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

I find this completely ridiculous.

Hold your nerve, tell the teachers you are confident your child is capable and clever, at the moment your priority is helping her settle into a new environment and getting to love new routines and building positivity around the concept of school and learning, and stress and pressure will not aid that in any way.

I'd say if they continue to be concerned about my child's development and abilities I will be happy to speak to them when my child is six or seven.

Until then, I find their feedback interesting but my priority remains my child's happiness.

If the teachers really bug you then you may need to move school.

I know someone whose moved their child to a different school for this reason. I also know someone who put up with being told her child was behind all the way through primary school, only to find he had been put in middle and top sets at secondary school.

I'm surprised that you didn't know that there would be a baseline assessment. There is a big difference between a child who has been at preschool since they were two and already knows how to sit still and listen, can read simple words and count objects reliably, to one who has never been to groups out of the home, has no books, is never talked to and isn't toilet trained. The former will not need to be playing all day and the latter will need a lot of work to catch up developmentally.

The teacher has a whole class to teach, hopefully with the help of one or two TAs, and needs to know what stage each child is at so she can differentiate the curriculum accordingly. She will have taught hundreds of children and knows what is expected, whereas you only know your child. Also, just because she is very experienced doesn't mean that she doesn't have to lesson plan, prepare resources and displays and write up observations during the weekends!

Are you absolutely sure that your DD really knows her phonics? Many adults who were not taught this way would struggle to know what many of them are without guidance from the school. When you say that she knows her numbers, is she just reciting a list or can she tell you how many beads there are? If she really can, then the issue is why she isn't doing this at school. The teacher can only go off what she sees. Does DD need her sight or hearing checked? Does she have issues with attention? It may not just be because she's the youngest.

Try to be pleased that the teacher has picked up on things and is putting interventions in place early, rather than thinking that she's still a toddler and just needs to play while the rest of the class is learning new things. As a tutor, and previously an HLTA, I know how much the extra attention in a small group or one-to-one can really benefit a child and close the gap.

@dual90, I well remember a Singaporean niece, of still only 3 (Singaporean Chinese mother, Brit father) telling me how tired she got when having to do her homework!!

From all I’ve ever heard, there’s intense pressure on Singaporean children from a very early age.

An older sibling of hers, years later, was very dejected after her iBac results, which had earned her a place at a RG university - because the reaction from a lot of friends and relatives was ‘Oh, well, never mind,’ - because it wasn’t Oxbridge or Imperial College.

Poor girl - I think our ‘Well done! 👏 was about the only positive reaction she received.

But don't you think struggling at school could affect a child's confidence and happiness?

I wouldn't wait 2 or 3 years to start looking into things.

First of all it’s not the teachers fault, I was certainly not saying that. And I think in general we have a problem with the system. If she has taught for a long time - expectations and targets will have changed a lot throughout her career, but of course her hands are tied. This is what she has to do.

she does recognise letters, but the phonic sounds are different to how we were taught. The issue really is we didn’t know this and we did not know she was being assessed this early.

My child has been taken to nursery, my child is toilet changed, we read to her regularly and have done since she was a baby. She is taken out a lot.

I still think I know my child better than the teacher and she does recognise letters and numbers, there seems to be a disconnect between what she does with us to how she is in school. She is possibly distracted, she’s getting used to environment- I was really think this first half term we’d be concentrating on that.

I found they mark the letter names as incorrect, it's the letter sounds they want.

She is very very young and that almost year in age difference at this stage between her and her peers can make a massive difference. Concentrate on her confidence and social skills and she will get there When she is ready. I had a daughter who was the oldest in her class and sons who were the youngest and it absolutely made such a difference academically. One son we held back for a year and it made such a difference. He started out struggling and way behind his peers in fact it was year 4 before things fell into place. He is now thriving at University. Kids are all different. Try not to compare and consider doing an extra year or pulling her out and starting next year. My son was 4 weeks past hai 4th birthday when they started him and he just was bot ready.

The system is what we have and we have had it for decades. You know what to do if you don’t like it. It’s a pointless discussion in many ways as you are not going to change anything. Also why are you so worried about your child proving the teacher wrong. Another poster said to tell the teacher your DD is capable and clever. Unfortunately this will go firm like a lead balloon and they’ve heard it all before. You sound like a home educator at heart so maybe take that opportunity to do what you want for your DD?

but the phonic sounds are different to how we were taught.

OP didn't your child's school do a meeting where they went through the phonics they are teaching?

We were warned not to go near teaching our child phonics until we knew what the school wanted. We then got a further warning from friends when their oldest started school .The school had changed the way they taught phonics so the stuff on their school website was out of date.

My DD is currently having fun with one of her two teachers as they can't make some letter sounds "properly". The teacher is multilingual.

Anyway just continue reading to your daughter and doing the other stuff with her. (Be careful teaching her Maths until you know how the school are teaching.) Get your daughter to lead you on how she is being taught to sound different letters.

1. Don't worry about it too much
2. If she can recognize numbers and letters at home and you have a video, you could maybe show that to the teacher the next time you have a discussion about this - because as you say, it could be that the issue is with the school environment.
3. What do you mean when you say, several times, that she doesn't understand she has to know these things at school? Surely she can understand that if the teacher shows her the number 5 she should say that it is 5, because you have done similar at home.
4. Have you taught her letter names instead of letter sounds?
5. It's good if they are putting interventions in place already. That's better than them just ignoring it and she arrives in year 1 and the year 1 teacher has to tell you that she needs intervention because nothing was in place in Reception
6. What is the "tough start" she has had and is that affecting her in anyway? Sometimes a "tough start" can cause issues which only start to appear a few years later.

