Snotty note in homework diary....

[snackattack]

My dd(4) is in her first term in reception - a lovely school but very academic and they do tend to push them rather early (my opinion - dh thinks it's fine!). Anyway, she gets 6 reading books a week, flashcards every night bar one and writing practice three times a week. In reality it only takes 10-15 mins a night but it's still quite a bit for a 4 year old. Anyway REALLY peed off to read in dd's homework diary the following "X is STILL getting some of her numbers 1-10 the wrong way round, she needs to practice more at home. Please make sure she does this". Am I right to be fuming about this?? She's only 4 ffs and she's doing bloody homework every night as it is and now they are WHINGING about her getting her numbers mixed round the wrong way. I've just tested her and she did them all except the 5 and the 9 which she did mix up... but isn't that totally normal at this age??

Help me out please. Am I being over-sensitive? Thanks.

Ridiculous. Poor your daughter. And as frogs says there's absolutely no point- this kind of stuff is about development, not practice per se. Are you sure you can take this sort of silly approach, if it is indeed indicative and not just an ott teacher? If it reflects the school's general attitude and you think it's crap maybe you should think about finding another school?

This is not stretching children academically, this is hot housing, and really bizarre behaviour on the part of the teacher.

Children get their figures the wrong way around until the age of about 7 in many cases. It's really not that big a deal - it's a developmental thing.

They also can learn to read perfectly well without necessarily having new reading books every day. Flashcards can put them off schooling if over-used with a tired child.

Their progress speeds up after the age of 8 and the important thing is to make sure they are happy and contented at school at that point.

I would have a word with the teacher and if you get no joy, speak to the head. This isn't entirely healthy.

That is far too much for reception. Blimey my 8 yr old wouldnt take too kindly to that amount of work and homework starting juniors Hope things slow down. Here my 4 yr old is doing a reading book which will get changed once a day and she is touching on phonics here and there.

After christmas she is going to be doing more.

To add, i think my 4 yr old could be doing a bit more. I have been doing writing and learning with her at home with letters, numbers and even time.

But what your daughter is doing seems way excessive.

That's more homework than my Year 2 child!

I went to an v academic prep and no, we didn't get h/w like this. Way too excessive. We might get something to complete at the weekend.

My daughter is also STILL getting her numbers the wrong way round.

She is six, in year 2, and has been praised for being very able in numeracy.

I think your daughter's teacher has bizarre expectations. Fair enough to have lots of homework, if you signed up to that sort of ethos. But it should be sensible, age-appropriate homework.

god i feel sad for the OP's dd
That is a crazy amount of homework

&

Snack - an interesting post.

We had decided not to let DD start in Reception; as she's a June baby, we planned to keep her at home until after Easter (as we did with DS). However, she's so desperate to go to school that we capitulated, and she now goes for five mornings.

So far, we have had notes home about her pencil grip; her formation of '5' and '7' back to front; her inability to recognise the ORT characters' names; her inability to recognise all letter sounds; and her inability to say the 'th' combination (she says 'free', rather than 'three'!)

She also gets a whole pile of homework (not quite as bad as yours, but along the same lines).

This is precisely why we didn't want her to start school now. Grr.

She is, fortunately, unfussed by it all. However, I am sad that they think such things really matter when children are only just four.

The school is otherwise lovely - caring, friendly, family-like and not academically selective (so heaven help the children in academically selective preps!!)

DS is in Y2, and the amount of hwk he gets is hideous. I have complained vociferously, along with another parent. Unfortunately, the majority of parents are in favour of vast amounts of homework!

My DD may not be helped by the fact that my DS was (and is) a zillion miles ahead of his class (academically - not in other ways...). Maybe they're expecting her to be the same?

Ah, it's so tricky...

Everyone - thank you for your comments. I did write in her book today "I will try to do number work with her over the weekend but feel she is too tired after reading homework to attempt any more during the week". I have re-read the school info that they gave us when she started and whilst it does say she'll be given daily "homework" it does say that if the children are too tired, they don't have to do it. OK, I've been thinking that I may have overreacted to the tone of the note so I'm letting that one drop. However, the bigger picture seems to me to be that most, if not all of you, feel that this is just too much for a 4 year old. Yes, this is a private school and they do have a reputation for feeding into a school which is really hard to get in to but excellent academically. However, when we went to look around my dd's school I made the point that I did not want to push her into going to this other school if she wasn't up to it - nor did I want her to be pushed to early - and we would make a decision about the next school when we saw how academic she turned out to be. The school assured us they would not "hot house" her - but I do feel this is what they are doing - and the assumption probably is that we want them to get her into this other school when the time comes. Well, I guess we "deserve" what we are getting for putting her in this place in the first place but she is genuinely seeming to like it... seems happy (if tired) and excited about going to school so may be it's OK for her - or am I being "hopeful" so as to avoid a massive feeling of guilt that I have? I don't want to ruin her childhood - on the other hand, if she's enjoying it and doing relatively well, may be this will be good for her in the long run (my dh's view really). Don't shoot me please, I feel bad enough as it is... thanks for your balanced views, I really appreciate them.

