Told my 4 year old is behind at school

[dual90]

So yesterday we went to parents evening at my DD school. I kind of knew it wouldn’t be all that positive because a week before we had been invited into the school to view one of the classes. My DD was not her best that day, crying and clingy. I noticed she was being placed at the front of the class which I know isn’t a good sign! I come from an education background- so I’m well aware of certain words like ‘interventions’ etc.

My DD is one of the youngest in the class, so she’s on the bottom 5th age bracket as she is a summer baby. The teacher just seemed to focus on the negatives, but threw in she plays well and is happy! But then launched into she’s struggling with the learning and is not ‘retaining’ and information! I did challenge her on this as at home she makes all the sounds for phonics and recognition letters. She’s also been deemed as bright in nursery and counting to 20 since she was 2! She’s interested in numbers and counts a lot and she’s been doing this for a while. She then says she didn’t recognise numbers, again we challenged her on that too as she does recognise them at home. She seemed a little baffled and kept saying she was ‘behind her peers’.

For a start I thought most learning in reception was play based and we would t have this kind of pressure this early only 4 weeks into term and being told she is not matching up! I did say to the teacher that developmentally there is going to be huge differences in learning just by the sheer difference in age for some of the children, she firstly agreed with that then contradicted it by saying she has other kids the same age who are coping fine. But we still said she seems to be doing fine with these things when she’s at home. We also have no idea what it is she is supposed to be learning. She says she’s in a small ‘intervention’ group. I find this concerning that this is already happening and quite worried she will be pigeon holed straight away and this young age. She had never had a problem learning and nobody had flagged this before, in fact I’d say the opposite. Her speech is better than some children that are 2 years older than her. I had reservations about sending her this year anyway, I felt she may not be ready but she really wanted to go. I also am slightly dissolution ed with whole school system anyway, so for me it’s sadly confirmed many reservations I’ve had. I do not want her to be off as a 4 year old and she’s already had a very tough start in life.

The teacher says if she doesn’t catch up now the gap will get bigger, I found this a very negative thing to say. I know in other countries they don’t even start this stuff until 6 or 7? And they do just fine. But straight away the pressure is on. We will try and help her catch up, but just this morning after the teacher said she didn’t recognise numbers we nearly filmed her doing it as she recognised them all!! And she has done for a long time. I did point out to the teacher that she just doesn’t know the name of the game yet and that she needs to know these things, so it’s more immaturity than anything else.

any thoughts or advice

Thank you for your thoughtful response. As you can imagine I’ve had a huge amount of response and tons of advice.

yes, I challenged her, not because I could not stand to hear my little darling not being top of the class like some on here would have me believe. It more I was quite astonished we were having this conversation so soon after her starting and barely settled in.

I’ve had conflicting advice from just take her out of the school it’s obviously too competitive. But then this leaves me with my child actually not being good enough for the school and it then becomes selective. She is in one of the best schools in the area, which is another bone of contention as I would not have sent her so early if we had not got a place there. The other schools in the area are quite hit and miss, it’s a minefield. But now we realise this is because their standards are probably completely unrealistic and they only care about targets and Ofsred ratings. Other than this she is happy and has friends there.

Maybe some parents would not challenge this, but I’m sorry I’m not going to sit there and be told my child doesn’t recognise numbers when I know she does, she can’t count when I know she can and she isn’t recognising letters or retaining information, when I know she does. The teacher has known her for less than 5 weeks. Her time spent with her will be limited, and of course how to you appropriately assess 30 kids in a class? I know the teacher has targets and is under huge pressure. I get that.

I am happy to work with the teacher and help to get her up to speed, but your suggestions have been great.

After a few weeks I’d be looking for dc to be settled and happy. Dtds are 30 August birthdays. They were behind because they were so young. By year 4 they’d started to catch up and by year 6 you’d never have known. Both hugely creative too which is quite usual in summer born dc. Is the teacher quite inexperienced? Sounds very odd to make such negative statements so early.

If you bothered to read all the OP's posts the teacher is apparently very experienced.

Other posters have pointed out there maybe other biases going on.

