NC for this in case I out myself.
My 4 yr old has just started Reception. He's an August baby and was 6 weeks early, so if he'd been born at term, he'd have been in the next academic year.
His new school has an attached school nursery that he didn't attend, as we were hoping that he'd get a place at our local school (which doesn't have a school nursery). DS instead stayed at a local private nursery which he'd been at a few days a week since he was a baby. Our local school was oversubscribed, and DS didn't get a place, so this didn't work out.
Things have not been going smoothly at his new school. We got called into a meeting with his class teacher and the head teacher.
Firstly, he's behind the other children academically. The main thing here is that most of his classmates attended the school nursery, and they have all been taught phonics in nursery, so are ready for the next steps in learning to read. DS's nursery don't teach phonics - they told me that if a child asks to learn, they'll help, but otherwise, they don't teach them as the school's do this in reception anyway. So DS is new to phonics and struggling to catch up with the others.
Secondly, his behaviour isn't great, he's struggling to sit still and pay attention during group work. I suspect this is partly down to him being behind the other kids, as they say he's better when being taught one to one. And also, he still wants to just play a lot of the time, so I think part of the problem is his relative immaturity. The teachers also think part of the problem is DS adjusting to the new environment and more structured routines.
He's also very tired when he gets home from school and it's been a struggle getting him to focus on his homework.
The teachers suggested possibly moving him down into the school nursery class (and then on into Reception in the next academic year and so on) might be in DS's best interests. But they want to keep DS where he is for another week or two so they can be sure it's not just settling in issues. They've also said that if DS stays in Reception, he's going to have to do lots of extra work, both at home, and in school with his teacher and the TAs, so will have less playtime than his classmates. They've set up another meeting for a fortnights time to discuss this again.
I have had concerns about DS's readiness for school, although as I don't know many small children, I didn't know if I was being all PFB and worrying about nothing. But now we've had this meeting with the school, I'm definitely concerned. I'm feeling that even if they say they think he'll probably be okay in Reception, I'd rather he went into the nursery class so that he won't be burdened with all the pressure of this catch up work. I'd be less concerned if he was actually focusing and paying attention well in class. His behaviour at school this week seems to be getting worse rather than better too.
So... would it be reasonable to ask that he moves down into nursery, even if they come back and say DS will probably cope if we do all this extra work? They said they won't move him without our consent, but DH reckons that they're likely to be overly optimistic about DS's ability to cope because he thinks a lot of parents would view this sort of proposal negatively.