Reception age child falling behind

[kezziethecat]

Feeling a bit disheartened after a parents consultation for my reception aged child (he turned 4 in July). My ds loves school, has enjoyed going every single day and wants to do any homework straight away. He's so eager to learn and please. The teacher said he was a lovely, caring and kind boy so I'm really proud of him for that. However she said he was behind in all aspects of learning. To be honest I don't think he is especially academic, although obviously difficult to tell at this age, and has resisted any attempts I have made to teach him explicitly at home but he has been so enthusiastic since starting school. She said if he doesn't catch up before Christmas it may be difficult to catch up at all. Has anyone been in this situation and what did you do to support your child?

How wonderful that your little boy is settling well at school, enjoying the challenges and loving his learning. Seriously, you could not ask for more! His progress will stem from this confidence in himself as someone able to tackle new challenges, and your pride in him will only reinforce this. Please do not allow this ignorant teacher to derail him or you!!!!!
Every child learns at a different pace and every child has unique areas of strength and difficulty. Sadly primary school measures a very narrow range of abilities. So quick readers and mathematicians are celebrated and everyone else is made to feel lesser.
At age 4 and having only completed one half term of learning, I think this lady is talking out of her hat quite frankly! He'll never catch up???? This is complete rot! All children learn at different rates and that is completely normal. It doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem and it certainly does not mean they will never catch up! In YR it should be more about leaning to settle in the school environment. And it sounds like he is an A+ at that!
I would challenge this lady and I would go in hard! What is she basing this on? What does she plan to do about it? Will school fund an assessment? Not a tin pot assessment done by a TA bt a full ed psych report? What additional support will school put in place? How many times a week? When? What? How will they measure progress?
She is trying to make this your and your son's failing. It is not! There is no failing here. And seriously, he does not need extra right now! He needs supportive adults who celebrate his many successes.
I feel really strongly about this and hope you take this to heart as I have two children with dyslexia and the older was made to feel a complete and utter failure all the way through primary. He went from a bright confident child enthusiastic about learning, to a child who believed he had zero self worth and zero confidence. It has taken a long time to build him back up. The relentless negativity and lack of belief in him from teachers was incredibly damaging. In fact, the recommendations from his EP report age 6 were number one build up his confidence. She recognised even then that it had been shattered!
It took him a long time to learn to read and even longer to learn to write but he is there now and amazingly is an avid reader and writer. He does both for fun in his spare time and his knowledge and creativity stun me constantly. My daughter fared better as I had learned from my son's experiences.
Let go of the teacher's expectations of where he should be. Trying to hurry him along before he is ready is counter productive and stressful and damaging to self confidence. She clearly wants it all neat and tidy with every kid learning at the same rate. No doubt she is telling the parents of the kids reading chapter books that they are going too fast!
It may be there is dyslexia or something else going on. Keep a look out for it and maybe chat it though with the school senco, but please please please continue to celebrate your wonderful bright boy who is clearly doing amazingly!!!! xxx

I would not create a sticker chart linked to school at this age. Dd saw a child psychologist for an unrelated issue. She did not recommend linking attainment at school to home life for a young child. Dd was in yr1 for reference.

Lovely post from @ilovesushi - I was coming on to say what a load of rubbish that you've been made to feel that way about your fab sounding little boy.... But her post sums it up!

My year 2 only gets spellings and reading for homework. Supposed to read 4 times a week, but I only manage 3 and it's not been commented on. Spellings supposed to be practiced 2-3 times a week. Spellings didn't start until after Christmas in year 1 until then it was just the reading. We do have an optional maths task every 2 weeks, but I only know of 2 children in the class who do them on a regular basis, the rest seem to sometimes do it, others never do it.

My DD is so far behind. She's end of July born, she's still getting 2 and 3 letter word spellings, knows the days of the week by rote but not if you ask her what day it is tomorrow, she never knows what day today is. She can only count to 20, can only add to 10, can't take away at all.

But she absolutely loves school. When we walk in in the mornings her friends will come and grab her hands and chat to her, when i go to pick her up she often has her back to me chatting away to various children. That is way more important to me at 6 years old than where she is academically.

Only thing I do at home with her is a bit of handwriting practice but I never force it. ExH is a bit pushier on his weekends and does 2x 15 minutes in a workbook but otherwise nothing (he only has her EOW). Otherwise I just read with and to her, get her to point out words she recognises on signs and in TV programmes etc. School have said I'm doing more than most parents with her.

