Reception homework - the opposite problem

[earlycomputers]

Is anyone in the situation where their child is ahead of their peers in reading/writing/maths but their teachers dont want to give them extra homework? My dd is in reception and says she find it a bit too easy and is doing work more appropriate to year 1 standards (she is on reading books/maths workbooks for year 1 that we have got for her). When I asked her teachers if they could provide more in the way of handwriting/maths etc, they said they didn't want to do this for reception aged children. If my dd is enjoying learning and only spends 5 mins a day 'learning' at home - how can this possibly be bad for her? She likes to read/write/count so it's not 'work' for her. I just cant understand why the school would want to hold back kids - suspect it's becuase they want everyone to be at the same level to make their lives easier? dont know - but I am not impressed by it.

Sorry but I agree with the school. 4 and 5 year olds do not need homework, bar a bit of reading.

If she wants to do "work" at home - read with her, play board games, do your own activities such as playing shops, writing letters to one another, etc.

give the poor girl a break - she has years of homework ahead of her, jsut let her enjoy being in reception, not everything revolves around reading/writing/maths, let her have fun!

I also agree with the school and hulababy. Homework for Reception children is unecessary and inappropriate (except reading/early phonics). The school aren't trying to hold her back. If you want her to do more at home, then you should arrange it.

Reception is a time to build relationships, explore, experiment, play, compromise etc.

You haven't said anything about your daughter's social skills.

agree with the pp, my ds1 was ahead of rest of the class in reading and maths in reception.
The only homework he got was reading and phonics.
He was chosing reading books from yr1/2 by this stage in the year, but other than that didn't do anything extra outside school.
I would agree with playing things which extend her, what about Chess or Draughts, rummibikub, scrabble, dominos, shops/cafe with a price list and money etc. ds1 used to like maths puzzles in the car, sounding out words etc.

oh, and lots of playing with friends!

We have also had this issue. Our daughter started school able to read and is desperate to do as much as she can. It took us a term of cajoling to get the school to send home a reading book for DD to read rather than a sharing book for us to read to her. At parents evening the teacher said she wasn't concerned about our daughter as the rest of the class would catch up with her.

We have recently found out that the criteria on which our county education service is assessed has two measures for reception year children. The first is to get all the children up to a rating of 6 on each of the EYFS curriculum profile. The second is to narrow the gap between the lowest achieving 20% and the rest.

Our daughter is already at or beyond a 6 across the EYFS profile, so the teacher has no incentive to encourage her further. Also, if the second aim is to get the lowest 20% nearer to the average you won't want any children getting too far ahead because it will push the average up.

Needless to say we are feeling that our local school reception year is not geared towards encouraging and stretching children who are capable of doing more than the standard average. When government policy expects children to be average there is no incentive to help the more able.

Cheers,

PV.

"I just cant understand why the school would want to hold back kids - suspect it's becuase they want everyone to be at the same level to make their lives easier? dont know - but I am not impressed by it."

Are you being serious?

If you are so keen to give your child more work, you provide it.

scrabble very good

and chess

it doesn't have to be structured work to get her brain working

I had a child who could read and write when she started school and had very little homework from school ? it was great. She was desperate to learn so she used the time to follow up things she was interested in. She was always in the local library looking for books about history or animals, or reading stories of her own choice, or out looking for interesting fossils or minibugs or stones. There will be plenty of not-particularly-interesting homework later on. Let your DCs use the time they have now to enjoy following their own interests. If they are keen to learn they will learn without homework.

Ds is in reception at a local, academic prep school. He does not get homework and neither did dd when she was in that class. I would have complained if he had.

When dd started to get homework in Yr 1 I ignored it. She won the Year 1 academic class prize.

The school has it right. I don;t beleive in homework at all in primary but I grin and bear the homework dd (now Year 2) gets.

Tell her to be grateful that she finds it easy and get it over and done with and get on with something else she enjoys.
My DD was reading very well in reception, I never listened to her read after reception and not bothered with her spellings either.
All my DS and DD's teachers comment on their love of learning, but homework at primary has always been minimal.

Agree with everything everyone has already said. If your DD is genuinely the type to enjoy being pushed, what about a music class, singing group, big art project or something?

