in a 'shit sandwich' but this was pretty much out of the blue for us, if she really had such conerns why weren't we asked to go up to school earlier? And I also think that to go home to our DD with such a wholly negative message wasn't right.

• MillyMollyMama tbh I had concerns with DD before she started school that she would get swamped by other people as she could be quite shy. We worked on that with her quite a lot before she started and now she does have some confidence and, yes, she does have views of what she wants to do and is probably clashing with her friend. I wouldn't say she had over-attention before she went. She's been going to nursery full-time since she was 7 months old and has an older brother. They are guilty sometimes of interrupting but no more than other children I see and she can wait her turn. At nursery and in Reception no issues like any of this were raised with us. In fact, until the last, Parent's Evening we've had largely positive comments at all parent/teacher meets with regards to her behaviour, personality, friendships, effort etc.

I'm not trying to excuse anything she does by the fact she is the youngest in her year. It certainly has not held her back in other areas; however, the way she uses stories, roll plays and her imagination is very different from her older friends and we were expecting her to grow out of this with time. All advice we have read, and we've read a lot as we had no experience of imaginary friends, told us to go along with it. But I'm wondering now if this is biting her on the bum as we haven't put a stop to it and other people don't get it.

I really do appreciate everyone who has come on this thread. Yes I agree this stuff is hard to hear, especially when it is so unexpected. I am trying to work with my daughter to address the issues; however, the main reason for starting this thread was to work out how to deal with it with the teacher as I don't think this has been handled well whatever the issues we need to work on together.

OP, just want to add that I think it is so wrong for that teacher to accuse a young child of 'lying' because they have an imaginary broken limb. Broken limbs do capture young imaginations for a strange reason - there is an episode of Charlie and Lola where Charlie breaks him arm playing football and it was my dd's favourite episode she wanted to watch it over again and then would pretend-play that her arm was broken. It's not very different from playing doctors and nurses or hospital.

I would expect a teacher (or parent) to firmly tell the child that it is not time to play, it is time to focus on PE or whatever the lesson is. After all it was pretty damn obvious that your dd's knee was not broken She could simply say firmly to your dd that at PE time it is time to do PE not time to pretend that your leg is broken - sending a note home to say your child is 'lying' to get out of PE is just so wrong, it really makes me wonder about that teacher.

OP, one more thought, sounds to me like you're dealing with a teacher who does not have much patience with children. A child constantly approaching the teacher instead of putting her hand up just needs to be firmly and consistently told 'go and sit down and raise your hand'. Instead the teacher is writing notes home to pin the blame on this young child. The teacher seems to find your dd very irritating and wants you to fix this so your dd blends in and stops irritating her. That's just sad. Good advice on this thread but I would consider that maybe you just have a situation where the teacher does not have the patience which she would ideally have and that's really the problem here.

I would stand with your dd on this. She sounds like a lovely child. She is only 6. She does not need those 'talks' which this teacher is asking for. Obviously she needs firm discipline like all children do, but I think the notes home are suggesting there is a 'problem' when there isn't. I would not have a 'talk' with my dd based on those stupid notes. I would just reinforce the discipline generally e.g. there is a time to play and a time not to play, sit down and wait your turn, play nicely with your friends, etc, all the things you would/should be teaching her anyway.

Kawliga thank you so much for your comments. You have expressed exactly how I feel about this whole thing. I do think we've unfortunately ended up with a teacher who neither gets, nor wants to get DD. I've also found the tone of the notes harsh considering we're dealing with a 5 year old and my sense has never been that we are working together but rather that there is a problem and we (as in DH and I) need to fix it.

I was thinking of going up to school to try and have a more constructive discussion with the teacher which would hopefully provide us with practical things we were all working on rather than this uncomfortable feeling i currently have. But your comments, along with a couple of others on this thread plus a chat with a friend in the pub the other night, has led me to think that I continue to reinforce good behaviour at home, keep my child engaged and happy here and hope that translates to school. We've only got 4 more weeks to half term and then maybe another 6 weeks so, providing no further notes, we'll just hope for a teacher who works better with DD next year.

I do think it's difficult to convey tone in a hastily written note. What would have been quick asides at the classroom door are turned into a big deal. Is it possible to do drop off or pick up once a week to facilitate this.

I don't think its entirely reasonable to get a written report every week on one child unless there are very big problems.

I think it sounds like a lot of normal yr 1 behavior that the teacher is being a tiny bit precious as she should handle this no problem. I would be concerned about the lie though. Year 1 children know the seriousness of lying to a teacher, I would try to find out what that's all about.

Skinmy this was the situation in year 2 with my DD, though there was a bullying element going on too. The teacher hated that my DD stood up for her friends when they were verbally bullied and felt she had asked for it when she was physically bullied.

I ended up just surviving the year as an attempt to get grips with it with the teacher when disastrously wrong with the teacher basically saying it was all DD's fault.
The next year and since then we have had fab teachers who get DD, interestingly the bully is still doing it 3 years on to other children even though it was 'all my DD's fault'.
On the basis of my experience with so little of the year I would head down and survive.

2468motorway at pick up and drop off the teacher does not speak to parents. The classroom is at the top of a disabled ramp and we have been asked to stay at the bottom of the ramp. On the written report she agreed to this and then didn't follow through. Given we are supposed to communicate via notes in the yellow book I don't think it's unreasonable to request something in return.

I know it seems like I'm making excuses but I honestly don't think DD thought she was lying. That's not how her mind works, although I can see how it might seem to others who are not used to her. I have spoken to her about the context in which she uses her stories . To be fair to her as well she fessed up to daddy before he had even seen the note so I think she realised how much trouble she was in.

Lonecat am sad to see other children having gone through similar things. I'm going to do my best to continue reinforcing good behaviour while supporting DD as well as I can and hope for the best for next year.

Thanks all for posting. It really has been helpful working this through.

I meant I would be concerned as the lie/fib might be indicative of the fact that your DD feels unhappy or overlooked.

I agree that if you have a communication book and this is common practice in your school its not unreasonable to expect the teacher to use it.

2468motorway thanks. I've talked to DD and I don't think there's anything beyond the ordinary 5/6 year old stuff but I'll keep an eye.