Year 1 - Parents Evening - need some advice

[MascaraOHara]

Hi all,

dd's parents evening last night. she is one of the youngest in the year.

So I was told, she needs extra support with her reading, writing and maths but she does always try hard.

I'm a bit peeved because when she started at the school she wasn't allowed to go full time until Easter 2007 - meaning that she has onely had 1 term of fulltime school. She is noe in a class with children who have already had 1 full year of school and is expected to be at the same level.

I think she needs extra support because she hasn't had an extra 3 terms of education that some in her class have had - how can they now expect her to be at the same level?

I was pissed off with the admission policy when she started (as she went from fulltime nursery to 3 terms of half days) but now I'm really hacked off. Actually I probably should have put this in am I being unreasonable.

That said, I always new her writing was behind as she didn't start showing a preference for hands until she started school and I always new her motor skills development is way behind - but reading and maths was a surprise.

What do I do now? How do I support her and bring her up to speed with what is expected of her? without her feeling like she is no good at anything (which she feels already at school) she is 5 for gods sake!

I gacve the teacher some constructive feedback around the quality of the communication that comes out of the school but I'm now wondering whether to put pen to paper re. how strongly I feel wtr to their admissions policy and how I feel that my dd will always be at a disadvantage to the children who started before her. Also should I arrange another meeting with the teacher to discuss how to support the school at home. I don't see dd til 6pm and she's knackered by then so feel like I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Am I being over sensitive?

sorry, longer than expected.

my nephew is a late August baby - he is bright - but he had extra help with reading - pretty much for the reasons you give. He loved the extra attention - and was disappointed when he no longer needed it .

Try and look at it positively. You know she is a bit behind the others for the obvious reason (not her fault or yours) - the school are being proactive about it before it gets to be a problem for her. Tell her because she is a bit younger, she started after the others, so they are going to give her some extra practise so that she doesn't feel like it is too difficult for her.

if she had started earlier she would still probably not have been much better at reading and writing at the moment. Fast forward 6 months and she will probably be at the level of the others in her class that you are comparing against now.

DS2 is the youngest in his class and we have some of the same types of issues.

I think you need to turn this back on the school and ask questions such as:

"what extra support do you offer for young children such as DD"

"what is your normal plan of action to ensure children such as DD 'catch up' in due course?"

After all, this can't be the first time they have had very young children in class.
Our reception teacher last year said that it was a big part of her work to ensure that each child performed to the best of their ability and the young children were given as much in-classroom support as possible to address early difficulties.

That said, we have also started doing some extra handwriting practice at home recently, and I always spend a lot more time with DS2 on things like spellings etc - more than I ever did with DS1.

It's a worry though, isn't it? DS2 hates being so young

My August born DS1 is now in year 2 - he only got reading at the end of year 1 and now in year 2 he is zooming ahead and has caught up in pretty much everything.

The fact that she trys hard and likes to do well is a great motivating factor.

She will get there and she will catch up and in a year or two as she asks to take a book to bed with her, writes little notes to you and demands to be tested on her maths you will wonder what you were stressed about

Message withdrawn

Frankly i would try not to stress too much - your dd is probably only a couple of months older than my ds who, in Reception, would not be expected to do anything at all by this stage. The pressure they heap on children at each end of the artificial August / Sept spectrum is ridiculous.

I would be tempted to let your dd chill out when she gets home from school - too much work when they are tired can be counter productive.

If you can do some 'work' at weekends that seems like fun then that is good eg my dd loves writing my shopping lists for me. Reading can be tackled by reinforcing phonics through play, watching the Jolly phonics DVD (kids seem to love it!) and modelling it for her - reading to her in bed and modelling tricky words and how to sound them out. Both my dc's loved it when i 'misread' a word as they would then have to 'correct' me - does wonders for their reading and self confidence!

Agree with all the other comments re in school support but i would make sure she is not overly stressed by it all. The teachers should be providing her with properly targetted work so she should not be feeling a failure at school at all, and if they are not I really would address that. OK the kids know which is the 'top' table but they do not really appreciate (if done properly) the diferences in work they do.

Good luck

She will catch up MOH. Look on it as the extra support being the 3 terms she didn't get! If she is trying and interested and praised lots she will catch up - prob quite quickly.

My DS is one of the youngest in the year - August boy - and is now in Yr 2. He did a full year of Reception but didn't show any interest in reading until well after Xmas. The teacher just left it. As soon as he showed interested she jumped on him!

No in Yr 2 he is doing OK. Not great but OK (have parent's meeting today so will see!).

I am not too worried as I know he is bright and will get there when he is ready. Am happy to keep reminding the school that he is only just 6!

Mascara - I do feel for you - I have been through a similar battle with my DS's school. I was trying to keep him in Reception (August born) but in the end I lost. It annoys me soooooooo much that it seems the system is serving itself rather than making an attempt to do things that are actually in the interests of the children it is supposed to be there for. grrrr, rant, grrr, -- anyway, I'm actually trying to be calm, calm, calm, now because my DS has started pulling his hair out (you can see a bald spot ) - and I'm pretty sure it was through him picking up on my anxiety over the whole thing.

Sooooo, don't make my mistakes, if I was you I'd just focus on having a nice, affirming, warm time with your DS when you are at home. If she's feeling good there it must stand her in better stead at school. Let "homework" wait a bit.

Sorry, I mean your DD, not DS...

Thanks for your replies. I keep trying to reply but getting interrupted.

I wanted to say that I'm not comparing her, the school are.

Not sure what to do at the moment, she's so conscious that she's not as good as x at writing and not as good as Y at reading.

Do feel for her.. will have a think about the suggestions... thnak again.