Am I being overprotective

[Shw017]

My little boy started reception in September. He has an August birthday but is doing well in geberal but doesnt seem to like writing. He has been making a lot of comments recently about his work being rubbish and how the teachers dont like his work as it isnt neat enough or how they say he always rushes or they rub it out ect. I went to parents evening recently and she did mention the presentation of his work and say he rushes to go and play. I really want to say to them that I think it is knocking his confidence and that it may be the reason he doesnt want to try but I am not sure if this normal and I am being overprotective.

Will he draw, or colour pictures? Or does he not like anything involving pencils or pens?

Is he expected to write sentences of his own, or is he trying to copy text someone has scribed for him?

Personally, I think it is getting pretty disastrous what is expected of such young children now. Reception is supposed to be about 'learning through play' - or is that something that has been dumped in the quest for raising standards?

I worked in primary schools as a TA for twenty years, and staff are supposed to nurture children's confidence, and help them progress and succeed, NOT set them up to fail.

To help him a bit, you could help him practise making large letter shapes in dry sand on a tray, or in flour. Or with a brush and water on an outside wall, or concrete floor. Pencils aren't the only instruments for mark-making and writing.

It is a balance between understanding he should try his best and then being able to play. I guess he would be happier playing all the time! Lots of teachers give praise for good work. Does he like to earn praise, or is he oblivious to it because play is everything? It might be better if he can learn to slow down and I would talk to the teacher again about how she might encourage him to do this. My DDs both did writing in Reception and that was years and years ago so writing is not a new concept at this age. They definitely did not learn through play all day! Perhaps he could see play as a reward for doing something well.

Not the ethos of EYFS. Play is not a reward. It is supposed to be fifty fifty adult to child initiation. He wouldn't be the first child to want to play all day long and his teachers won't be the first and last that have results to get. Support him. He will be fine in the end.

Except of course nearly every parent in the land uses play as a reward for a child! When you have done X, you can go and play! I did say perhaps because I thought common sense would not be prevailing here! Children usually like the notion of achieving something and then being able to do something of their choice. I am so glad my children are older.

Thank you for your responses. I probably should have been a little a
clearer. He does not copy write anymore, she says he is at the stage of trying to hear the sounds and write independently. Looking at his books it does look a bit rushed and didnt seem muxh different from Sept. I am just worried that school nagging at him everyday to be neater is putting him off and he maybe doesnt want to try. Almost every page of his work book had a comment from the teacher about his presentation. I suppose my question is wether or not it is normal to be telling reception children to be neater/rubbing messy bits out? I thought at this stage it wiuld be about praising their edfort as it is a huge effort for a 4.5 year old to write a sentence trying to remember about spaces/sitting letter on thw line/which way a 'b' goes ect. I wonder if perhaps I should wrute a letter explaining my conserns or just work with his confidence at home. Does anyone have any suggetions for how I might encourage him to take his time?

My ds was the same. It was entirely that he didn't see why he should sit there and write "stupid words" when round him others were playing. Learning through play really didn't suit him.

He was much better in year 1 when generally if he was required to write, so were the rest of his class. He also has hearing issues, and that reduced the noise around so made it easier for him to concentrate.

Personally for my ds letting him get away with rushing it as badly as he thought he could get away with wouldn't help in the long run. Because he's clever enough to work out that if he was writing a sentence and could get away with "I sEE yOo." as messy as he wanted, then he wouldn't see the point next time in writing anything better, so naturally he wouldn't improve. He would also realise if he put effort in one time then they'd be expecting it to be nearly as good another, so even more incentive not to put the effort in.
Telling him that they knew he could do better, and making sure he did something more had two effects. One was he did improve despite his best efforts not to, plus he also did have some pride in his work-when he'd done it. When he had done something he knew was his best, he was proud of it and wanted to tell/show me. But he never wanted to do that in the first place, and would have been very cross to be made.

Oh and I'll aslo add, that my observation is that encouraging them to be neat/think about handwriting does help in the long run.

Dd1's teacher was really strong on handwriting. I thought it a total waste of time. Surely they'd be better just getting to grip with spelling than looking at how to form the letters perfectly joined up.
Dd2's teacher didn't do any handwriting practice. They had to form the letters properly, but other than that she didn't mind.
Ds's teacher taught cursive from pretty much straight away, and they did some practice.

Dd1's writing is beautiful. I don't think she can do messy.
Dd2's writing is like a spider upsetting the ink pot. It's actually an issue now in year 6 as she misreads her own handwriting and occasionallyher work isn't clear enough to be marked correct. It's proving quite hard to change now.
Ds, despite his hatred for writing, has pretty okay cursive handwriting. He can do messy, even very messy if he strongly disapproves of the subject (don't ask him to write a fairytale! "Red Riding hood disserved to be eaten by the nice wolf because she was a girl. Yum Yum!") but his basic handwriting is quite nice.