My DD1 is profoundly deaf and attended mainstream primary school. All through primary I was subjected to hearing negative feedback about her work. She is able to access speech as has a cochlear implant but she is 2 years behind her peers in language at this point as no hearing until implanted at 18 months old then it takes a while to adjust to being able to hear etc. she was strong in maths but weak in english so I founds parents evening quite depressing as never very positive about all the amazing things she was good at - just keen to highlight the areas of concern over and over to me! I guess my case is more extreme however even in this scenario my DD excelled once at secondary school, passed all her GCSES with flying colours and now doing ALevels. Your daughter is a tiny tot who sounds like she is excelling anyway I suspect she needs time to adjust to her new environment- and even if it turns out she needs a bit of extra support just accept it, it may be short term anyway and if you look at it another way some parents are constantly fighting for extra support for children and don’t get it so I guess it’s good it’s available. However I too agree it seems very early to be highlighting this so understand your frustration and confusion particularly if thriving at home and nursery

We had this with my eldest. Literally one week into the start of reception we had a note written in his diary saying he was behind at writing and could we do some practice at home. I couldn't believe a 5 year old could be behind at anything after one week of school. He had been to the school nursery prior to this too!

Anyway, the teacher was right. He was later diagnosed with dyspraxia and still struggles with his writing.

On the alternate side. My youngest had in his nursery report last term. Yes NURSERY. That his target was to blend CVC words. When we challenged this as he actually is doing brilliantly with reading and can read level 6 biff chip and kipper without sounding out words we were told that it was because he had been reluctant to do this at school in a group setting so they had presumed he couldn't do it 🙈. Madness!

The fact that you’ve responded with “she knows numbers when she sees them” in response to what I’ve said says it all.

4 year old, not 5 🙈

I wouldn't give it a second thought. If my daughter who turned 4 on 1st September was a day older and had started school this September she'd be 'behind'. I know full well she's bright as a button.....not sure she'd take to formal learning just yet though. She's tiny still, and it should all be play based at this age. Also sounds like she knows more than they have managed to get out of her from the assessments they have done. Read, practice sounds, don't worry about the rest. They tend to even out as the years go on.....

@Reugny no I didn’t read all of the op posts as I was largely sharing my personal experience of summer born dc. Not sure why you felt the need to “mark my work”. This isn’t an exam. All posters are likely busy and just dipping in on threads they can input and the initial post was quite a bit to read. Op can ignore my post if not relevant 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

For goodness sake you need to let it go if you’re keeping your DD there, you are seeing everything in black and white. I’m sure it will all work out , I’m sorry to say you’re coming across as slightly neurotic

Why is there a front of class if its a proper reception class?
What has sitting down got to do with learning?
Is any one cosidering the concentration limitations of any 4 year old. There is no need and
No point in compsring a 4 year old with any classmate who may be 4yrs 8/9/10etc months. Your child is at the stage she is at. Stop worrying she will be fine. Or find proper reception environment for her.

This is still missing the point a bit - what if OP does this and her child can't say what comes after 5 - then what? Hothouse her somehow into practising arbitrary counting tasks at 4 years old so she can 'catch up' with people older than her?! If she is playing and being stimulated in a normal happy environment this will develop naturally. It is far to early to even be able to confidently identify an issue that might be at all relevant longer term.

Honestly have no idea why people are so rude and nasty on here. Says it all? She said my daughter does not recognise numbers. She does. I just don’t know why people bother to reply unless they actually have something of use to say. You clearly don’t. Please don’t respond to my post again, and I am reporting you.

Thank you to everybody that has responded. I have taken on board a lot of advice. I am meeting the teacher again soon, not to find out how she is doing, more to get a general update in the things she is supposed to know.

This is my first experience of parents evening, and yes, this conversation do soon took us a little by surprise.

On the one hand the extra support is good, and we will work with her to help her ‘catch up’. But not at the detriment of other things. I think the fact she’d been moved from her friends too, hadn’t helped. I also don’t want this to become a pressure.

I do not think just taking her out of the school is the answer, she is happy otherwise.

I will correspond with the teacher over the next half term, if she honestly isn’t catching up, which I really don’t think will be the case that is when I will rethink.

I did not take into consideration that sending her to an outstanding school would really have this negative downside. But rightly or wrongly we thought we were doing the right thing by sending her to one of the ‘better’ schools. I realise now that was slightly naive.

I may have blown this out of proportion- but honestly it was a bit of a shock, and no not so soon into the term.

There are clearly issues with the system but now she’s in it I guess we just have to go with it.

Thank you all.

Could not agree more. She is being compared to children who were being born just as she was being conceived. And we say age has nothing to do with it?!

I know that different learning environments and playing these things will come over time. I think these expectations of every child at this age is beyond unrealistic.

But here we are! I will help her in a fun way, if she isn’t responding to that then I may just have to think she is not ready and rethink!

Thank you

No we are white British.

