Ds not meeting expectations of year 1 but school day day it's fine

[anewername]

So I'm confused. Is this a covering their own back thing? A blame Covid thing. Are reports based on the school expectations or the does the national curriculum? If my DS year one, age 5 still. If he is behind then why do they say it's ok? Is this a boy thing?

Should they be offering him extra help or what should I do ? I read nightly and do some writing every few days, he's very tired after school. Only does two activities per week inc weekends.

Should I go to the head?

Is the "not meeting expectations" based on the end of Year 1 targets? If so, most children won't be meeting them at this point of the year.

I'd start by asking the teacher for clarification. Including asking what you can to do support at home.

You need to speak to the class teacher. Not in a confrontational way but in a collaborative way. No one here can know what that teacher means by what they have written.

Nobody here can tell you very much based on what you’ve said. What areas in his learning have been flagged to you? In what way? What is the reality like in terms of what he can or cannot do? What inputs have you sought from his teachers? What sorts of help have you asked for? What did they say?

why are you thinking of “going to the head”?

Is he making progress? Just because he isn’t meeting the governments targets doesn’t mean their is an issue.

I believe the report is based on end of year one targets, but lots of Facebook posts with cheesy grins and happy gushings from other kids parents in his class, so I can't believe everyone is not meeting them yet. After all there is only 6 weeks of school time left.

Ds is not meeting on pretty everything, so not meeting expectations on writing, spelling, reading, speaking in class discussions, presenting, joining in. We have had 2 parents evenings with current teacher and nothing flagged. Nothing flagged in year R either by previous teacher.

I pick up and drop off each day. I'm an involved parents, so having never heard a thing about this I'm not sure what I can get from the teacher but of course I will ask. Hence the head comment. What will the school do to support type thing. Is it a failing of the teacher or just my child? Or me ?

DS is PFB so I don't know what I'm doing, but we learn spellings, read, I've bought extra Oxford reading books and tonight we wrote a card to Nanny with a longest note. He used capitals and it was relatively neat, he sounded out words and asked when needed. Maybe I haven't pushed him enough, I'm very sad. I will openly say he dislikes doing work a lot though and it's a struggle, plus he is slow to do it.

My DS is also in Year 1, also my first child.

my first action if any queries arise about him would be to email his teacher on the year group email. I would try to genuinely look for advice, support and would value their knowledge of him and their expertise.

I myself am a Professor at a university - if a student of mine was struggling I would sincerely hope they would feel free to email me, ask to meet me and I’d help the best I could. Tiny primary students can’t do that so as their parent you possibly should do this.

Please don't worry my DS is spring born and didn't "get" writting until mid yr 2. He is off to Oxbridge (fingers crossed) in October.

If it helps as a fellow Year 1 parent I can describe what we do for learning. I work with whatever theme the school is working with (castles) and add depth to whatever they are doing.

so I recently took him to a castle, we hunted down facts.DS wrote a fact file about the castle (writing practice) and on another day he wrote a postcard about the castle to my parents halfway across the world (more writing). We did some coding on scratch junior where he played with a knight getting the knight to turn round and round to guard the castle (ICT) which led us on another day to discuss right turns and left turns and three quarter turns to begin to tell time to 5 mins (maths). We read some non scheme books (reading) for reading about knights and castles and put new tricky words (magnificent, spectacular, cement) into his box of words where we Chuck in new spellings.

so this sort of “learning” isn’t routinised but sort of took off from a weekend outing to a castle and loosely is based around whatever they are doing. It works better I find then regimented daily learning. We use maths apps for when waiting or stuck somewhere, and play other screen based learning games too.

but you might also be doing this or other stuff. It really would be good to email and ask to consult his teacher and value their expertise.

If you have s computer teach your monsters to read is free. It's a game. Mubdaughter loves it. It isn't really work because she funds it fun. You can get an app for your phone. I'm not sure how much that is. We use the reading eggs app as well which is £6.99 a month but it's fir up to 4 users so you could share the cost with someone else if you want. We also do Collins easy learning books
Start with 3 - 5 year old so he can build confidence and then get the older ones. I wouldn't worry too much but I would make if do leaving activities over summer. At least an hour a day plus reading time. At school we used nessy. It's another computer game for spelling. It might be worth seeing if the school use or have subscriptions to any online learning products. However, do add the learning books and do some screen free activities.

www.teachyourmonster.org/teachyourmonstertoread

My August born wasn't meeting expectations until this year (year 5). Hes caught up eventually, some children just take a little while. If they haven't flagged anything, they're clearly not worried so you shouldn't be!

@KoblinsGiss that's very impressive. I wouldn't have thought the majority of parents are doing to this level, but maybe that's where I'm going wrong.
I have a younger child too (which is a whirlwind) so am not doing as much as I was in year R after school. But then year one is more intense work wise, so tiredness is an issue for DS and I'm still doing something everyday and weekends, so not like I've given up.

