Infant school and 'stretching'

[earlylifecrisis]

I know I'm going to get all sorts of 'Pfb' comments thrown at me, and suggestions that I think my Dd is mini Einstein but here I go anyway as I'm made of tough stuff!

Dd is 5 and In reception. We lived in Singapore for several years before returning for her to go to school and she did kindergarten there. As some will know they take it all pretty seriously there and taught DD to read and do addition/subtraction and as a result she's quite far ahead, reading well and confident with her number work. Her teacher said in parents eve that she is 'ahead and will be all year' because of the fact she's done all this stuff already and got to grips with it well.

The term has rolled on and DD has started to say she is bored, as in phonics they are doing all she has done already, ditto with maths. She said it's easy but she likes her friends. We asked if DD could have some slightly more stretching activities at the last parents eve but it doesn't seem to have materialised. As such she said she doesn't want to go into school as it's not interesting like her old school.

I know the teachers are under pressure for students to reach the 17 early years targets so I guess the leg work has to go into those who need more support in reaching those, but would it be reasonable to see the teacher and ask if they could help to provide a few more things for her?

I don't think she's a genius, but she is a bright girl who knows quite a bit already and it seems a bit of a wasted opportunity for her to make some progress.

They should provide for her needs and they are different to the others in the class. She should have extension activities and it is not unreasonable to expect it. Ask the school to give her additional work to meet her needs. I am not surprised she is bored and the school is at fault here. See the Head.

Thank you bubbles. I don't want to be pushy but she isn't getting a massive amount out of the school experience at the moment.

They should provide more stretching activities for her. In the 3 schools I know lots about children working at a higher level either sit out of year group for a few stretching tasks (eg my reception boy did phonics with year 1 and did some maths lessons with year 2) or they do extension activities in the classroom and are just given different work. I would try and get this set up.

My only other observation would be that something like phonics is a very small part of the school day as is formal maths - so going over something you already know for 10 minutes might be boring for 10 minutes, but there should be so much other stuff to enjoy as well.

There should be things like going out on the trikes, heading down to the woodland area to make dens, building towers as tall as you can and measuring them, role playing festivals with your friends, creating art works and so on.

I always worry a bit about children who get bored in reception as I wonder if they aren't really getting on socially and aren't sure how to play; or the school isn't doing reception very well.

AS they get older and its more formal learning for more of the day I really get the idea that spending all day doing stuff you already know is dull - but at 5 digging around in sandpits and using mud kitchens should still be fun.

Thanks grass I'll look into this possibility for her.
She is quite good at playing in general and has made friends so I think she is enjoying the play aspect of reception well enough. They have time which they call explore which is lots of phonics and maths activities set up around the reception area (in addition to the more formal carpet time). These activities she is not enjoying as they are easy but she does like the toys

I can imagine exploring is dull if you already know what you are going to discover

I guess so! I feel a bit frustrated for her as I majorly bigged up coming back to the Uk for school and how fun it was going to be. And now she's bored and cold and wishes she was still at her old little kinder!

I think a child that has been used to Singapore style education will find our academic side of education slow. I love the idea of building dens!!! What city schools have these facilities available? My children went to school in a small town and there were no woods within reach. This all sounds a bit swallows and Amazon’s to me and not available to most.

Play wasn’t a massive feature in YR for my children. My eldest did phonics in nursery and was reading pretty well at the end of Reception. Fortunately our local school was used to the odd very bright child (they had several who were exceptional and not my DD) and let them forge ahead. I do not understand why schools cannot differentiate for the more forward child.

my school is in the edge of a large town centre and has a woodland area- which is part of a sound barrier between the school and a motorway (Big fences) too so probably not as romantic as you think -but I appreciate that not all schools have those exact facilities.

some schools just seem to embrace play based learning and are creative with their outdoors spaces. If you saw what they have done with a tiny triangle of scrub that was a dead space between buildings before the new head arrived you'd be so impressed. Its a mud kitchen now that the children love. Which is why I feel sad when I hear of reception classes that don't get those opportunities and have children sat around bored.

It doesn't get any better. DD's in yr5 and the only subject she's not bored in is topic. It's this mastery bollocks. I've started buying her workbooks from Sainsbury's to do at home.

It does help in the long run if you encourage her to find the way to extend herself and make boring work more exciting from the start.
It's best if the school can cater for her needs in the first place, but if not, bored and getting into bad behavior is not good thing. My ds is very able, and he is hardly ever bored at school.

I teach year 2 however all my lessons are differentiated 3 ways, less able, able, more able. All with a suitable extension and then I have a challenge ready too just in case. I would politely suggest more stretching activities and if not provided then go higher. We have setting for phonics which makes it easier.

Perfectly
This mastery bollocks is not our fault!

My DD has done phonics with the year above since the start of the year.

Good luck with that. DS6 is in year 1 and academically able and is bored to tears. He is with year above for phonics and in their top group and really needs to be doing harder maths and reading books but they aren't willing to give him work to actually challenge him.

I'm really sorry to hear that this has carried on for many of you- I would hate this.
I actually work in the secondary department of an all through private that would give me a very generous discount for her. I chose to send her to the state school in discussion as I assumed that differentiation would happen after the first half term, that she would benefit from having local friends and that the class size would be fine at that age. I could still move her if I do not feel it is better before long. I will see the teacher first about the idea of phonics with Year 1 - this could be a good solution if the achool would accommodate.

