Reception child not meeting EYFS social and emotional expectations

[Bookpencil]

My son is coming to the end of his reception year at primary school. He turned 5 in June. I was wondering if any teachers or more experienced parents are able to give me advice or a sense check?

His teacher told me last week that he has not met expectations for the social and emotional development part of the EYFS curriculum. This was hinted at during parents evening several months ago, but I was given the impression that he was doing well and would get there before the year was up. There has been no further contact regarding how to support him and no pastoral care input.

Following our brief conversation, I’m not even entirely sure what the issue is that’s caused him to fail the assessment. I think he sometimes shouts out in class, and doesn’t always want to share the toys, but he is generally doing well and has friends.

On a selfish level I can’t help but feel upset that my lovely boy is somehow not where he should be. I feel that I’ve let him down. I’m also concerned that I wasn’t really informed of this trajectory earlier so that I could work harder to support him at home.

But I don’t really know if I’m overreacting? How unusual is it for a child to not be meeting expectations at this stage? Should I have expected some communication from the school and pastoral care involvement, or not? How can I help my son?

Have you looked more in depth at the list of expectations? Do you recognise things on there that he struggles with? If so, can you use time over the summer to support in those areas eg turn taking games

it sounds like a talk with the teacher would help so they can suggest what to do with what is not right for you to work on

My daughter struggles massively with her social and emotional regulation, she is awaiting an Autism assessment.
Appreciate SEN is bandied about so much these days but it maybe a consideration.

This. I'd want to know which boxes he was ticking and which he wasn't (in terms of what they see at school).

This will give you a much better idea of any potential issues and how to tackle them.

Summer born and presumably only child or eldest? Then more likely to struggle with those things however like pp says could be sen.

My eldest was marked (imo wrongly) as met everything on eyfs despite hqving issues and latter being diagnosed asd and adhd

It's not like secondary school where they have a target and it's up to them, the school and the parents to work on getting them up to the target.

He hasn't "failed" a test and neither have you.

At nursery, they just have expectations for what most kids can do- they'll try and encourage them to do those things and want you to do the same at home, but for the most part, they either can or can't do it.

They've let you know he can't and now it needs to be a conversation about why he can't and what he needs to be able to.

Download a copy of EYFS and look to see where they aren’t reaching and Google around activities to build on those skills.

I'd also ask the school to be specific about it - I was told my son was 'too shy' to speak up in class (aged 4) but it turned out they did a lot of 'whats your favourite' questions and he genuinely didn't have a favourite in a lot of cases (and refused to make one up just to please his teacher!) so wouldn't answer.

They put him in a group for kids that needed to work on their confidence and the first week he told them how he had got up at a party full of adults and sang a song in Danish at which point they began to believe me that it wasn't a confidence issue and we got to the bottom of it! 🤣

Similar my friend's daughter was described as struggling socially because she didn't join in with certain partner games - it turned out that her best friend, that she always played with, sucked her thumb and she didn't like holding her hand because it was covered in spit. 🤣

Obviously all kids are different, but sometimes teachers can be mistaken about the cause of an issue and attribute it to a developmental issue when it's actually a specific problem that's relatively easily resolved!

Either way, there's plenty of time to catch up - don't worry too much until you've spoken to the teacher.

I teach Reception. Please don't worry, you have certainly not let him down and neither have the school. Nationally, only about 68% of children achieve a Good Level of Development (GLD) by the end of Reception. That means they met the Early Learning Goal in all the PSED, Physical Development, Communication and Language, Literacy and Maths strands (12 areas in total). There are 3 areas for PSED, outlined below:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development — Self-Regulation:
Children at the expected level of development will:

• show an understanding of their own feelings and those of others, and begin to regulate their behaviour accordingly;
• set and work towards simple goals, being able to wait for what they want and control their immediate impulses when appropriate;
• give focused attention to what the teacher says, responding appropriately even when engaged in an activity, and show an ability to follow instructions involving several ideas or actions.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development — Managing Self: Children at the expected level of development will:

• be confident to try new activities and show independence, resilience, and perseverance in the face of challenge;
• explain the reasons for rules, know right from wrong, and try to behave accordingly;
• manage their own basic hygiene and personal needs, including dressing, going to the toilet, and understanding the importance of healthy food choices.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development — Building Relationships: Children at the expected level of development will:

• work and play cooperatively, and take turns with others;
• form positive attachments to adults and friendships with peers;
• show sensitivity to their own and to others’ needs.

I understand that you're shocked, but it sounds like you were warned this was a possibility at parents evening. Sadly, teachers have a very short window to meet with you on the night and we never get to go into great detail in the 10 minute appointment, it's just a quick overview. If you had wished to discuss his PSED targets further, you should have asked for a follow up meeting at the time.

The school will no doubt have put him in a nurture group to support sharing, but I certainly wouldn't expect contact from the pastoral team simply for not meeting the ELG for PSED. If the school had concerns about SEN, I'm sure they would have broached it with you by now. Not all children who don't meet the ELGs in PSED have SEN.