The baseline assessment is longer than 3 minutes, she’ll have also been observed on the carpet and in play.
It could well be that your child isn’t showing what she’s capable of. My son was similar and in nursery would answer questions wrong if they were ‘baby’ questions, he loved space I remember mentioning it to his keyworker, so she looked at planets with him asking colours, he answered every colour wrong 🤦‍♀️ they mentioned this, I said he knew his colours but he also knew the names, and climates of the planets etc so he wasn’t interested in naming colours. The following day the senco sat with him asking about space and he showed her how to make star constellations naming them. He also failed his phonics screening as he wouldn’t read the made up words using phonic and would just give a jibberish answer. As a result he had to go into phonics intervention, despite knowing all the sounds and being able to blend (the teacher asked my permission at the first parents evening in yr2 to take him out of it).
Being in the intervention might give her the confidence to show what she can do in small group/1:1, she’ll get to know the teacher/ta better and it might make her more comfortable sharing her abilities.
I agree the system with have isn’t the best, the government respond to us falling lower on the international standard by introducing more and more assessments, earlier and earlier, instead of looking to those at the top who are play based til 7 etc.
I think the teacher didn’t do a great job of wording it, she can only go off what they see. I would video her at home and add it to her learning journal if they have an online one, that way the teacher can see it.

I've been in EYFS for years and wouldn't dream of having this conversation (true or otherwise) at this point in the year!! She is possibly still shy there and whilst she may do these things at home it is possible that she doesn't at school. I've had this before and asked parents to send in videos so that I know they can do things. I think I would be questioning the setting. I'd also possibly raise it further as you know this isn't true, but some parents could then be battering their young children with "revision"!

Please don't be too disillusioned with education, we're not all like this, but maybe this setting isn't right for your daughter? I'd be furious.

By this point in the year, I'm happy with happy and learning and that's what I look for.

And you think I didn’t factor in summer born?

As said above I factored in summer born. Also if she knows her numbers as you say then what’s the issue?

Is it that shes is being compared unfairly or that she can do stuff they’re saying she cannot do?

My summer born, premature DS struggled in reception. His teacher said he was behind his peers and that it was unlikely that he would be where he needed to be by the end of the year. He's now in year 2 and in the top groups for everything, he had finished read write Inc by the end of year 1 and was put into groups with the year above to do some of his work. He struggles with writing but only in the context of he finds it harder than maths and reading, his actual writing skills are on par with where he needs to be.
In his case I think it was teaching styles that made the difference. He's had the same teacher through yr 1 and 2 and within weeks of having her everything clicked and he was flying

I've not read the entire thread so forgive me if I'm repeating stuff. I have read your responses though.

Trying to see it from both sides, I can see evidence of a teacher that maybe doesn't have great people skills and a parent whose questions might have been seen as an attack? Not a criticism btw. I've read your posts about your own negative experiences so I understand where you're coming from and of course you should question things that don't sit right. I just wonder, with both sides being on the defensive whether there's been a breakdown in communication?

You've mentioned multiple times that the school picture and the home picture don't match and seemed (initially) to be of the point of view that teacher doesn't believe you... The teacher may similarly be thinking you don't believe her and it has caused her to become reactionary. As others have mentioned, it's perfectly normal for the two pictures not to match. The question is why? I'd imagine it's a confidence thing. Even if your daughter is happy and has no social issues I'd still not entirely rule out the idea that at the same time she could still be feeling "shy" or even just "weird" in a situation where she's interacting with relatively new adults or still adjusting to a full class dynamic. As an aside - I was recently surprised to to see my own 2 year old giving my friend completely wrong answers to questions she'd get right every time at home when we were doing a number puzzle on a playdate. 🤷🏼‍♀️. Maybe the excitement?!

If I was trying to take away the most positive things from this meeting, I'd say the teacher has identified something not quite right and has tried to put in support (but maybe just got herself in a muddle when being questioned on this).

In no way am I saying the following is the way it is. The teacher could indeed be a raging bitch with no clue but I just wonder if it might help to look at it this way....
It could be that since you were against intervention, she's quoted research about children struggling to catch up to explain why targeted support so early is a good thing and just worded it all so badly she's made you think it's personal. Also the age thing - she obviously agrees being a summer baby can be a disadvantage. Perhaps she was (misguidedly) trying to give you hope by referring to peers of your daughter's age and it has been misconstrued? I said this especially since you say your daughter presents as quite bright - she can speak better than a lot etc. Maybe the teacher is simply suggesting that your daughter is coming across as behind her peers currently but she believes your daughter knows more and she's keen to get her to a place (by providing support) where her ability is accurately presented in class. That way whatever barrier is currently in her way - shyness, whatever - doesn't hinder her further down the track and see her get "behind" at a later date. The school would be doing your DC a disservice if they did nothing after noticing an issue.

