I'm a rubbish Year 1 teacher...

[missbunnyrabbit]

I wonder if anyone can cheer me up. :(

I'm an RQT in Year 1. This is my dream year group, I was a TA for a few years in a Year 1 class so have had lots of experience with this age group.

But I'm shit! I know that the children missed so much from their Reception year, but they are still so so behind with huge gaps. I feel like they can't do anything. I am only just finishing Phase 5 in Phonics with them, and they are so slow at learning sounds. When reading, they sound every grapheme out individually still.

The real worry is maths and writing though.

RE writing, I can't get them to think of their own sentences! I will give my own example, but then they can't think of their own. They will just copy mine exactly, or just sit there and do nothing.

RE maths, oh my God. They can't do basic sums. They can't do 1 more or 1 less. We have covered these in depth in both Autumn 1 and Autumn 2, and last week. But they really struggle. If you asked most of my children what 2 + 1 is, they couldn't tell you! I'd have to remind them to get their fingers out and count!

Please do not think I have slacked off, I worked my butt off all year with the planning, prep, delivering and marking. We have done SO MUCH. But I am so rubbish because the children do not understand and they do not retain. It is so depressing.

I do things practically and always get counters etc out in Maths. I talk everything through and demonstrate everything. But the children just don't pick it up.

The worst thing is, I am always told by their old Reception teacher that they were one of the smartest classes she'd had in 20 years. Yet they just do not seem smart to me - so clearly I am teaching them so wrong!
I feel so ashamed.

Just finishing phase 5 phonics is absolutely fine for 1 February in a normal year so is pretty impressive when they missed most of Reception.

For maths, have you got any bead strings? (Or even better Rekenreks but I’ll be really impressed if you do). Lots and lots of work on composition of number eg show me how you can make 7. Now show me another way. And another. Now show me each way on a part whole diagram. What number sentences can you write for each one?

Show me a number with fingers or bead strings in any odd moments throughout day. Watch Numberblockd in any spare 5 minutes

I was always a rubbish year 1 teacher in the autumn term, a ok one in the spring term and good in the summer. The children change do much through the year and so your teaching needs to too. That’s why year 1 is so hard!

Didn't want to read and run, and I don't have experience of Year 1, but I have been teaching Primary for 30+ years and trust me, it's not you!!
Please don't feel ashamed. These are unprecedented times and they probably do know more than they can show you down a webcam.

I'd also add I wouldn't worry too much about the sounding everything out at this stage either. Accuracy is more important, the fluency will come with practice. The more they read, the less they will need to do it. Do just check that they don't think they have to sound everything out even if they can do it in their head. Phase 5 is fine for this time in the year.

It's not you. Sometimes it's like this in year 1 and this years will have missed a lot.

I've been a year one teacher for ten years and it sounds to me like your class are doing fine. Lots of mine can't think of their own sentences. Some can't write words and a few still can't write their name independently! They have missed so much school that it's really not surprising that they are behind. You are being very hard on yourself. I'm sure you are doing a great job. It must be a really difficult time to be a new teacher.

Re. Writing.
If all else fails, can you get them to give you a sentence verbally, then write it?
Go through the class throughout the week, so they all get a turn. Or do 3 at a time and write each one.

At least you'll be scaffolding them towards independence.

Is this on-line or in classroom?

If it's in the classroom, use the I WB, let them have a go at coming up and writing a sentence (and don't worry about accuracy).

If they're hesitant about writing independently, just go back a step and scaffold for independence.

Everyone here is right - this is a weird year.

And your not rubbish. Everything is weird.

That sounds exactly like my class OP. In terms of Maths, I wouldn't expect them to know their number facts straightaway yet, mine will still use their fingers and manipulatives at this point. In terms of writing, the independence will come! I taught Year 2 for four years before starting in Year 1 this year. The creativity does come but it takes time for some children, it might even take them until Year 2 and that's fine. I'm sure you are doing a fantastic job!

Year 2 teacher and KS1 lead

Phase 5 phonics is correct for Year 1. They start phase 6 in Year 2. What scheme are you using?

Writing - how are you teaching it? Modelling writing and getting them excited is key. Have you done any Talk for writing training?

Maths - I wouldn't expect them to know maths facts particularly yet. They've missed a big chunk of Reception and now this. What scheme are you using? The NCETM PD materials are excellent for your subject knowledge if you haven't read through them.

Thanks so much for the replies, everyone!

I suppose the Phonics is one of my least concerns - just we had to spend so long going over phase 3 that I thought we'd be well ahead by now. We're doing Letters and Sounds. The children are so slow at reading though, which does really worry me - they just sound everything out before blending - when will they ever get fluent!?

Maths-wise - I've been sticking on Numberblocks loads during this lockdown for the children still in class - I just felt self-conscious because I know Reception were doing the same and I can't believe my children aren't further on!
I definitely need to do more whole-part diagrams, I have neglected that a bit (a lot) in favour of normal number sentences.
I also have bead strings but I haven't used them - that's a good shout.

Writing-wise - the first two times we did the end-of-unit big write last term, my TA and I literally went around every child and asked them for their sentence, then wrote it down (while prompting them for correct sounds) so they could copy.
So how I do it is, we do a shared write on the board with me modelling and asking for ideas. Then I send them to their seats and we will go through it sentence by sentence. So I'd say... "Now what could I write for my first sentence?" and get feedback, and I might write it up again, or I'd just keep repeating it and varients. Children will either sit and do nothing, or copy exactly mine down. Only a couple of children in class would adapt it a bit. It is SO difficult.