See what his end of year report says, and ask to meet with the teacher to discuss why he didn't meet the ELGs if it's still unclear. It sounds to me like sharing is his main issue? Some children just aren't developmentally there yet by the end of Reception. It doesn't mean they won't get there one day, as they grow and mature.

Remember, around 32% of Reception children nationally will have missed out on one of the 12 ELGs needed to be considered to have made a Good Level of Development.

9 of my current class haven't made it in PSED this year. Of those 9, 6 have diagnosed SEN or suspected SEN but the other 3 I'm fairly sure at this stage that it's just down to immaturities. It's not as uncommon as you'd think to not get GLD at the end of Reception, and the PSED strands are some of the most common strands for children to miss out on.

A reassuring fact, he'll never be officially assessed in PSED again throughout the rest of his schooling.

My DD had a severe atypical speech sound disorder when she's was preschool/ reception age.

I took it very personally and as a negative reflection on my parenting during lockdown until exMIL told me that one of her sisters had had exactly the same problem 70 years ago!
And
DD is now 8 absolutely thriving and top of the class (by a long way) for reading.

Try not to feel responsible, it's hard not too. Just work with the school and any support services/ therapies offered. It will be okay.

Sadly some teachers are encouraged by their headteacher to inflate their data to look better than it is, especially in areas which will never be tracked again like PSED. It sounds like that might be what happened here.

I wholeheartedly disagree with this approach, as it's not in the best interests of the children who may need SEN assessments further down the line. Sadly though I do understand it as, infuriatingly, OFSTED will not give top marks for Early Years if your data is below national.

My data is often below national, as we're in a deprived area with high levels of movement and EAL. We do our best, and most of the children make excellent progress from their often very low starting points. However, Ofsted don't appear to value progress when it comes to EYFS data. Personally, I'd rather my data be below national but a realistic picture, if it means those children get they support they need, rather than lie just so our EYFS department can brag that Ofsted think we're 'Exceptional' (the new 'outstanding').

I'd rather be graded 'expected' (the new 'good'), knowing full well we put our children ahead of the data. I'm not saying all schools with above national data in Reception lie, but some undoubtedly do. The EYFS profile is not like any other assessments in school. It's not a test, and the judgements are very subjective. Therefore it's very easy to inflate if schools want to.

Thank you for this. It’s very helpful. From what I know of him at home, he meets all of those points. However, I understand that he has to demonstrate these behaviours at school as well. From what I understand, he sometimes struggles at school if they are consolidating work he already understands and he starts being silly. I think he possibly doesn’t regulate that well when he is bored and it’s something we are working on at home.

One of my concerns is that I have tried several times to arrange a meeting to discuss his progress after the possibility of failure was mentioned at parents evening, and the issue of pastoral support was raised when I dropped him off once but not followed up on. It’s not been possible to get anywhere with this. I’ve followed up on my latest email request for a meeting five times, and am not being responded to, so it’s challenging to know where to go from here!

I’m not in any way adversarial to the school, and it’s not my natural instinct to put myself out there and request a meeting when I know they are stretched and busy. I really want to work with them to support him. But it’s very difficult to do that when I don’t fully know where the issue lies, and I’m not able to arrange to meet with anyone to discuss it.

Do you do the school drop off or pick up in the week. I find it’s sometimes best to request a meeting in person. We are at a small village school but the Head is always happy to meet to discuss any issues. Alternatively a phone call with a request to speak to someone on the leadership team, and then get a meeting lined up that way.

Yes, at least half the time! I’ve called and emailed and just keep being told someone will get back to me. They don’t, so a few days later I try again. And so it goes on!

@BookpencilSorry - I meant speak to the teacher/headteacher in person in the playground when you collect him and get them to organise the meeting with you there and then. Explain that calling and emailing isn’t working

I’m always advised to call and email. 😂 I laugh, but it is getting a bit tricky. Perhaps we should move to your school.

@Bookpencil Go into school reception and ask for a meeting. Explain your emails have been ignored. If you don’t hear back by the end of the week, ask for a meeting with the head. It’s not good enough for the teacher to ignore you. Many teachers don’t engage in the classroom. By now I’d be close to raising a complaint. What’s their policy on home - school dialogue?

If he gets bored, why isn’t he moving in to more challenging tasks? To put this into context, in my DDs YR class, several DDs arrived who could read paragraph books and they were summer born! They were bright. Did they get bored? No, because the school assessed them and they were given different, challenging tasks. One of these DDs went to Cambridge for maths and 2 others to Oxford. A good teacher really will see what a child needs and keep them fully engaged. Yes, he probably needs better self regulation and he should not shout out, but it’s because he knows the answer! He’s enthusiastic. Don’t let the school squash him down. Find out what goals he has not met and work on them but also expect the curriculum and teaching to fully engage him.