Changing my mind about primary school

[muttleydosomething]

We were very lucky and managed to get our son, who is just 4, into a very good primary school for September. It has an Ofsted outstanding but also has a reputation for being academically very pushy and old-fashioned and strict. We were not as drawn to it as we had been to another outstanding school down the road which has a warmer atmosphere and tons of arts and extra-curricular stuff going on and is generally loved by everyone round here, but I guess we worried at the last minute that perhaps the more cuddly school wouldn't be so good at getting him to actually put his head down (because he's very noticeably mature language-wise but has no interest in writing, drawing, reading or maths, to the extent that his nursery seem to think he's much weaker in these areas than the other children). We have always felt torn between wanting to give our son an education that is responsive to the rate of his development (as on the continent, eg) and feeling that that's just not possible within the UK state system so we might as well get him up to speed so he doesn't end up being left behind.

Now I'm feeling we might have made the wrong decision. Another parent with a similar outlook to mine has a child in the pushy school and says it's pretty dire re homework and has got his son anxious about his academic abilities at the tender age of seven. I feel that's not what I would have signed up for, and that the "warmer" school might have been better at sneaking in learning so that our son actually enjoys it rather than putting him off right at the outset. Is it too early to try to change? should I put his name on the waiting list for the other school now?

It will completely depend on your area. Can you ring the LEA (as they will coordinate admissions usually) and ask if there are spaces/ how long the wiating list is.

I certainly chose to have my daughter at a school where they didn't have tons of homework etc. I think "getting him to put his head down" at 4 could well be counter productive!

Muttley:

Look I've been on the other side of this coin - I could write a novel - I have in the past.

Our term for DD1's primary was St. Mediocre - it was a happy, friendly environment but the emphasis was on letting children be children, and getting everyone to a high ability level based on work done in class/ homework was definitely not a priority. Indeed for most of KS2 no homework came home at all once Gove dropped the Labour staturtory hoemwork requirement - the school cited the EEF study which showed homework has little value (lots of posts on homework here on MN - but the person behind the study that showed homework is of only marginal benfit (~ 1 month) in primary even says it depends on the quality of hoemwork and schools should consider parents in this: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04dmxwl

DD1 is now in Y7 - I spent most of Y4 - Y6 doing lots of work at home to fill huge chasms in the curriculum covered by her school, especially in maths. The nett result is she has made a bumpy but reasonable adjustment to her local state secondary school. Friends from St Mediocre priamry school who didn't do this additional work are really struggling and the glaringly obvious thing to me as a parent is all the kids from the feeder school with the rigorous academic reputation aren't freaked out by homework or the concept of revising for exams, don't panic when they're given a project to research and prepare over a fortnight and have all those research/ planning/ organisation skills. Parents of St. Mediocre kids at our new senior school and I have had to spend a lot of time in the first term teaching our kids at home. (And yes it feels jolly good having had a bit of 'you're awful about St. Mediocre' from some friends from the school - to get 'Now, I see what you were on about!' All of us feel that happy though St. Mediocre was, a bit more academic rigour - maybe some regular homework in Y5/ Y6 - would have gone a long way to helping prepare our DCs for secondary.

So my advice is this. Year R will be a gentle settling in to your DC's new school. Don't start your DC's school-life off on a negative note. Yes - keep a watchful eye - but don't arrive day one asking to leave without having even given the place a try - and because you have no idea how long you may have to wait for a transfer anyway, so you need to work with these people. You may just find that your gut instinct - choosing the Academically demanding School over the relatively relaxed one was right.

St. Mediocre presented this 'myth' - they just magically learn here in our gentle, nurturing and supportive environment when the reality was 50%+ parents hired tutors from Year 4 (we're in a 11+ state grammar area) and that's why their results at KS2 SATs looked so good - because the poor kids spend most of KS2 working at home (sometimes quite hard) to make up lost ground. (Oh and the remaining 50% - they were taught separately in Y6, hot-housed to a curriculum of only English/ Maths from December - May - they all did scrape a 4 - but they all ended up absolutely hating school and the ones in that regime have spectacularly fallen to pieces in Y7 at DD1's senior school at least).

