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

Unfortunately agree there too.

This is ridiculous.

I'm from abroad. I went to nursery until 6 and started school at 6 years old.

4 years is way too early for a lot of children. They've only just stopped being babies.

It makes me slightly scared to send my August baby to school next year.

He's very "immature" and I worry he will be put in a box.

They seem very pushy. She’s just 4. I’m in wales where they learn through play as well as through group work until year 2 so it’s a little more relaxed I think. Ds is august born and was definitely behind his classmates academically until around year 2 where he levelled off. By year 6 he was above average for reading and maths. It can take a lot of time for summer borns and it really shouldn’t be a concern at 4. Try not to worry and just turn it back on the school when they mention it to you.
what will school be doing to support this? How will school take into consideration her birth month, what are her targets, what steps are school taking etc. but don’t worry at this age. The gap won’t get bigger unless there’s an sen

We had a similar meeting with DS's teacher and we were told that he basically doesn't pay attention during phonics and wants to play all day and do his own thing.

She said when they finally manage to get him to sit down and pay attention, he knows all the letters and blend sounds perfectly. At home he even surprises me and reads 3 letter words but I know my boy and he LOVES to play. It's really hard to get him to practice his phonics & writing at home so I understand what the teacher is saying.

She said she's not worried about him though as it's still early days and will keep encouraging him to pay attention.

He's also a summer born.

If your 4 year old is your oldest or only child, she is also likely to be less 'mature' than a younger sibling can be.
She doesn't have an older sibling at home to copy.

Take it as a pinch of salt. Same happened to my DS and we started working on English and Maths at home, even though I knew he was capable they still didn't see it even up to year 5 and a long story short he's at grammar school and thriving.

Sometimes I feel some kids don't show their full potential because they are easily distracted, might need glasses, not confident, haven't understood, don't work well alone etc.

My advice would be do extra work to help them feel confident and don't stress too much there are 30 kids in a class and I feel some are unseen.

Interventions aren’t a negative thing. They’re there to close the gap. Learning is play based but it’s structured and they will be assessed. Other countries don’t start school until 6 but they have very similar expectation in kindergarden as UK nursery.

Look for another school that would allow her to repeat reception as a summer baby (once enrolled it’s in school’s hands not council anymore) and run!

source: mum of a deferred child who in her own country (where they start at 6) was sent to school at 5

@Brokendaughter that is not my experience having taught many only/ oldest children. They are often more mature and advanced because they spend more time interacting with adults.

I just wanted to reassure you - I too had this conversation with a teacher about my middle daughter (August baby). I was told she was behind, her reading was poor and she would never amount to much. However I could see that she was not that different to her January born older sister - if you allowed for their relative ages in the year! Both only really started reading at age 5.5 - for DD1 that was in reception year but for DD2 she was well into Year 1 before things started to click.

DD2 got higher grades at GCSE across the board than DD1. She is now at Uni doing medicine.

The most important thing at this age is to take things at the child's place and encourage a love of learning. Read to her and when she shows interest then encourage her to try herself. If you force them to do things that they are not ready for I think it puts them off.

By the time we got to DC3 - he was lucky to get any reading practice at all! I think he learned to read from playing Top Trumps with his sisters.

Mother of a summer baby boy! I was told in primary Year 2 that he was behind and his writing was appalling and unless he improved he would never be on a par with his classmates. This was in around 2002.

He's now 25, went to a top Uni, works for one of the big four and has been made a Manager a year earlier than his peers.

As I said at the time, he's a year younger than most of his peers and he will catch up in his own time. I knew he was a bright inquisitive little boy who would be fine.

It makes me so cross, this is still a thing when surely research must show it has no bearing and they simply catch up over time.

Actually it was my mum they told this to as she was picking up from school for me and she relayed the conversation and told me to ignore the silly woman!

All children develop and learn at very differnt paces. Being 'behind' as a summer born, just 5 weeks into the first term is not something I would worry about (I also have a summer born so I do understand your worries).

The most important thing for a 4 year old at school, is that they start to form a good relationship with their key worker adults and learn to socialise with the other children. It great feedback that your child is happy and playing with others. My daughter is the youngest in her year and it took her at least 2 school years to feel really comfortable at school and find her feet. She's flying in year 7 now. As I said - children learn at vastly different paces. Being 'behind' at aged 4, 5, 6 years old is not something to worry about - often it just takes time for it to click.

You daughter sounds a bit shy with her teacher and it might just take her a few more weeks to warm up. Maybe say this to her teacher, it might make the teacher realise she needs to try a slightly different approach?

My DS is August born and youngest in his year. I had a similar conversation with his teacher last year- everything she said about his performance was negative, she couldn't find a single thing to mention that he was good at! I remember being very deflated, as he's a happy boy who has many friends, enjoys going to school but half the kids in his class were born before he was even conceived! Now thinking about the meeting and knowing the teacher better, it is clear that her communication skills with parents aren't the best and most likely didn't realise how bad it came across.
The school will need to support your child in getting on the same level with his peers. Most kids needing extra support in my son's class are late spring/summer babies.
We try to support him at home as much as possible and ensure he spends some time reading every evening.
Try not to stress about this at the moment, reception is the most fun year at school. Plus, your child won't know that he's 'behind'.

