Anxious six year old- possible change of school?

[Reading Mum]

brilliant - a lovely update. You must be very relieved

[ourmaminhavana]

Thanks very much Reading Mum. Yes, even the fact that she had the confidence to decide that she was going to stand up and make her speech thrilled me to bits, completely irrespective of the outcome.

[Belinda]

Very Happy for you and your daughter.

[mystery]

Brilliant Fatbananas. To what do you attribute this change in feelings and attainment over the last 9 months?

[ourmaminhavana]

Hi Mystery, I assume you mean me, not Fatbananas? It's a very good question and hard to answer. I think it's probably a mixture of things. Belinda and Amber may have been right and I was giving off 'stressy vibes' myself! Also, I worked hard on her with her reading and she realises that she is now towards the top end of the class in this area (on White level, but free reading her own books at home!) which has boosted her confidence a lot. I know we have far more flexibility at our school with reading than at yours...
I'm not actually doing anything else at home, although last year hubby did 15 minutes of basic maths with her once a week for a few months which again helped with confidence, I think.
The return of last year's class teacher also helped tremendously with confidence. Also, there wasn't a fixation with spelling, which is still pretty poor, but is improving.
I was concerned as to how she would fare with her current teachers, but she loves them and seems to be thriving. I may be wrong, but I think they have different expectations of her and she's fulfilling those. I honestly don't know, but think she needed to be nurtured and had a complete collapse of confidence which radically affected her performance. I still think any day she could arrive home and say that she's been moved down, but for me the important thing is that she is doing her best, unhampered by anxiety, which she currently is.
Also, when she can't do something now eg spelling it's easy to remind her of her reading and how vastly it has improved which I think she appreciates.

[fatbananas]

Brilliant news, Ourmam. It's SO wonderful when we see our children light up and flourish with the right support at school (and SO awful when that doesn't happen).

I think we've been mistaken for each other before, which I take as a huge compliment, as you are clearly highly intelligent and a very caring mother

[ourmaminhavana]

Thank you so much for your kind words fatbananas.

[mystery]

Oh sorry OMIH, it was a slip of the ten fingers! Yes that's great ...... all so much to do with individual teachers but I would think that the 15 mins maths could have been key too if your DH was lucky enough to hit the spot with things that they were likely to need during the year.

It's too early to worry about spellings being correct --- if the right building blocks are being put in place this will come. Glad the over-emphasis has gone from spellings. I think there are a small number of people who judge intelligence by accurate spellings in year 1. This is a bad mistake.

[Amber]

Lovely news, OMIH. It is great that your daughter has the confidence and self-belief to have done this. My 3 took longer to get to that point (in one case, a lot longer) but it is lovely to see it when it happens. Life will still have ups and downs for her, but she has already proven she has inner strength to deal with tricky bits.

[ourmaminhavana]

Thanks for your lovely poster, Amber.