I entirely get that. My DD is 2, and it’s particularly hard given their 4 year age gap. It’s physically exhausting. Please don’t force yourself - just ask his teachers and they will be able to point you in the right direction.

Have a word with the teacher OP to check you have nothing to worry about. My DS is also in year 1 and I’ve found his school to be strangely reluctant to mark children as having met the expected standard before the end of the year. I’ve had nothing but positive comments on my DS and his teacher told us at parents evening that his reading level was already beyond that expected for the end of Y1, yet his accompanying written report said he was still “Developing” in reading not “Secure”? It doesn’t seem to make much sense to me.

What @KoblinsGiss is doing with her DS is all very impressive but not remotely the norm if any of my friends are anything to go by! We are working parents and DS is tired at the end of the school day and week, we don’t do much formal learning with him outside of school other than his daily reading book and weekly spellings. He likes puzzle/activity books so we sometimes do a bit of one of those but that’s about it!

@Robostripes yes there seems to be a weird thing with parents evenings. Like they say the same thing to each parent about how lovely your child is, how they have a lovely group of friends and they enjoy having them in the class. Even when I've questioned stuff they just brush it off. Ahhhh it's so hard.

@anewername
I think you need to ask slightly tougher questions.

Schools should assess as they go along. They certainly don’t all look at end of year outcomes and say a child isn’t making the standard. All assessment should be on the work the child actually does but judged against criteria for that part of the curriculum. Maths is a good example. Get the school to give you an outline of the curriculum this term and then get them to say how you can help. A good school always outlines the curriculum to parents. They should also tell you how they assess progress. You need to ask them.

As a governor we saw stats all through the year on progress. We always had a few that made a leap forward but when DC are in the red bracket (green, amber and red on stats) we did offer extra help and talk to parents. It’s really important they explain why he isn’t meeting targets.

Of course some bright DC are just a bit lazy big can do it. Others truly cannot and never believe they all catch up. They don’t. Sats results will tell you that.

I agree you need to be more creative with learning at home but ask for guidance. Ask where he has weaknesses. Don’t be fibbed off and ask to see his work and his teacher.

I wouldn't worry. Let him be a happy child, play and have fun.

The easy answer is: Do not worry, lots aren't meeting expected standards and are absolutely fine in the long run without anything extra happening. And that is perfectly true.

The harder question is: Is my child in the group that won't naturally catch up?

Which is the more important question, and one that can't be answered by people on here. it doesn't matter if 999 MNers say their child was fine if yours is the one that needed early intervention.

So, I think it would be perfectly reasonable to request a further meeting with your child's class teacher. Say that you are concerned that he seems not to be meeting expectations generally and you want to know how you can best support him to achieve.
You can't ask how many in the class aren't meeting expectations (and you may find that some of the grinning happy face comments are in that category, either because they're trying to hide it or because they didn't actually pick up what the teacher said). But you can ask whether the teacher thinks he will meet expectations by the end of the year.

They're not going to say sit him down and do 2 hours of cramming every night. What they might say is something like "he's struggling with blending phonics" which then you can see if there's an app he can play on your phone as a "treat" or when he's doing his reading you can pretend to get it wrong and get him to correct you.

Don't worry about doing too much, but you can just add things naturally to what you already do.
Cook together-he can weigh out or read the cooking time on packets.
Look for words he can help to read, maybe on the back of a cereal packet, or ask him to help you make your shopping list (if he doesn't like writing he can type it on your phone/computer).
Have a game when you're out-the number of letter "D" he can find.
Eye Spy games with sounds: So "I spy with my little eye something that begins with the sound F"
And when he says "phone" you praise him to the skies for being right and tell him how silly it is that it actually begins ph but sounds like f.
If he doesn't like writing, then (for my ds who was like that) a DSi using a stylus uses similar movements. Or chalk on the pavement etc.

Get his eyes tested. My cousin was very long sighted. Didn't discover it until year 1 as she was very good at hiding it-she would get her friends to tell her what things said and memorise it.
Equally well check his hearing. And just because he can hear the word "chocolate" at 50 yards doesn't stop him having hearing issues. (my ds had glue ear) Again they can mask it.

And if they do say they think there might be more to it than just needing time, then ask how they're going to help him. Because it may be that he does need extra help. That doesn't mean he always will, but early intervention can make a huge difference.

You're looking to support your ds in the best way you can. Your teacher wants to do that too.

@MargaretThursday that's a really helpful post thank you. I certainly will ask to sit down with the teacher now for a formal chat. I did have a quick word on Friday, but didn't gather much as it's tricky at pick up. I got an extra reading book to take home though.

Honestly I feel it's probably his lack of focus, he's very slow and I feel at times. I think he can get away with doing the minimum if he's slow. But they maybe onto him, as he apparently had to finish his writing whilst the others had a story before hometiime. He doesn't seem to have a passion for writing anything so some brilliant tips in your post I'll use.