I know that.

I want to do what is right for my daughter.

it’s not a case of proving the teacher wrong. I do have a right to question her observations- she has 30 kids in a class. Surely you can’t be that accurate with this many kids in this short amount of time. Kids change and develop at different rates.

Maybe as I have lost faith in the system. It I do have to give my daughter a chance in it.

I would never send a primary age child to a "results driven" school. Maybe she should be in her catchment school with her local community, and where hopefully they understand small children and their needs.

Her tough start was medical intervention as a baby. She was maybe developing physically a little later because of this. But she caught up very quickly.

she always been considered bright and we do letters and numbers at home.

the teacher was interested when we said she could do it at home.

She told us she didn’t recognise numbers, we disagreed because we can show her a number wt home and she recognises it…

I do think she was placed at the front with other children and I do wonder if those children might be distracting.

i don’t know, the environment might be intimidating she can be silly at times and pretends she doesn’t know things when she does, we’ve seen her do that at home.

The school is close to our local community and we are only just out of catchment, not much.

Most of the kids are out of catchment but this isn’t a huge place.

The school local to us doesn’t have particularly good reviews, I know this from people who have sent their kids there. There are other issues too, which I’d prefer not to say.

she still very much in her local community, that’s not the issue. How do I know if it’s a ‘results’ driven school?

Actually they did not, again it took us by surprise.

we know other parents have had an issue with this because the school has just sent a video with all the phobic sounds…just after parents evening…😕

I do think she was placed at the front with other children and I do wonder if those children might be distracting.

What is the classroom layout?

Also I used to end up in the front of the class at the beginning of the school year due to being put alphabetically by last name. I only stayed there if they decided we didn't needed to be moved around.

The kids at the front of the class don't get to misbehave as you are always in the teacher's view. So the other kids can't distract her.

Your child may just have confidence problems and you are better off getting her to do something performance based e.g. dancing, music, sport outside school.

They are all results driven as they are judged by OFSTED largely on data.

I’ve lived in that part of the world and I hear you!!

The pressure is immense. But I fear we are trying to emulate this here, I know this as there was a recruitment drive a few years ago for Chinese maths teachers, and various teachers being sent to Singapore and China to see how they teach science and maths. This can be good, as there methods clearly work. But our system is different and generally speaking formal education still doesn’t start until they are slightly older!

i don’t know, the environment might be intimidating she can be silly at times and pretends she doesn’t know things when she does, we’ve seen her do that at home

In which case, that is probably what is happening here. I really think you should just "let it go" for now - as in don't overthink it, don't be offended, don't worry about it. Keep doing what you are doing - supporting her at home, learning through play, doing interesting activities and including a bit of number work/letters in that (using the phonic sounds not the names).

And please try to park your negativity about the school system. I think that is colouring your view a bit here. She has to go through this school system or you have to home educate.
I don't mean to sound harsh. There are a lot of positives and negatives about the school system in the UK, but unfortunately that's the way it is.
Having moved to a European country where children start at 6-7 and having taught both Reception in the UK and "Class 1" here (the 6-7 year olds), it's blatantly obvious that 4 years old is far too young for children to be in formal education, even though the Reception curriculum is supposed to be play-based. (Depending on the school, a lot of the time it isn't).

FFS!

No wonder you are anxious.

I had a shitty infant school experience as well.

Try not to be paranoid there are some helpful posts on what you can say next parents evening and also do outside school.

My son in law's dm is Singaporean Chinese and whilst him and one of his brothers both went to Cambridge the youngest one was rejected twice so ended up going to Imperial. I think he is taking a more relaxed approach with regard to my gs.

Ds had the same teacher in reception and year one as did dd3. As the teacher was convinced ds was stupid I was relieved when he entered year 2 and had a new teacher who believed in him and his capabilities.

You have options depending on your situation. You can withdraw her from school and send her next year when she reaches compulsory school age. You can apply for her to start in reception she doesn't have to miss a year as some might incorrectly advise you, she would not need to skip a year later thats another myth. See the admissions code and see the summerborn guidance on the gov website and follow that process.
Unfortunately you have missed the deadline to divert funding back to a nursery so will either have to pay until Jan or start her in Jan.
The system is awfully flawed in the UK your daughter sounds perfect. It is insanity to compare 4 and 5 year olds who have 20% more life experience.
Statistically summerborns are more likely to be SEN when actually they are just far too young in many cases and then having to play catchup.
I have deferred my own child as I oppose these unrealistic and frankly damaging expectations. Everyone scratches their heads as to why there is a mental health crisis with our kids and it is exactly this labelling and classifying from such an early age that does it. Thankfully you sound very supportive and can see the madness for what it is so if deferring doesn't suite your situation she has a fantastic advocate in you to pushback. The teacher sounds bonkers.

@Puggsy I don't think the OPs DD is too young I think the teacher's expectations of her are off.

Also if the child ends up with the same teacher if she is delays a year that isn't going to help the child, as the teacher already has a negative view of the child.