As a teacher I fear being that pushy parent, but she is my DD and if I don't fight for her needs to be accommodated then who will!

I didn't think so wonderstar, but what do you suggest I do to help DD?

Schools can move children up for more stimulation. My friend has two DS both of whom have gone to Cambridge to do maths. They didn’t do maths at primary school with their cohort. They moved several years up!

My younger DD would have run a mile from a mud kitchen! Just not for all children and some really do enjoy a classroom setting as well as having opportunities to learn a musical instrument and do drama in YR. As a very young child she was immaculate in appearance! Both of my DDs were imaginative when playing but didn’t like messy play much. They preferred going to the library. We also gave a huge garden, woods all around us and fields so mine has their own forest.

Both my DDs did phonics in nursery and DD1 especially would have been bored by doing it all over again in YR. Some children grasp reading more quickly then others and need to be given extra work. Fortunately we had teachers who recognised some children needed a different diet.

“Mastery” was based on Singapore Maths! It is what is done in Singapore I was led to believe!

The thing is, it's not just academics in reception. Does it really bother you that school isn't meeting her academic needs? Do you think she will stay on top when others start to catch up?
I have an outlier child, and I think he can do a lot better with proper differentiation, but still enjoying school without it. And I mean, he is an outlier, his reading age was mid teens at start of reception, and maths, I really don't know, he was an living computer.

Does it really bother you that the school isn't meeting her academic needs?
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Yes, it does
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Do you think she will stay on top when others start to catch up?

I don't know, and I this doesn't bother me. I am concerned with what they are providing for her now, while they help the others to catch up.

I'm not sure that many parents would remain unruffled if their child's needs weren't being considered.

I think it really start to matter in yr1, rather than now. Reception is the time they can do what they like.
Tbh, I didn't know about MN until my ds was yr1, and I had no worry util then.

I think how they deal with able children deffer school to school. If your school do it better than her current school, I have no doubt to get her to attend your school. Ime, it is up to each teacher rather than school, but the school have certain limit if they have some rule as a school.(like my ds's school, not allowed to go beyond year group, which sucks.)

Perfectly, I can't comment for year 5, as I'm year 2 at the moment and have been for many years, but it's all about enduring that they can do the same thing in many forms, visual, abstract and concrete. It's about applying to real life situations and ensuring your child can complete the learning objective in a variety of ways. This is maths I'm talking about. Many schools are using white rose which is a new way of teaching maths. I'm still getting used to it. To be honest i would hope that I had a good relationship with all the parents that they could approach me and talk about anything. Have you approached her teachers? X

I think it is luck of the draw. Some teachers are really great at stretching and challening the able children; some are fantastic at getting the most out of the struggling ones; some rare ones are great at both.

If a teacher has decided that what he/she is doing is fine for your child, then in most cases I doubt that anything you say will change anything.

That leaves you having to decide what you want to do about it. Changing school is not always the solution; the teacher at the new school may not be any better, whereas the teacher for the next school year at your current school may be superb.

IMO generally you have to sit it out and hope for better next year. Meanwhile, your DD is lucky to have a very engaged parent, so have a think about what exactly is the problem and how you can counteract that.

For example I came to the conclusion that I was not too concerned about my DS 'stalling' academically in YR-Y2 (or not making as much progress as he might have done) but I kept a very close eye on how it affected his attitude to learning, any tendencies towards perfectionism, how he derived a feeling of self-worth, etc and counteracted this when I felt it was going the wrong way.

I also figured that his abilities gave us the opportunity to focus on entirely different things without ever having to be in the least worried that he should be spending his little free time on reading/maths/other school work (I let him if he wanted to, but I never felt I had to make him IYSWIM). That's kind of liberating and a chance to give your child some of their childhood back (speaking from the perspective of not having started school until age 7 myself; full-time school leaves children preciously little unstructured time). I'd much rather have a child who is at times bored at school and never challenged much, than a struggling child who is invited to before/after school 'booster' classes and whose teachers would ask us to do even more practising at home, so that their whole life ends up being about maths and reading which incidentally they have already learned that they 'are not good at' before they have even turned 6.

In order to keep interest up we have always done fun things e.g. Murderous Maths books as bedtime stories but now in Y3 we have begun to proceed a bit more systematically. But we have found that 2 months of doing 10-20 minutes of maths every evening has taken DS through 1.5 years of curriculum maths and still we haven't reached anything really challenging yet, so we're easing off that again and looking more sidewards again (coding, chess, music) for that 'stretching' and challenge experience. And letting school maths be easy for now.

Wonder star I have written a couple of notes but aside from the parents evening I haven't yet seen her teacher.
The teacher is an NQT and new to the school - I have been an NQT and I thought it only fair that I let her find her way and get to know the children properly before I went to see her! I do plan to see her in the next couple of weeks though.

I know there are some very experienced teachers in y1 so a watch and wait approach may have to be the way eventually.

Reading:

readtheory.org/
www.readworks.org/

Maths:

nrich.maths.org/
wild.maths.org/
www.khanacademy.org/