Is this is regular primary or a selective pre-prep school? If it’s the latter then we have one local to us that literally culls children at any point in their time there (it’s an all through school). Yes - four year olds booted out of school because they cannot keep up. Is it also a school that turns out amazing SATS results or the one with the brilliant local reputation?

It doesn’t sound like you are in that sort of situation though. Our school has a huge mix of abilities and in reception this is highlighted further by the massive gap between autumn and summer born children. I have a daughter born the end of August. She was ahead in some areas (socially, artistically, musically and confidence) but behind in others (pencil grip, spellings, certain maths concepts and physical things like skipping). The school went above and beyond to fill those gaps. She was still a little behind in Y1 but has flown ever since.

To us it was just important she fulfils HER potential and works hard and the school have always supported and delivered on that.

I would have expected the teacher to come up with a more structured action plan as to how to get to where he needs to be. If she really doesn’t think he can do it then what’s the next steps? Has he had hearing and eyesight tests? Is the SENCO involved? Our school have helped two summer born boys who needed a little extra help - For one they allowed him to repeat reception (it’s a private school) and the other they helped him secure a place at a local state school with a specialist speech and language unit attached. Guess what? Both are flying and one of them just sat the grammar 11+.

He sounds like such a lovely boy and I would be exceptionally proud of him. Praise everything he does around his strengths. There are plenty of solutions to this - it just sounds like you have only been given the problem though. Go back to the teacher and nag for more structured help. It can be a constant uphill struggle trying to get help for children sometimes.

As he’s not yet 41/2 I’m not sure what help he needs. Schools must differentiate work and not keeping up in YR is just a ridiculous statement. Plenty of dc will not be reading at this age. The school should be doing the whole of the YR curriculum and that means all DC get teaching appropriate to them. I would actually ask to see the head. I would first read their Early Years curriculum policy. I bet it doesn’t say they move on with work in yr at a pace that leaves dc struggling. Go and see the head with your concerns because what you have been told is rubbish and the epitome of poor practice. The head needs to know.

@WunWun

I would speak to the head about this. A reception teaching telling a parent two months in that soon her four year old is going to be beyond catching up with the rest of his class for good is fucking ridiculous.

Me too. That's insane.

It all sounds incredibly pushy and very unfair to write off a summer born boy like the teacher has. I’ve seen how they differentiate in my daughter’s reception class. Some of the summer born boys aren't anywhere close to writing their name but I’ve seen the teacher be super positive about them having a go at writing a letter. Everyone does the same phonics inputs whether they are readers or just starting but the tasks are quite different. There is a huge amount of time before the end of the summer.

I’d also be surprised if there are lots of ‘fluent’ readers in reception. I am in pushy parent central and I don’t know of any fluent 4 year olds among my circle of friends. Most people are moaning about how painful the wordless books or the ‘Pam naps’ ones are.

Ok. I had a similar worry. I have twins. One struggled to settle and listen so got behind in reception.
Everyone told me not to worry

Then lockdown..... no home learning as such as I was working long hours

Year 1 happened.... and something has clicked. She has a way to go but she wants to do it and her writing is coming along great

I worry about the teacher. Wrong attitude. The fact the child is happy and wants to go is so much important at that age

Very very experienced competent reception teacher told me my summer born child was behind average in reception .... Then looked me in the eye, smiled and added... But that's not a problem... He's an August boy and I pretty much guarantee that if no SN by the time he is in juniors he will have caught up.
She was right....
Please don't worry...

It took my ds until Christmas of year 2 to get to grips with reading, he was behind in everything until then. Now his reading has clicked in to place, so has everything else! He's made massive progress and his end of year 2 report said he was at the expected level for everything. We have just had parents evening and his new teacher said that he's doing extremely well with maths and her only concern was his handwriting being a bit messy but it was no more messy than most of the other boys. Do not let her worry you, let him get there in his own time.

This is what worked for us.

We started when ds started reception.

I bought the book off of amazon. It's called how to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons. It's so amazing. It 100% works. And my ds found it so fun.

I also got him one of those magnetic doodle sketcher toy things, for like £8 to practice his writing before he moved to paper. Again, so much fun.

Read to him every day, and let him describe picture books to you. Give him time. Don’t worry. Be proud of him.