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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Y1- I hate school

79 replies

Robindrama · 30/03/2017 19:55

Why do you hate school? It's boring.
Now in Year 1, ds.
Achieved reception expectations, feedback: bright and able. Started school as a confident boy, enthusiastic. No social problems.
First signs of being bored end of reception.
Oct parents evening no issues raised by the teachers.
March parents evening, written report:

attitude issues: does not want to follow instructions- he says he knows it
has not gasped that school is about following instructons/ completing tasks
a risk of not achieving y1 expectations
attitude to learning poor so outcome does not reflect potential.

End of year prediction:

reading : exceeds y1 ( he is a boy with lots of interests and reads a lot at home)
spelling: will not meet expectations
maths: will achieve, great mental maths but does not follow instructions
phonics- unlikely to pass.

How worried would you be? He constantly asks us lots of different questions, his general knowledge is amazing ( teachers confirmed that) but school? Big no.

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

sirfredfredgeorge · 07/04/2017 18:58

Sallyssecret Surely there are dozens of new things a kid would do with a teacher every week of the school year, why would you want to specifically highlight this one thing which they're only going to do once or twice anyway?

And surely if there's any hint that they're not secure in their phonics, you actually want them to fail, rather than pass, so they get the help they need?

Believeitornot · 08/04/2017 07:13

irvine I'm not sure how good his phonics is! It doesn't seem great but that could be because he doesn't use them much.

mrz · 08/04/2017 07:24

That was the issue with my son ...not discovered until secondary as there was no phonics screening check

user789653241 · 08/04/2017 07:31

Believe, I just thought if you present him with totally new words that he never encountered before, and see how he decode, it will show how good his phonics is. But then, there's case like mrz's ds, so I don't know.

My ds was/(is?) hyperlexic, and has great memory, but still learned phonics fine, and now definitely use them to spell and decode.

catscurledupbythefire · 08/04/2017 07:32

But if someone can read, and read well, why do they necessarily need to know their phonics?

user789653241 · 08/04/2017 07:42

Mrz, cats' question made me wonder. Your ds was able to decode any challenging/difficult words even as a toddler. He must be decoding words he has never seen before, so why/how suddenly it became problem in secondary?

ToDuk · 08/04/2017 07:58

Maybe I'm wrong here but I get the feeling OP, that you want us to say hat your child sounds so bright that those silly normal teachers working with normal children can't handle him. I've heard this before from parents and I just don't buy it on thr whole. Your ds does sound bright but not exceptionally so and I suspect there will be other children at a similar level in his class. If they expect level 17/18 in reading by the end of yr 1 then level 20 isn't exceptional IYSWIM. It just sounds to me like he's got a bit of an attitude which you need to help him with. Some kids will sunday they're bored when actually they've been busy throughout the day, especially if they've picked up that mum is a bit negative.
It's great he asks questions like the one about the spider but again I'd be surprised if he was the only one thinking about things like that in his class.
I'd definitely go and see the teacher / senco about his strengths and weakmesses and ask for their advice.

ToDuk · 08/04/2017 07:59

Sunday?! Blinking phones!

mrz · 08/04/2017 08:04

Irvine it was a problem because he wasn't decoding them so he was unable to encode words for spelling. He's unusual because he's hyperlexic but that might have been identified earlier if his lack of phonics knowledge had been known.

catscurledupbythefire · 08/04/2017 08:06

I was never taught with phonics though, and my spelling is fine. I'm not sure what hyperlexic is, admittedly. But to me, phonics is teaching a child to read, if they can read, they don't need phonics.

mrz · 08/04/2017 08:17

Many of us work out phonics for ourselves without direct instruction or we would be unable to read any word we hadn't previously learnt. We apply the knowledge automatically without thinking when we meet unfamiliar words

user789653241 · 08/04/2017 08:19

I see, thanks mrz. That makes sense.

catscurledupbythefire · 08/04/2017 08:29

Yes, but understanding comes from more than phonics.

Wellmeetontheledge · 08/04/2017 08:58

As a year 1 teacher your son sounds reasonably bright but slightly lacking in emotional maturity. I don't mean this in a bad way, many small children are because they are learning :) I mean the whole thing about spotting the even numbers pattern, fab - but if he didn't then communicate this to the teacher through telling them or maybe writing it down then all she will see in his book is that he only got to 20 which could illustrate a lack of secure understanding of the method. I have taught similar children who I know are bright, however they don't show this in their work and, sadly, it's not enough for me as a teacher to continually say that I know they can do it, they have to demonstrate it before moving onto more challenging tasks. Maybe try explaining that to him? As he matures a bit he will begin to understand this.

Also to the poster who was concerned about dyslexia in their yr2 son, please do keep an eye on it and ask the school again when he is in year 3. In schools it is unheard of to refer children for dyslexia testing until year 3 because it is notoriously unreliable before that age.

