Transition from Reception to Y1

[Royaldada]

How have your DCs found the transition from reception to Y1. Have they come to terms with less play based learning and more formal lessons or are they struggling and how much help did you get as parents from the school in order to help your children make the move.

Why are you asking?

DD is fine. All children moved up for the last two weeks before summer holiday. So they knew the classroom they were moving in to, had their names on pegs etc already, and knew their new teacher a bit. So not too much anxiety about the change.

I prepped DD over summer regarding 'there will be more work, less play' as DD had consistently stated that the best part of school was play time, the worst part was work time.
However DD now insists that she gets MORE playtime than in YR. Curious, I asked the teacher. I believe what is happening is that in YR things were very much 'free flow' with children playing at whatever they felt like, except when called out by teacher for doing a little work. Whereas now their 'play' time is much more structured. They get to choose, but from pre-set activities. Over all that means that most of their time is structured; but only a small minority is perceived by DD as 'work'. And because of the way the time is structured, she is much more aware of each time she chooses an activity (play). So it feels like more play to her.
Also I think that DD is one of those children who actually prefer some structure.

There has been a little bit of upheaval with children being given more responsibilities (e.g. children need to ensure they put their reading folder in the box in the morning) but parents not being told about this. So parents never reminded their children at drop-off, so it didn't work, and teacher had to take a step back and start checking/reminding the children again. If parents had been informed, most would have helped their children get into the new habit by reminding them, and soon it would have become automatic. But if school asks new responsibilities of 5-6 year olds, but do not inform the parents, then they have to live with the results, which may be that some of those 5-6 year olds are not ready for those responsibilities without having a little help first.

However, there is great variation from school to school as to how reception and Y1 are structured. Some will have a set-up like I tried to describe for our Y1 in reception already, others will have more free flow in Y1, and yet others will be completely different again. So I don't think you can really learn much from other people's experiences here.

As to what support we got, none apart from them moving up in July already.

I have found year 1 (so far!) a lot easier as a parent than reception. My daughter has been been a lot happier an settled too.

Ds seems to have taken it in his stride and I think is enjoying that lessons are now labelled ie literacy, numeracy - he likes the structure. He also likes being able to show what he can do in maths a bit more often as numeracy is every day rather than 2 times a week.

We are in a huge school and I've not heard of any issues - I know most parents etc my Ken DC loved yr1

Ds has been bored quite a lot. In yrR he was given quite a lot of freedom to do what he wanted to. In yr 1 there is more whole class time which he is finding quite basic (counting to 20), but apparently it is the National Curriculum so we have to put up with it.

I haven't really seen any difference with DS2 apart from he comes home cleaner than he used to in reception he also said he was too tired to do after school football this term but not that I have noticed.

DS has seemed stressed and found sleeping through the night v hard as anxious and in need of a lot of reassurance. Only starting to sleep through now - 4 weeks in!

It took DS a good couple of weeks to settle but he is really enjoying it now.

He was much more tired at the start of the term and as a result very grumpy, but I think that was mainly due to having 7 weeks off and being out of routine.

What I don't like is how hard they are pushing him. He is summer born so still very young and they have moved him from orange level reading books to lime. He used to love reading and would read a whole book in one go, now I am lucky if I can get him to read 2-3 pages. I have spoken to the teacher several times but no changes. Also, if he doesn't complete his homework now (which would be my fault, not his) then he gets kept in at playtime to complete it.

DS1 is now in Y2 but he found the move to Y1 quite challenging. He loved school in YR but not so much Y1. Much more work (written work at desks) than in YR.
Such a shame as he's so bright, but the transitions between years are huge.

DS2 loved reception and the freedom of child led learning. He finds year 1 a bit of a challenge as he is having to do what the class are doing and he is used to self directing. He still loves school but he is struggling to understand things like reward charts and finds them very unfair.

My ds is struggling (he's 6 so one of the older ones)

His teacher has labeled the whole class as difficult (she said this to me and basic slagged off the previous teacher). She has apparently been telling the children to shut up (muchto ds shock - I've made a big deal previously of not using that phrase as it is rude, so he told me about this teacher in surprise). She came out to tell me off about ds one pick up, which is fine - but it seemed so heavy handed in the first week.

Ds finds it boring as they're doing 6 weeks of recapping reception. So he has come home with homework and tells me he did it already in reception so switches off.
Overall,I'm not happy.

My dcs all made this transition really well. They seemed to like the more structured environment.