Hi
Molly was not bullied, but her behaviour definitely got worse. She was moodier, and more arguementitive, she was less polite, more short-tempered, especially with her sister… the list goes on. These things always improved when she had had about a week off (so during school hols).
The reasons I took M out after reception year were:
1) Dislike for the school morning routine (ie trying to get her up and dressed, breakfast eaten, washed, hair done, etc etc, for 8:45 - always resulted in lots of stress and lots of shouting. Not good)
2) Immense dislike on my part for the way they dealt with behaviour, they had a ‘thorough and graded’ system of ‘positive reinforcement’ or something along those lines. Basically, in reception they had a large chart on the wall with every child’s name, and the teacher or child drew a sad or smiley face on the chart depending upon whether their behaviour was bad, or especially good. They gave stickers for (what they considered to be) ‘good’ work or behaviour (like tidying up!) and if a child was naughty, they got a sad face, and were threatened with having to see the HT if they got 3 sad faces in a row. Once after M had a battle of wills with her teacher, M was made to stand in the corridoor.
3) I feel that 4 and 5 is too young to be expected to do such a long day, 5 days a week. I do believe/subscribe to John Holts theories and beliefs, I think certainly before 7 children learn best from the things around them, and experiencing life, and they learn all they need to at that age by doing that.
TBH I dont think children ever need to do the ‘formal’ schooling that they do now, not until they are at an age where they *choose* to apply themselves that way. There’s nothing wrong with expecting a child over 7 or 8 to sit down and do some written work (or numeracy etc), but that should be largely autonomous imo…. why should *all* children learn Greek mythology for example? If it interests them, great! But another child may prefer to learn as much as they can about [aspects of] science instead. Most of what children learn in primary school is general knowledge, not especially relevent to any profession, only really relevent as a means to test and monitor them; so my opinion is that learning should be autonomus and child-led (on subject/topic at least).
4) leading on from 3), I dislike the dis-jointed way that most schools teach… ie an hour of English, 35 minutes of maths… 30 minutes of history… and so on. I think it makes more sense to allow children to finish once they start (or allow them enough time to work on something until they have had enough, or reach a point they are happy to put it away for later). Molly also disliked the pittifully small amount of time she was allowed on the computer (about 10 minutes! Barely enough time to start the game/programme! This was because there were 29 or 30 other kids that were due a turn too), and had issues with being made to stop something she was n the middle of, just because it was time to do [x] activity instead.
I realise that sometimes things like lunch time etc get in the way (lol) and you cant spend forever on something, but I think it would be better if it was more autonomous and that children were only broken off from an activity or piece of work if it was absolutely neccessary (like lunch time or home time etc).
Last of all, one reason I took M out was because my relationship with her was getting more and more strained, and I knew that whilst HEing wouldnt be a definite or instant fix, things would never improve if she continued to go to school. The issue was that in the morning there was stress and tension trying to get ready and out in time, so we were fraught with each other then. Then when she came home at 3.15 she was in a foul mood, cue more yelling (from both of us, lol) and I would get really wound up with her. And there wasnt enough weekend to repair that damage and heal the rift.
We still have our moments but it is improving slowly. I also bought Connection Parenting and am reading that (slowly, when I remember!) and I’m hoping to enlist nursery or my mum to have K for a few hours a week so I can go do things with M on our own.
