Pre-school end of year report - mortified

[craxmum]

DD is 2.7 and I just received her end of year report today. She's been attending since September. It's a disaster.
She scores "emerging" for her age band or even in the age band below in pretty much all areas apart from "numbers", "shape, space and measure" and "technology" where she has scored "confident".

She also has the lowest possible score for "creating and thinking critically" (1 out of 5).

For "making relationships" and "people and communities" she is not even assessed to be at the level of 16 months! Some children don't even walk at this age :(

I don't know what to think. To me, she is quite a bright child for her age - knows numbers up to 20, can do basic sums up to 10, knows all the letters, can write a few too, can draw some recognisable shapes (faces, cars, dogs), playing some elaborate pretend games.

Can I ask for a second opinion from another professional? They state that this report will be shared with her future school, is there any way I can gently challenge it?

I feel really guilty, I am a single mother and have to work full time, and her older brother has SEN and takes almost all of my free time (and finances) - I feel now like I failed her. Can I find a teacher to tutor her over the holidays to bring her up to speed (I am not sure how it works in the UK - should I ask if someone in the nursery is tutoring privately or is there is anyone they can recommend)?

OP, she has two whole years before she starts proper school - so please don’t worry about the report.
I think it was very poor of the nursery not to keep you better informed, if they really think she is behind in certain areas. Nobody should read a ‘report’ for a two year old and feel shocked and upset!
Go and have a meeting with them and discuss your concerns. Over the next two years they can work with her to develop her social/interactive skills.
My DD1 would have probably had a similar report at that age - luckily her nursery didn’t give formal reports! - but she is now absolutely fine academically and socially. Sadly she isn’t bilingual! That’s a great skill to have and just means your DD may take longer to grasp other skills whilst she is learning two languages.

This is insane.

I would bet good money that this 'key person' has made significant errors. Personally, I would request a change of 'key person'. At the very least, they have made a mistake here and the manager has now realised. Hopefully your meeting next week will make things clearer.

If there were real concerns of this sort, they should certainly have been raised with you earlier (and picked up earlier!). And all the behaviours and abilities you describe sound very much like my daughter (now 5) at that age -- she's a perfectly normal, bright little person.

gilly - they follow exactly the same curriculum and have exactly the same assessments in day nurseries, childminders and preschool. The first age bracket is 0-11 months.

Definitely ask for a new key worker.

I’d be concerned that your daughter isn’t happy if they can’t get her to engage at nursery in the way she does at home. So if they aren’t seeing her skills at nursery then they have a problem that is for the nursery to fix.

Pretty odd about the manager contacting you like that.

So a 2.5 year old is supposed to be at the same level as a 4 year old?
I'm so glad none of mine went.
let them play and of course make parents aware of any problems, but normal development at this age can vary a lot between two children.

She's not even three. It really, truly, deeply doesn't matter. What matters is that she is exposed to opportunities to learn, which aren't forced on her, so that if and when she wants to learn, she can.

I used to laugh at DS2's nursery assessments. 'Little Paws was asked to come and read a book in the story corner. Little Paws declined. Today we wrote our names in sand and glitter. Little Paws did not join in as he was busy on the slide.' etc. He's now taking English to A level.

I couldn't tell the time until I was in my mid twenties. My brain just didn't 'click' what the hands corresponded to. Suddenly I found I could. Milestones test the norm, but there's loads of room outside the norm for perfectly good progress.Focus on what they can do. DS2 couldn't write his name properly aged 11, but he talked in full (simple) sentences from about 13 months! Never worked that out and now it doesn't matter.

If you’re older child takes necessarily a lot of your time and attention, she’s almost bound to be able to amuse herself without others around. So of course she’d enjoy sitting in a corner reading, clever girl. It’s useful skill and would that more had it! She sounds as if she’s in a sort of half only child position and quite often their social skills are different, more adult.

I’m delighted they are reconsidering. Go easy on yourself. If she’s happy and speaks well at home - clearly she does- she sounds good. If you think there might be some confidence building to do, see if she can see a little friend for 40 mins or so at weekends if you can fit that into your schedule with your other child. Hope it goes well.

