Please, can you come and help an Italian mum

[franca70]

who doesn't have a clue about the English school system?
Ds started Reception at the local primary in January. He will be 5 in July. He is bright, dreamy and lively. His English is pretty good, he is been "classified" a developing bilingual. The fact is that ds isn't remotely interested in learning his keywords. He forgets from one day to another and is not making much of a progress. Today the message on the yellow book was that he knew the same 4 keywords as last week and "please work on these as he needs to learn them". Now, I actually feel a bit disturbed by this, what am I supposed to do? Sit down everyday and force a reluctant ds to do his keywords? I honestly think he is a bit too young to be forced to learn. And why is this the only feedback I get of my ds's life in reception? I really want to co-operate with the teachers, I've always been a diligent student, who hung on to teachers' every word, but I really don't feel it's so urgent for my son to learn come, the and and. Or am I missing something?

Can you arrange to see his teacher and discuss it with him/her? Especially as he is bilingual - he's already learning more than his classmates! My dd is a bit younger than yours so we've not hit this yet. I'm not sure when the tests start, but this might be a factor behind the school's pressure.

So, it's normal to put pressure on reception children?

heeeelp!

Lord knows - I get the impression it starts to be fairly structured in reception (my dd is in a nursery of a private school, and goes part time - we were told that it would be expected for her to be full time in reception as it is structured and she will miss things - but I'm not too bothered as she'll go to the local school for reception), and at some stage they start them working towards the SATS (which are possibly at age 7??).

I think things are more structured here in the UK than in Italy at this age, but do think that your son is already doing a lot by being bilingual. But is 4 words a week a real problem?

No, I don't think it's a real problem. I think that thre real problem lies with me, not being happy for him to start school so early (he was at nursery as well) and possibly wondering whether I should have waited until he was 5 or whther we chose the "right" school.

Ah, that's a different issue! Is he happy there? (off to bed so might not be around for a reply)

Well, it is a bit of a difficult issue. I am a teacher (currently Y1) and I have often wondered if we would all be better off if children started school when they were older, as they do on the continent. There are many children who are simply not developmentally ready to learn some of the things being asked of them, which can place a lot of stress on the teacher, the child and the parent. However, having said that, I would not recommend for people living in the UK to delay putting their child into school until the age of 5 simply because they would then be behind all of their peers, who had started within the system at the age of 3-ish.
Some schools place more emphasis on play in the early years, and others are more academically orientated. Maybe it is worth looking around you and seeing if there are any other schools who might have a 'gentler' ethos, if you haven't already done so.
In terms of the keywords, perhaps it isn't urgent for him to learn them at reception, but would be helpful if he was gently encouraged, which I am sure you are doing. Obviously you don't want to put him off, but if you can find ways of weaving them into everyday life (pointing out in books that you read, finding on signs as you walk down the street, even just recognising the initial sounds, etc) rather than having a formal session. I would talk to the teacher too about your frustration so she knows what you are feeling. Maybe s/he could give suggestions for fun ways of learning the words.
HTH

thanks for your replies. I've been trying to make the keywords and letters more fun to him, but he does forget them from one day to another. I also have the impression that he has been "told off" on friday for not having learnt them as much as it was expected, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to discuss with the teacher exactly what is going on. The school is a local primary, it's small and (apparently) cheerful. The relationship between teachers/parents and students has been praised in the newest offsted report.
I'm not sure whether he is happy or not. He seems less laid back as he used to be, more aggressive. He starterd asking things like: "why is xxx stronger that me?", "why does hh bite" etc. He is not a saint, and he is trying to adjust to an environment which is perhaps less "protective" than his nursery school.
I really don't know what to do, perhaps I'm getting stressed so much just because everything seems so new to me.

Would he like playing about on the starfall site if you don't find him too young to use the computer?

starfall

thanks, I'll give it a try (yes, I kept him quite unaware of the existence of computers.... but they have it in school, so there's no reason for me to keep ignoring this...)