Am I just being biased or is she a bright spark?

[jojoduck]

My little girl is 4 and has just started school and is loving it (which is the most important thing to me). today we received her first report and shes doing great but to be honest i have been surrounded by people telling me shes very bright and her report is showing shes mostly average. I was just wondering whether i have been misled by my family and friends.

She knows her numbers up to 20 and can count to 100 with some prompting, she can colour in and stay in the lines (mostly), knows all her letters capital and small, can write all of these independently and can spell most cvc words, is reading simple stories, and has always talked about everything and anything clearly and descriptively. She dresses and undresses herself, can ride a bike without stabilisers and can add small numbers together, knows all her colours (light and dark) and all her 2D shapes. She can use sissors to cut in a straight line or follow a shape and she also has an excellent memory and can remember stuff like what colour wrapping paper she had last christmas.

I know i sound like a paranoid mum and i probably am but i thought she'd do better as when we went for our teacher parent interview at the beginning of school the teacher seemed surprised by what she could do and she seems so much older than all of her friends in many ways.

Remember that in Reception the emphasis is on developing social skills and learning through play. Whilst it's great she already has some Literacy and Numeracy skills, she probably won't have had the opportunity to 'showcase' these skills. The focus of the report was not academic progress. The important thing is that she's happy. Relax and enjoy.

Sorry to contradict doubleexpresso but as a reception teacher I need to know what my children can do in all areas of the curriculum and I know which children in my class can recite number names past twenty which ones can actually count ten or more objects which ones can read which ones can write their name as well as which ones need help to put on their coat or struggle to listen to a story or find sharing particularly difficult and after half a term I think I know my class of 30 children quite well.

Are you educated yourself? Seems to me the more educated the parents, the less worried they are about very earlu development/cleverness of their children. 4 is far too young. I cannot believe you worry in this way about such a young child tbh.

flightattendant ~ just really liked your post it was really honest and quite poignant!

sounds like a really unhelpful way of doing reports, can see why all these tick-boxes would wind a parent up a bit.

When people have only one they tend not to realise that any 4 yr old who spends a lot of time with adults and gets a lot of adult attention will be similar.
She sounds a bright girl. She has another 13yrs of schooling to show what she can do, just enjoy each stage.

I do think teachers vary in their reports and how they are worded.
Sometimes I have had ott reports about one of the dcs being marvellous etc[usually at secondary school] and at primary sometimes I've been left wondering what the report actually means ~I have then gone for a chat with the teacher to find out a bit more because saying what they can do with numbers etc doesn't really tell you whether that is good for that class,average or below average.

When[if] you go to see the teacher ask if dd is working at the top end of the class and if she is above average in her current skills or not.And if she is having any difficulties.

don't worry about how bright a 4 year old is - things change so much

My PFB was supposed to be superbright according to grandparents but was not doing very well when he started school. We just kept encouraging him and let him be. Suddenly at age 9 he started shining and he has just started secondary school and is doing brilliantly. Seems the grandparents were right.

We made the opposite mistake with DD who we thought was below average because we thought PFB was average and compared them! Bad parents!

Now it appears DD is above average after all - she's now 8.

Do you know that children behave completely differently at school than they do at home?
Maybe the teacher simply doesn't see her the way that you do?
In order to assess children, the teacher needs to interact with them.
Maybe your DD is not confident at talking when you are not there (not as uncommon as you would think).

Or perhaps the teacher is just looking for different skills and has different expectations?

Have you been to a parents evening?I have found teachers to be very cautious about what they commit to paper , but will be a lot more enthusiastic about a child verbally.

jojoduck, is it possible that by rating your child average at the beginning of the year, then highly at the end of the year, the school can show statistics for 'value added' improvement?

sorry to sound so cynical...

I am utterly appalled that you can have such a poor view of hard working, professional teachers, morememe. It honestly makes me wonder why they bother to do the job!