My 3 year 6 month old has never been to a pre school/ school or been assessed in any way! It sounds like he knows less than your daughter, I live in Northern Ireland he will start this September in what we call playschool, I have never heard of this type of thing before x

Sometimes they do just get a child wrong. DD2 started Reception this year and her class teacher told me at the first parents evening that she wasn't likely to make the end of Reception expectations across the board in all the areas of learning. I replied that I didn't think she'd fully sussed DD2 out yet (she comes across initially as sweet but dippy - think Alice from the Vicar of Dibley in miniature form - but there's a very very sharp mind in there) and lo and behold - she's now completely on track and the teacher admits she was somewhat fooled by this one until she got to know her.

I also have a wonderfully cringeworthy observation in DD1's preschool file where she relayed, in great detail with channel numbers and schedule times - what cartoons and programmes were on what numbers on our Sky box. It's a full-on three post-it spectacular jobbie!

@craxmum. given your updates, it sounds like the nursery staff have just copied figures from an out of date assessment, and don't really know what they are doing. If it's only this report that has made you feel concerned, then I wouldn't bother with getting any outside input, such as speech therapy.

gilly, no the outcomes are in overlapping age bands and children are planned for individually depending on their development. Some 2.5 year olds might be at the level of a typical 2.5-4 year old, so might be operating more like a typical 2-3 year old. Children all develop at different rates.

'some might be' not 'so might be'

Given the response of the nursery I would be doubting their capabilities

This is my feeling. Social skills are an interaction, so if the key worker is useless, no wonder your child prefers to sit reading a book (not that there is anything wrong with that)

OK, not wanting to sound goady, but how can a person with a level 2 or 3 be qualified to make such an assessment on a child.
It's A level equivalent at best, certainly nowhere near teacher assessment level.
I wouldn't be interested apart from this is what an unqualified person thinks. I wouldn't believe it was factual at all.

Received a pdf of a new updated progress report with apologies. According to it, dd made a progress equivalent to ~18 months in some areas on their scale since the end of term 4 (previous "old" report).
The practitioner commentary section is also completely rewritten with positive / praising comments instead of "needs one-to-one support", "needs encouragement" and "finds it hard to focus", all of which were defended by her key person this morning. She even has now an area of "exceptional" strength mentioned.

I am not sure where is the truth now. I kinda suspect that the key worker was given a grilling by the nursery manager and they are glossing it over now, trying to placate a difficult parent.
I will probably look for an independent early years development assessment for dd, just to stop worrying.

Really don't think you need to bother with paying for an independent assessment . At this age, you are the best person to assess her.

Bet they spent about 0.001 seconds deciding which box to tick for each assessment area when they did the first version, and are now frantically trying to cover their arses.

By all means get a second opinion if it will help you to relax and stop worrying about this. But it sounds like your little girl is fine.

I feel so so sad reading this and this from a pre school. I would review what facility she is in and think about moving. If you know your child and she is lingual too I wouldn't be happy with their assessment

Also looking through the folder with documents to sign off for the next year, there is an anti-radicalisation and anti-extremism policy to sign.
That I won't be promoting extremist views to my two year old daughter and will report her to a dedicated safeguarding officer if her day-to-day behaviour becomes centred around extremist causes, radical influencers, or if I discover her to be in possession of extremist materials.
I must be extra thick myself. Is this for real?

Unless you suspect any SN then file it and forget about it.

Preschool won't be remotely interested unless they have concerns about SEN in which case they may look back at it.Primary Schools are far too busy to think about what their children were like as 2 year olds.

One of my DC is now in a very selective secondary school and a bit of a hyper brain, did not count to 20 until he was 4. But he was very good with words. They develop in all different ways. And actually my currently high achieving DC is no more likely to achieve the dizzy heights of life success than his younger brother and sister who are more averagely academically but are more tenacious and confident and throw themselves into all sorts of things. Really doesn't matter.

This kind of craziness gets worse each year.

And no-one, just no-one, should feel be made to feel mortified by their 2 year old. Stiff drink and move on!

Completely ridiculous to assess a small child at this age. I agree with the PPs. Chuck the report in the bin. She sounds fine. Do not worry.

Never seen or heard of this rubbish that you have to sign. A pre-school? 3 year olds aren't pre-school, for a start.
Get away from this nonsense immediately.

Please don't get her a tutor.

She is 2. She needs to play and learn that way.

A lot of two year olds don't play together - that is normal!

gilly - nursery staff have descriptions of a typical child in each age band and simply observe their key child and make a judgement on which age band they fit in. If you are interested in the typical child descriptions Google a document called "What to expect when".
If a child is not doing what you would typically expect a child in their age range to be doing (eg child is 40 months but speech is more typical of a - 16 month old) it's an indication that the child needs more support or referral to speech & language etc.