I would be wary of ‘outstanding’ schools for exactly this - there is sometimes so much anxiety about maintaining that rating that they lose sight of the bigger picture and it creates a very narrowly focused, anxiety ridden, joyless learning environment. We had the same conversation in reception, and all the teacher seemed to care about was likelihood to pass the phonics screener as well as possible implications for y2 SATS - two assessments that have no implications for children, but ARE a key metric for schools.

mine were behind - young for year, but also just slow starters for reading. As with one of the above posters, they didn’t really start to engage with reading until they were 5/5.5 - we were made to feel like they were failing because nothing seemed to stick, but then something clicked in y1 and by y2 they have largely caught up to expected level. Some children are ready for reading (and other elements of school life, learning) at 4, but many are not

mine also had interventions, and my issue with these was (1) they didn’t really accelerate learning significantly- my dc just weren’t ready, and no amount of extra drilling could meaningfully change that, and (2) these interventions happened at the expense of free play or other enrichments, which are things that WOULD have been beneficial. They started school excited and happy, but by the end of the first term were anxious and miserable about school and had started to refer to themselves as ‘stupid’ and ‘awful’ . Having always loved books, they would make excuses to avoid reading time

we ended up moving them to a private school that doesn’t do SATS (so less concerned with meeting arbitrary attainment timelines) and was much more genuinely play and experience based learning, and they are back to being happy confident children. They are also now (y2) meeting expectations for reading and exceeding in maths. In retrospect I should have deferred their start by a year - agree with other posters that the uk starts way too early for many children.

Honestly, if you can, take her out and send her next year at 5 instead. Although I don't think you'd be able to get funded childcare hours anymore unfortunately as you're past the cut off date for that I think.

My summer born ds was 'behind' in reception and my attitude was so different to yours op and I was just grateful he was receiving the extra help. I taught reception before I had children and know what a lot of extra work these interventions etc are. It sounds like your child is getting a lot of extra support & your teacher probably spends her Saturdays planning and prepping it all. Just try to be as positive as you can.

I’m not ungrateful. I come from a teaching background too, so I understand the pressure teachers are under. But that does not make it right. Even if the teacher is prepping on Saturday ( which I doubt to be honest as she is fairly old and experienced teacher) my attitude is of concern we are pushing this this early at the age of 4. How necessary is it and yes, I don’t completely agree with her observations if I’m honest. I did mention my DC has absolutely no problem with this at home. Why is she having trouble there? I’m slightly dumbfounded to be honest I was even having this conversation 5 weeks in reception. That’s my concern. If she was a little older and further along and they’d flagged a problem then I may have a very different attitude. We are literally putting a 4 year old in a box and saying she is not matching up to her peers. Of course I’m concerned and slightly baffled we are making such judgments so early.

This is what I completely agree with. I thought it would be more play based and conversation would be more about how she was settling in and any other general observation. But it launched straight into ‘she’s struggling with the learning’ which shocked us both. I’m now slightly regretting sending her so early and we only did as we did get the top school of our choice, but now I’m just wondering if this was the right thing.

I am worried that this extra pressure will just give her a negative experience of school, she’s already coming home ratty and tired.

I have faith she will catch up, and before people say I’m being ungrateful- I agree with you, to take them away from activities like play at this age ( which is how they learn) to be told they are matching up so need extra help can become a hindrance and make them lose confidence. This is my concern.

My daughter is one of the younger ones in her class and was indeed “behind” her peers in some things when she started school. Not really surprising given she was almost a full year younger than oldest ones!

At her first parents evening her teacher trotted out similar to your daughters, possibly less negatively, and my exh (a teacher) absolutely was not having it.
”you cannot sit there and tell me with a straight face that academic performance at 4, a third younger than some of her peers, denotes what she will ultimately achieve academically. Don’t be ridiculous”. It sticks in my mind still.

Anyway she’s 8 now, very bright and doing well. As will your daughter.

The parents evening at this early stage of the year should be about how your child is adjusting and settling into school, and talking to you.
I'm really shocked that the teacher is putting your child into an intervention group in early October just madness.
Reception is supposed to be structured on learning through play.
If I were you I really would be quite concerned by the school's approach!

Agreed!!

To be honest this is what I was trying to get at, I wish I could have said it as eloquently as your ex! I raised the age difference and all the while she agreed that they developed and mature at different times - she then proceeded to tell me that there are others of similar age where it is not a problem, again I tried to challenge her on this, there has to be a difference in age and learning ability. my husband did point out when we got home that if you think about it statistically there are perhaps only 5 or 6 other children in the class that are as young as her. SO maybe only 2 or 3 of them are hitting the so called targets...statistically that's not really her 'being way behind her peers',

She's assessed your daughter, put interventions in place to support her and has let you know about it. I know it might not be nice to hear, but they will try their best to help her.
Please try not to worry about it. Just try to help with reading at home and do the suggested spellings etc (I know this varies from school to school). It's so early on in her educational journey and she has so much time to find her feet academically.
My DD is a summer baby too and although she is nowhere near starting school, I have had the odd thought about how her birthday will affect her learning, especially at the start. You're obviously a very caring and supportive mum and because of that, she'll have everything she needs.

Ok, they are being on the ball, that is fine, but it still doesn't sit right with me. I personally feel it is way too soon and she is still vey young.

which I doubt to be honest as she is fairly old and experienced teacher

So she'll have taught hundreds and hundreds of children, including plenty of summer borns, and she's identified that your daughter is out of the norm and needs help. I would listen to her