I played in the sand while all the others did counting....

[swedishmum]

Dd3 (4 and in classR) tells me she played in the sand pit while everyone else did counting, because she had already counted up to 100 for the teacher the other day.
I can see it would be boring for her to learn something she's been doing for ages but is this normal?

sounds like that's what she wanted to do, and the teachers were fine with it. sounds like a good school to me.

Sounds absolutely normal for Year R curriculum in the UK. My dd's Year R class used 'free flow' where the children flowed from one activity to another, inside to outside, and had choice over what they did. Further along in the year the teacher began to 'direct' operations more until at the end of the year the class was much more structured.
Always LOOKED and SOUNDED like chaos to me, but dd had a good year.

At the moment, when the children have to do 'work', the teacher has one group, I have another and the other two groups play. Then next day the groups get swapped around.

Thanks - it's a fantastic school. It's a long time since my older 3 were in class R and I know it's all changed!

When she says that "everyone else" did counting, the chances are that one group did some numeracy while the other groups had free play. Her group will have done the exercise at a different time.

Bear in mind that it's still early days and the teachers are probably still trying to assess what each child is able to do - you may think it's boring for her, but without assessment the teachers have no idea what each child's level of ability is. They will give her work which is more suitable for her ability soon enough so she won't get bored.

Reception is mostly about play, though - so it's not really surprising that some children were playing while the others were with the teacher. There is a lot more to Reception than formal learning, and although it sometimes seems they aren't doing much academically, they are learning valuable skills - social skills, finding out about themselves and where they fit into the school, learning how to get along with other people.