In fact, one thing that is often neglected in schools today but is an essential skill, is swimming. Sounds like your DD would have time on her hands to get some good early learning in on this skill.

I know she's keen on all the academic skills - I sympathise, as I was very similar as a child myself and have very vivid memories of my preschool and early years' schooling, but honestly, it will come. Take her to the library and read read read. Do puzzles and maths games, but really really really don't load more schoolwork on. A lot of the extension stuff you can do is, after all, more of the same. While it gives you a good drilling, it doesn't actually really move you on to do extra sums etc.

If she really wants to do more 'academic' type stuff after school (and I know some children do) go and buy her some more workbooks from W H Smith etc for Y1 and Y2. You can get loads of different types to keep her busy. Or set her little tasks yourself like writing stories or letters to people. I'm sure you provided her with lots of books. I think the main problem for children like this is not providing extra work after school (that's easy), but making sure that they're enjoying the work they're doing at school.

DS2, who was a high achiever at the start of Reception, loved YR because they played all the time and although the work was easy, it was 10 minutes here and there. Y1 was a different matter.

Why does she need the teacher to set her extra homework? Can't she entertain herself? Hasn't she got a library card?

As a university teacher, I find the most serious factor holding students back is not lack of intelligence, but lack of independence, needing somebody to set them work all the time, somebody to hold them by the hand.

A 5-year-old child who is told to entertain herself in her free time is not being "held back": she is given the tools that are essential to success.

actually I always find this quite interesting. I have a genuinely very bright child, a child with SN and an average child (in terms of academic stuff - they are all outstanding at being generally lovely ).
How they 'move ahead' is only a little bit to do withthe school. My DS was incorporating stuff into his play from pre-school - writing menus from breakfast and pricing it and making the bill at the end, getting books about sharks from the library and copying the pictures and recognising the types, making houses with maps and keys - all sorts of stuff that interested and stretched him.
If a child is bright you just point them at stuff andthey devour it. If they need to be pushed by the school maybe they are just doing fine

permanentvacation on Mon 26-Jan-09 13:25:18
"We have also had this issue. Our daughter started school able to read and is desperate to do as much as she can. It took us a term of cajoling to get the school to send home a reading book for DD to read rather than a sharing book for us to read to her. At parents evening the teacher said she wasn't concerned about our daughter as the rest of the class would catch up with her."

I just don't get this. As parents who care about your dd's education- why would you feel she had to sit around waiting for the school to send home a reading book? Have you no books at home before her needs can be met? Are there no public libraries? A child who is struggling might naturally need very specially graded books but a bright 5yo can surely read ordinary books from the library?

My brother wasn't by any means acdemically outstanding but he was already able to make cakes out of his mum's cookery books all on his own at this age (thus incorporating both literacy and maths). I also seemed to remember that we spent a lot of time designing sailing boats, so setting our own maths problems.

I too was very keen on academic skills at this age- but I found the whole world was set up to cater for this. The world is about learning! Books, interesting problems to work out, nature to study.

I have had the same experience as Pagwatch: genuinely bright children can't stop themselves from learning: it's like very musical children always humming or very athletic children always jumping around. They just can't help themselves.

Cory

We do give our DD a lot of support, but it is frustrating when it seems that the school sees her as one less child to bother about. Their targets are to get every child to a particular level by the end of Year R, and if a child reaches that well before the end of Year R there is no incentive to stretch that child further.

I suppose I am bringing some of my own experience to it. I was a pretty bright child aged 5 (knowing about decimals, fractions, minus numbers, etc - my Dad was a Maths professor and this stuff was just around me as I grew up). At school I found the maths easy and coasted along, often being bored while the class teacher spent her time dealing with other children while I wasn't given anything at my level. As a result I learned how to do the minimum to get by and picked up all sorts of bad academic habits that I had to unlearn in later life.

I always thought children went to school to learn stuff. Not that school is the only place they learn, but if they are there for 30 hours a week then that time should be helping them to fulfil their potential. If it isn't because teachers are having to meet particular targets that give no incentive to stretching the brighter children then the system isn't working.

Cheers,

PV.