Aeroflotgirl · 08/04/2017 09:19

Year 2 SATS tutoring, now I've heard it all. You could talk to his teacher on how you can help him at home, and how they do Phonics at school. Tbh he is still very young, and they change. I know just an example, but I has below at primary school, in the bottom rung, for Maths, English, Writing, it continued into senior school. When I left school at 18 with 4 GCSES and some secretarial qualifications. I applied to college to do a GNVQ Advanced health and social care and retake some GCSEs. My brain had a second wind, and I applied to Uni, got a 2:1 Psychology degree, and have an Msc Psychology degree, and hopefully will do the Phd Clinical Psychology. so at this age anything can happen.

RedAndGreenPlaid · 08/04/2017 09:41

He sounds just like my DS, who was so fed up at that age. He was streets ahead of his classmates, knowledge wise. In Y1 he had finished the Y4 reading scheme, so just read whatever he chose from home/library, but his writing was so weak, it was appalling. He could answer anything verbally though, writing was down to physical immaturity and lack of effort.
We took ginmummy's approach- clamped down on the attitude, constantly reinforced how important school is, how important it is to follow the teachers' instructions.
Now he's Y3. He still gets bored sometimes, hard to avoid as he's covered so much in his private reading that genuinely he isn't learning new facts. However, every lesson he's getting onto the extension task, because we've told him he must complete that to demonstrate what he knows and to jump through the hoops. He knows he has to play the game.
I don't think it will genuinely improve until he's in upper secondary tbh. He's already in a selective school, with small class sizes, and plenty of pushing. At home we stretch him sideways- he does two instruments, two sports, chess, and is beginning a new language. None of it taxes him much. His father was v similar, but was crippled by dyslexia, so couldn't access many things until he cracked reading around 10. By the time he was upper secondary, he had surpassed his teachers' knowledge. Only at university was he stretched.
We're fortunate to have highly academic schools where we are, but we have been disappointed, i think, by how there aren't any other children like him in a school that has a reputation for being so academic, a hothouse even.
Socially he is struggling enormously, because the other boys only want to play football, and act like 7yos, unsurprisingly.

Feenie · 08/04/2017 10:36

Yes, but understanding comes from more than phonics.

Odd comment. Understanding is, of course, taught alongside phonics. Neither precludes the other.

mrz · 08/04/2017 10:58

Understanding severely compromised unless you can accurately read the words

CauliflowerSqueeze · 08/04/2017 11:12

It's all in your response, OP. When he is not doing as he's told in school and you ask him why, he then understands that as long as he has what he feels (and you feel) is a good enough reason, then that's fine. This is a very uncomfortable situation for any child to be in, because while they crave being able to have control and power over what they do and don't do, they can't actually handle it. When he is not doing as he is told, you need to be cross with him and reiterate that he must always do what his teacher tells him to do. That way he can relax into doing his work without the added stress of having to work out whether or not he fancies doing it.

He will have fabulous and probably some less than great teachers throughout his time. The biggest mistake you can make is to verbalise doubts and not support the teachers in front of your son. If you think there is something not quite right then do speak privately to the teacher but never let your child see you undermine his school. Your answer to him on the carpet is that he should come closer to the teacher. Ok. But she has 29 other children. When you're working with him it's just one on one.

If you start to excuse away all his disobedience by saying how he's a misunderstood genius then he (and you) is going to have a miserable time of it at school because rather than thinking of school as a package deal, some of which he will like and some of which he won't, he will believe that they are just unable to reach his brilliant brain and therefore it's all crap.

Blossomdeary · 08/04/2017 11:17

He just sounds like a little boy - give him time and don't worry.

Maybe the new teacher is uninspiring in which case one can sympathise with him.

Good early readers are often crap at phonics.

Bright children can suss out the pointlessness of some of the tasks they are asked to do.

user789653241 · 08/04/2017 11:24

I also think some bright children can make most boring work more interesting, using their creativity and out of the box mind....

mrz · 08/04/2017 11:24

"Good early readers are often crap at phonics" absolutely untrue good early readers have cracked Phonics without need for lots of direct teaching ...good early guessers are crap at phonics

Believeitornot · 08/04/2017 18:49

I just thought if you present him with totally new words that he never encountered before, and see how he decode, it will show how good his phonics is

No his reading isn't great when he has to phonics - I can't work out if he's being lazy or doesn't get it but he won't use phonics. He usually guesses the word - I know he's got a good memory as he used to recite whole books when he first brought home school books.

It's something I'm going to be paying close attention over the easter holidays.

Believeitornot · 08/04/2017 18:49

I just thought if you present him with totally new words that he never encountered before, and see how he decode, it will show how good his phonics is

It's something I'm going to be paying close attention over the easter holidays.

mrz · 08/04/2017 19:15

Don't ask him yo use Phonics ask him to read unfamiliar words. He needs an effective strategy he can't rely on memory when faced with new words and guessing rarely works.

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