Having been there and done that I personally would have preferrred not going part-time at work to home school DD1 who scored NC L1 on English & Maths end of KS1 - and started Year 3 barely able to read and unable to take even 1 from 10. I put in 4 years, working incredibly hard, to turn that around. But if I could have chosen an academically rigorous school, a school sending home regular, well-planned and purposeful homework assignments, knowing what I know now .... gosh, no brainer. And indeed, that's why when we moved DD2 changed schools.

Cuddly school outstanding = results outstanding. Only way to get an outstanding.
Reception is focussed on child's development.
Some children need a lot of support at home and just because we think they aare bright... If they can't produce it they aren't going to be academic in any setting anywhere IaiMost classes are interesting places to be now and the ethos of strict and old fashioned usually refers to the expectations and a lack of embrassing the latest fads.

PastSellByDate that is your experience of one particular school. It's not always the case that strict=better outcomes, not at all. Nor that reception in a more formal school will be as gentle.

For example, locally there are two infant schools. One has a reputation for being more focused on a more formal academic approach, the other a gentler, more rounded approach.

The reception in the less formal school is all about helping the children learn in styles that suit them individually. There's lots of learning through play, and the freedom to learn outside if they wish. In the formal school, reception spend a lot of time sitting at tables doing traditional learning methods.

The more formal school is often chosen IME by parents who like a more traditional approach and think their children will learn more there. But I have heard that when the two intakes merge for junior school at 7, it's often the kids from the school with the gentler approach who excel as they are more used to thinking for themselves.

OP yes, do get your name down on the waiting list ASAP. You don't need to take the place, it just means you may be offered one at some point.

And you never know, spaces may turn up pretty fast.

We had that choice. I ran a mile from the stuffy formal school. I am so glad I did. We are at your school 2. Big, creative, child focused, amazing at engaging every type and style of child. Children love to learn and results are brilliant. Very little formal homework. Lots of music and sports. Each child develops as a confident individual. Join the wait list !!!

I'm with pastsellbydate, my dd is yr 4 now and this academic year has been moved onto top tables for reading and writing and second table for maths. But this has only been with a massive amount of home learning. Basically I taught her to read and am continuing to do loads of maths, spelling and more formal parts of literacy, such as written comprehensions ( unheard of at school) and grammar with her. She's relatively bright but was a very slow starter in her nurturing yr r and yr 1 classes, where she did very little formal learning, by her own choice, and so was seen as bottom table from then on and treated as such, which means it's very difficult to get any challenging work to do and a huge knock to self esteem, as she knew she was on the bottom table. Nurturing is vitally important , but the ability to impart some knowledge is needed too. I have just persuaded her she is good at maths, she is starting to fly as she now has the basics firmly understood and able to apply it. But for several years she described herself as thick and unable to do maths.

mine is in yr 1 - very little homework, v nurturing, but top tables for everything, off the reading scheme, brilliant at maths. It suits her.

I reall worry at the transition to junior! Here they set for maths and english and its really worked for my daughter. Im so so glad shes not got homework yet or pressure,but is encouraged to succeed. I'm a teacher and actively would choose against a formal environment in early years/infants.

Ours is creative and engaging but not cuddly. It's challenging but in all different ways. It's not a case of one size fits all / all DC expected to confirm to one learning model. It's a national lead school and although it's not perfect it is fab and inspiring

At least for the first couple years, how your child clicks with their class teacher and other kids in their class is going to be more important than most else. See how it goes, stay on waiting lists for other schools, keep chatting to lots of parents at different schools.

I was very worried about how the undersubscribed 3rd choice with 90 intake would work for my pfb who is a bit quirky and prefers small groups. Turns out the school is very good at differentiating, a large intake means there's other boys like him, and his teachers have been great (kind but not taking any crap). Its reputation is improving. Will see if juniors is sufficiently challenging but I suspect ds will respond better to personal motivation than anything strict or formal.

I'm not sure that the schools on the continent are generally responsive to a child's individual development (or at least not in the country I know well).

In the country I know, they start school at 6 or 7 and they are expected to work hard from day 1. Learning things by heart, being regularly graded and generally being expected to put their heads down and work whenever they are in school is the system that I saw up close.

By comparison, in the UK, there is a lot of learning through play, and the pace of learning is gentle. Creativity is highly prized and there is quite a bit of art, music etc.