I would only see being out in an intervention group as a positive (at the moment). This could be just what she needs. It would get her more time to interact closely with adults and get to know them better whilst at the same time getting to know some of her peers more closely too. To me, this would be the biggest benefit of small group work. I wouldn't be looking at it solely from the "teaching" point of view or worry about her being typecast, especially since you're confident she knows a lot of it. Hopefully it will be a short term means to an end and if it's not, you can readdress (as you've mentioned in your later posts).

It was interesting reading your comments about them doing things "differently". Maybe it's these differences that are throwing her and being in a small group for a few weeks is what she needs to be able to "tune in" and before you know it, she'll be off! You also mentioned others having problems as they've sent a video out. My school has just held a session for parents to learn about how reading is taught in reception. Coming from a school background, you probably know that a lot of people insert a schwa at the end of the phonemes when they're first teaching them (as that's how they learned when they were young). That's really hard to undo and can cause havoc with teaching how to blend sounds together later. I agree that settling in should be the biggest focus right now but I guess that these fairly fundamental misconceptions surrounding the correct pronunciation mean that a lot of schools do a session like this/ send videos out earlier rather than later to prevent the wrong things being taught at home rather than because children are behind.

I hope that your next meeting makes you feel better and sheds some light on what you need to be working on as it does seem from reading your comments that you've come away quite unsure. I don't know what materials they provide you with but it might not hurt to ask, certainly in phonics, which scheme they use and if you could have an overview for the year. Do they tell you what sounds they're working on that week? Doing some targeted work on the specific phonemes might help her answer the relevant questions especially if you know the likely format of a lesson and can replicate some of the exercises at home. Being put on the spot can throw you even if you know an answer!

I hope there's a happy outcome to this all and it's all water under the bridge before you know it!

I would be questioning why the teacher is missing things you are clearly seeing at home, I think it speaks far more of her ability than your daughter's. My mother taught me to read before I started school because the teacher was useless with my older brother's class and she didn't want me to have the same poor start. They didn't believe I could read and made me do the same flashcards as everyone else. I found this boring and did what I could to not participate, they insisted I couldn't read and wasn't progressing as a result. Despite repeated attempts of my Mum to intervene, they were adamant. When I moved up a class and finally got a reading book, my mother complained they weren't stretching me and that's why I wasn't progressing. I was 6yrs old and reading full story books at home, I would happily get through 3 or 4 Famous Five or Secret Seven type books in a weekend, unassisted and perfectly content reafing to myself, but they were giving me the type of books she had taught me with at the age of 3!! My mother took me in to the teacher after school with one of my books and got me to read a couple of pages to her, and that teacher looked her in the eye and said "Well she's saying the words but it doesn't mean she's reading. Saying the words are only part of it, she needs to understand what they actually mean too!" So I translated what I'd just read as a summary of the story and my mother involved the headteacher. Not quite sure what happened, but I was able to start choosing my own books from the school library after that, and that teacher hated me from that day forward. I had her for 2 years and she never forgave me for being able to read. But it saved me from being pigeonholed and going backwards simply because the teachers were inept.

Sorry you're still missing the point - after 5 weeks a child shouldn't be classed as behind regardless of age, the summer born thing really isn't my main issue with this. Unless there are obvious issues like hearing problems, speech delays etc. It is too short a time to judge academic development and 5 is still young to start formal education by international standards. My point is what if she can't count beyond 5 what then? It's so early on there's no reason (that has been mentioned) to think this is a long term or underlying issue. Any child at this stage should be focusing on settling in, seeing school positively, building trust and relationships with peers / teacher and learning through play. Calling a parent into school to have a serious meeting about 'progress' at this stage in these circumstances is ridiculous. Their focus is clearly on meeting some sort of targets, not how I want my kids to be taught at such an early age. The language as far as I know is 'might' not 'must' in terms of progress for a reason - they will be at very different stages so early on. Research shows deferred children and early starters reach the same point by primary 3 anyway. Give the kid a chance, she's only just started!

What I didn't meant by my previous btw is you should be doing heaps of extra work at home. Just if you know what's coming up next, you'll know what to look out for that week - maybe point it out in a book that you'd be reading anyway if you see it or frame a question in a similar way to whatever game they play in a session so she's familiar with the concept... If you're confident in her ability, it's really just helping her access the format of school. Like you say, primary education here might not be the best model but if she's in the system, it's probably best she learns how to work it to her best advantage.