Snack - I would guess that the school's rigorous (can't think of a better word) approach combined with your own sane and sensible and child-friendly approach means that your DD will be fine and not hot-housed/stressed. I think the real problems come about when the parents are as pushy as the school (there are loads of these at my DC's school - they are quite scary to behold!!)

I think your note to her teacher is exactly right. At my DC's school, they do say that, if the children are too tired/stroppy/whatever to do their homework, we just need to put a note in their bags to say so. I'd feel a bit funny about doing it, but that is my problem (being an eager-to-please PFB myself) - and I will almost certainly be doing it for DD at some point!

Sounds really harsh to me but ime, children do vary a lot in who suits pressure and who doesn't.

Some kids do seem to thrive if it's positively presented. My ds (yr 3) finds most homework a dreadful chore. I sometimes wonder if he'd got in an earlier routine if it might have set up the training young!

I think there is no one rule that suits all. It does seem young to me but if she loves it and thrives then no harm done? If she starts to look stressed, unhappy then that can't be good at this age. I would talk to the teacher and have her clarify the ethos in terms of positive feedback.. what do other parents think of it?

If the teacher is going to send such strident notes home they should be correctly spelt. Practice is a noun, she needs to "practise" more.

I think if she's happy but tired and you feel robust enough to take a firm line with the school if you feel they are being too pushy, then it might be fine. But only you can judge that really -- if she's bright enough and the school aren't too heavy-handed, then great. But if she turns out to be more average academically or more emotionally sensitive, then being in the lower half of the ability range at a highly-academic pushy school may not be a happy place for her to be.

But do bear in mind that her ultimate level of academic achievement will be down to what she can naturally do, rather than her being pushed to learn letters/numbers six months earlier than she would naturally have done. My dc are/have been at very non-pushy, academically mixed inner-city primary schools, and are all comfortably at or beyond the reading and maths levels of their privately-educated friends and cousins at the same age. The pushed kids have neater and more joined-up handwriting and have learnt their tables a bit earlier (which is not the same as learning them more quickly).

Personally I like the fact that dd2 skips home from reception having spent the day building tents in the classroom or learning about sweet, sour and salty, or singing Italian songs rather than doing letters and numbers. And I'd rather she spent the afternoons mucking about in the park or playing with the playmobil, and I know I would hugely resent it if she were getting loads of homework for me to do with her -- particularly because I've seen with my older two how little difference it ultimately makes to their achievement.

But only you can decide where you sit on that pushy/laid-back spectrum, and try and match that to your child's needs.

"Intensive early reading/writing and number practice is like potty training a 1-year old -- they'll get it when they're ready, and the earlier you start before that, the longer you drag out the agony."

Completely agree frogs

Children all learn different things at different rates - there are children in my DD's class (4 year olds) who can speak four languages but can't button their coats and others who can climb and jump from 3 metres and run faster than children two years' older.

There are academic schools which also take into account pupil's welfare though revjustabout.

I recently visited one with a colleague who had deliberately not chosen it for her DC's as she was put off by the academic reputation and queues of eager middle class parents lining up to get their darlings in. When we went into the school, the caring, nurturing atmosphere just hit us square in the face - it was obvious that this was an excellent school with brilliant academic results but that the results were a spin-off of the caring atmosphere, not the aim of the school IYSWIM. The welfare of the children was obviously the primary concern of the teachers and it was just a lovely, lovely school. Not a hothouse.

Just say she's doing her best & will continue to do so as she has all the love & support of her parents

I guess it depends how much lip service they pay to the individual needs of the child.

If they pay a lot, then I think you are entitled to complain when thye don't take the individual needs of the child into account.

Good teachers know that they can relax about numbers being the right way round at 4, and still get outstanding academic acheivement.

If they went on and on and on about results and didn't talk about welfare, then yes I agree, then you can't really complain.

No no sorry, I wasn't saying that if the OP pays a lot she has more right to complain. I meant that if the school pays a lot of lipservice to the idea of children's welfare, then she has more right to complain because theey're not living up to their own propaganda. Sorry, didn't express that v. clearly did I!

No you aren't being over sensitive but I wouldn't do the extra work. I think it is counterproductive to keep on that them. They will only end up hating school and homework even more.

My DS2 is also in reception, of an outstanding school by any standard and his homework is 5 books a week and a few keywords. They aren't even doing anything relating to maths except learning to count until next term at the earliest. Your DD's school is expecting way too much.

What useful purpose does it serve anyway - these children will be no better off in the long run because they learnt to write at 4 instead of at 5 or 6.

It's great she's happy there, snackattack. That's priceless.

One only has to read Xenia's posts to realise that many people who send their DC to fee-paying schools expect high academic attainment from an early age; they are paying for results. They want to see them, and they want to see tangible evidence of how school is going to achieve them. It spills over into state sector when schools get a rep for high SAT results, they want to hold onto that, and they get the impression that parents WANT their DC to have homework.

Seems to me like with a fee-paying school you should have LESS rather than more homework, though (compared to a state school). Going private, You get such small class sizes, a minimum if any disruptive pupils, and parents who are much more invested (literally) in how their children get on academically -- surely all that should ensure so much quality time while they are in class that they shouldn't need to do much outside of class? At least not before about Yr5, I reckon.