No, sorry I still don't understand this. I thought your complaint was with not enough homework being set? That's outside the 30 hours a week of schooling, and surely you should be glad your DD gets her homework over nice and early and has loads of time for all the stimulating activities that have already been mentioned here?

From these type of threads I get the impression that all parents seem to think their dc's learn at school are the 3rs for 30hrs a week.
In reception half the day is play.

In yr1 my dc's were doing projects about babies, doing little bits of cookery, geography and history.

yr2 they were learning about florence nightingale, world war1 and botswana.

This is just what I remember, there was obviously much more and plenty to keep the brightest child interested, that is if they wanted to be.
My DD is in YR 6 and supposed to be "superbly bright" according to her teacher and never is bored at school, currently fascinated by what they are learning about WW2.

My reception age child learns loads:

they have gone to the park and collected leaves to make their own compost, in which they're going to grow vegetables when the weather warms up (and eat them, apparently);
they have done a topic on animals, made models, designed homes for the animals and gone on trips to the city farm;
build a life-size model dog for the classroom and gone to the petshop to buy him a dog bowl and some dog toys (?!);
they have made 3-D maps and done treasure hunts to learn about directional language;
they are currently doing a topic about homes and buildings, have built a model street out of cereal packets, gone on walks around the area (maps again), learnt about the difference between houses and flats, and been told what mobile phone masts do;

And so on.

She gets no homework at all, and I like it that way. They are doing reading, writing and maths, but it's all embedded in the topics above. As it happens dd2 is well ahead of where she needs to be (can read ORT level 9 pretty comfortably, and I discovered at the w/e that she can count in twos as well). She wasn't taught to do either of these things at school, she just learnt it. And no, the school aren't pushing it, but she's not in any way bored because the lessons and topics are so interesting.

No homework really does not = holding a child back. You need to look at extending her sideways if you think she needs more, there is zero point in pushing her faster through the normal grind of literacy and maths, and a whole world of extra fun stuff out there to discover.

"I always thought children went to school to learn stuff. Not that school is the only place they learn, but if they are there for 30 hours a week then that time should be helping them to fulfil their potential."

Afraid like mrsgboring, I do not see how this is related to homework. Surely they don't do homework at school? And when they are at home, surely they do not rely on homwork for their learning?

Cory/mrsboring

I didn't start the thread with a complaint about homework, that was earlycomputers. I am joining the thread because my experience of a school appearing to 'hold kids back' (to quote the opening post) chimes with earlycomputers. I'm not wanting huge amounts of homework for DD, but I do want whatever comes back to be relevant to her. Single letter phonics sheets are not the most appropriate things for a child who can already read, and it has taken some time for DDs teacher to realise this. Had we not raised it several times I suspect they would still be teaching her at a level below her ability.

The other things the school is doing with her (nativity play, general play, drawing, craft, etc.) is great, and she enjoys it. But the school is assessed to see how many pupils in Yr R reach a given level (point 6 on the EYFS scale) and it seems that they have no incentive to move pupils already at or beyond that level on even further.

Cheers,

PV.

Sorry PV, I mixed you up with the OP. You are right that your DD's stuff is not at her level. However, Reception is far too early to worry that your own educational experience is going to play out the same way with your DD.

I also think that it's a bit of a red herring to say they're keeping your DD back in order not to raise the bar too much for other children.

I think rather than doing 'workbooks' and things like that get her doing board games, strategy games - that sort of thing. Far better to make the mind think in different ways than rote-ish type worksheets and fill in the blank stuff.

I see what you mean, Permanent, but still think I agree with mrsb that reception is a bit early to be worrying about this. My experience has been that as early as Year 1, there is a lot of scope in subjects such as history and geography- unlimited opportunities for the ambitious child to stretch themselves.

I would also point out that just because you reacted in a particular way to school being a bit boring, there is no saying that your dd will tackle the problem in the same way as you.

I saw it as an opportunity to go more into depth with my learning: reading French novels at home while the class was learning to order a cup of coffee, going to the library to check up the history books to see if the teacher really had a clue what he was talking about. This was another perfectly valid way of reacting- and it was very much down to my parents' robust approach.

Dd seems to have very much the same approach, but is also very interested in the social aspects of school life as she hopes to be a writer- so no classroom situation is ever 100% boring for her