Honestly, I model EVERYTHING but it's like they're all asleep?

Again, thanks so much for all the reassurance. Makes my heart feel a bit lighter!

I've taught Y1 for the majority of my 24 year career! It's a fantastic year group as you see so much progress by the summer term!

Writing is so hard, we've used talking tins - they record themselves saying their sentences and can listen back. It's great for lower ability.

Honestly don't beat yourself up!

Can you record their sentence for them, on ipads etc? We have recordable whiteboards so can put one or two tricky words and they can hear their sentence. Better they work through their own sentence using their sounds than copy.

Phase 5 in letters and sounds takes the whole year in Year 1. If you've spent time recapping phase 3, then I'd expect you'd be completing 5A around Christmas, moving onto 5B now. 5C is huge so it would be unreasonable to complete it in one term. You say you have recapped phase 3 but have you spent time ensuring they're secure in phase 4? That's crucial for spelling.

Maths - It isn't just about using part whole models. It's using those to expose the structure of the maths. It's not a solution, using representations is one part of a more mastery approach. I'd really recommend the NCETM units as a guide to follow. This is part way through Year 1 but it would be a good place to pick up if you're interested in trying a teaching for mastery approach.
www.ncetm.org.uk/classroom-resources/primm-1-05-additive-structures-introduction-to-aggregation-and-partitioning/

Writing - Are you trying to teach the whole class at once? If so, with year 1 who have missed such a chunk of YR, you're likely to just spend your time running around fire fighting. Writing sentences for them to copy isn't great; it's ok for the occasional sentence for the odd pupil but it's not a long term strategy. One of the reasons they're struggling to write is because they don't have the sentence structures in their heads. Spend lots of time learning a text before moving to writing so they have the language patterns in their heads. If your curriculum allows, maybe focus on traditional tales so they hopefully have some story understanding and story structure to hang their independent writing on.

Fluency in reading - have you tried whole class guided reading to model fluency? It's worked wonders in my very low ability class. Obviously all come to a halt with the current circumstances but we were making so much progress with fluency before Christmas.

Just a thought about maths - have you accessed any training through your local maths hub? It's free and if you're in your first two years of teaching, your school can claim supply costs. Can't recommend the maths hub training enough!

When you're doing writing with them, what kind of stimulus is there? Children in year 1 need a very practical or experiential stimulus in order to be able to generate sentences.

Have you tried 'Talk for writing'.

It's worth looking into as an approach.

Year 1 is HARD! The expectations are high and the first term or so is usually a real slog because the children just aren’t ready to do lots of the things they’re being asked to do. Then around Easter you will have this amazing moment where suddenly it all clicks in to place for them and they can do lots more without it feeling so difficult.

They are still very young and mainly need lots of play and short repeated activities.

Phonics - yep, we’re still on phase 5 too. That’s normal anyway and yes I’m not as far as I’d usually expect to be (won’t lie, I’m glad there’s no phonics screening this year!) but they are all making progress from their starting points so that’s the main thing. I have a whole range from really fluent readers to children that are still on phase 2 books... but again that’s normal. The main thing is to get as much reading in as possible - how often are children able to read with an adult? Target the ones who are least confident to give daily practice if you can, try to find a way to make sure everyone is reading to an adult at least once or twice a week. We have reading time after lunch to facilitate this.

Maths - definitely look at the NCETM PD materials. They are brilliant for developing your subject knowledge. www.ncetm.org.uk/teaching-for-mastery/mastery-materials/primary-mastery-professional-development/

Something that sticks out to me is you saying you’ve mostly used number sentences - of course children need to represent calculations in this way but they are the most abstract representation of all so getting confident yourself with how you can use representations to support and develop children’s understanding of the structure of maths is going to help you & them massively. Numberblocks is a fab example of this so don’t feel bad about using it... again the NCETM have a whole scheme of lessons using numberblocks, that might give you some ideas.

Getting involved with your local maths hub could also be a real help to you, they offer some amazing free training.

Writing - can they write about things they know really well? For example their favourite things or what they did at the weekend? Have a think about if you’re asking them to write about things that are just too abstract. You have to remember they don’t have automaticity with writing yet... they have to think about forming every letter, which sound to use etc etc so you can quickly end up with cognitive overload when they need to come up with ideas they don’t have much experience of too. It will come. Keep really focused on your main aim for their writing this year - mine is that by the end of the year they can write a (short) series of sentences using basic sentences punctuation accurately. Everything else is a nice extra, but that will give them what they need to go forward in year 2.

We do things like (in our afternoon reading session), one group writes in their ‘news’ book each day, with a given sentence starter. So they write a sentence or 2 about anything they want ie the focus is on the writing not coming up with ideas about something they might not be very interested in.

Loads & loads of talk before writing - talk for writing can really help. And lots of repetition. Reading heaps of stories together to give models and a basis for ideas.

It does come.

Also, do you have a year group partner or could you talk to your mentor from last year? Please don’t suffer alone and feel you can’t talk to your colleagues. And tackle one thing at a time, no one can do everything at once, especially at the moment. These are strange times.