I’m losing confidence in my sons primary school but is this just what it’s like?

[naturalstressor]

Ds is in Y1 and had a parents evening last week which wasn’t very encouraging and left me both worried and bewildered. The first time this happened, I worked hard with him to try to help him, but it doesn’t seem to be making much difference.

As well as this, I’m also concerned by the fact that a fairly serious incident wasn’t relayed to me at all. Communication is pretty much non existent and I feel as if I go in twice a year, am told my child is not doing very well and then nothing further until the next one.

I have another child who starts next year and I am really feeling a bit frustrated and fed up. I don’t know if anyone’s moved their child’s school and found it helped? I’m really reluctant to disrupt friendships and so on but at the same time I am really feeling a bit annoyed and exasperated with the situation as it is.

Not on track to pass the phonics test is an issue.

normally the school start throwing a lot of extra support at kids who are not on track to pass - extra TA sessions on phonics etc.

if he doesn’t pass the school are expected to offer additional support in year2 and then he redoes it at the end of year 2.

Someone I knew went through this with their child who is on track and everything now in Y3 but apparently was behind and parents were told he was on track to fail the screening test etc. Someone they knew happened to be a recently retired primary school teacher who offered to assess the child independently and work with them. They got to the root of the issue which included significant gaps in the child's foundational understanding... and ultimately the school's own approach also as they were inconsistent in their staffing and teaching and basically informing the parent of a gap at intervals but not doing anything to identify the issue or address it. More informed, the parent did change schools and the new school was more organised and focussed and the child caught up. I wonder if asking around for a local tutor specialising in this age group might help you firstly with assessment and getting to the root of the issue and then helping your child catch up (this is assuming there isn't some other issue at play e.g. SEN)

If you’re not happy, I’d move him sooner rather than later. At my DDs primary I’d say over half of her class was different by the time they got to year 3, with lots of children moving school in reception and year 1. At that age they make friends quickly and relatively easily.

So much depends on the teacher. My DC were in the same school, DD has a wonderful experience and her teacher was great and communicated well. 2 years later DS had a training on the job teacher who seemed to cry any time I talked to her and I had no clue what was going on. Similarly I was told DS wasn't doing well, but she had no idea what to do about it.
Complain to the head of KS1 or the Head. Maybe you just go a bad teacher, plenty of them in private schools too.

Doesn't sound amazing, but do you practise phonics at home and how often does he read to you? Odd they don't think he'll pass his phones screening when it's only half a term into the new school year - a lot can change in that time.

I'd look at the curriculum on the school's website so that you can see what he's learning in maths and English/phonics and support at home.

As an aside, why are they teaching spelling? It should still be about sounding out and decoding - thats the whole point of the screening.

Yes I agree my child is year 1. We are not doing spellings but sounds and digraphs

So much depends on the teacher

I agree, but it seems that the OP hasn't been happy with either the Reception or Yr1 teachers.
Now that could be really unlucky, but, even if there have been two teachers who are poor communicators, I would have stayed in the meeting with the teacher until it was clear to me
a) what they felt the issues were
b) what they were doing to help my child overcome the issues
c) what I could also do to support them at home

Why would you arrange a meeting and leave without answers ?

Oh, and one thing I would ALWAYS recommend, is getting the child's hearing checked. Eyesight too, if that hasn't been done.

Does your child have the same teacher for year 1 as for Reception? Did the teacher move up with her class, or is it a tiny school with a mixed year class?
A bigger school with more staff for interventions might be preferable, but be aware that different schools have different phonics schemes (Little Wandle, RWI and Bug Club are the main ones) and this might make him even more confused.

Has the teacher suggested what you could be doing at home? Have you bought your own phonics cards to use at home? Do you read together every day? (The most important thing parents can do is read with their children daily to embed their phonics, build sight reading and prosody).

Perhaps you could get a tutor to help him catch up on the phonics? In my experience (teacher and tutor), once children start to understand and can apply their phonics, their confidence grows. And as the children's confidence grows, so their pace of learning increases and everything begins to fall into place. Imagine, if a teacher asks the class which other way can we make the ai phoneme, and your DS is sat there just wondering what an ai phoneme is; he isn't going to be receptive to the new digraph taught that day. Catch up groups often don't start until year 2 because there are set phonemes, graphemes and tricky words that need to be taught each term (education has become very prescriptive), then there are revision sessions for the term before the phonics session.

If most of the class is at a similar, poor reading level, the most likely explanation is that the teaching is poor! I would be asking the KS1 head to provide more context and say something about how the teacher is being supported.