Four year old bored in Swiss school

Family, Education, Health and Pets
1
Without prompting our four year old came out with, "I don't want to go to Swiss school, its boring, I want to read and write." She has just started Kindergarten and is probably the most integrated of us all. There has been no discussion between us parents recently regarding the Swiss school system.

She has been two years in the International School system, been in a Krippe part time and is fluent in German and Swiss German. We can even not use the language as a reason why she should go to school. If I could I would put her back into International School, but due to a change in my circumstances it is no longer an option.

She reads and writes at home by her own free will. We love Switzerland, but is it time to pull the plug, because the school system doesn't cater for kids outside of the box.

2
just tell her to put up with it and that it is good training for dealing with boredom in switzerland when she grows up.

3
First she is four. A bit young to bring her into your concept. Second, it is a risk for a kid bored at school to lose interest and become a problem kid at school. Something you can see quite often with skilled kids if left in a level where they don't belong.

4
So teach her to read and write at home, in English. She can still enjoy all the other fun stuff they do at kindergarten during the few hours a day she's there, and get the thrill of doing something cool at home afterwards.

You can't change the system, so you might as well operate alongside it.

5
well, I guess you have some work to do at home... . I know the feeling.

My 5 year old has had a year of KG in NL, where he learned the alphabet. Now he is put in KG1 again cause his BD is 5 August, no reading no writing. But he seems to be fine with it (still). I hope he will still be fine with it if he has to do another year of KG next year. Or maybe the school is looking at bumping him up 1 grade, but that'll depends on how fast he'll learn German.

By the way, your daughter might change in the way that she will probably be bored with writing and reading after a while.

What I have understood is that at 12 years old, kids come as clever from swiss school as from any other school, they'll make it up along the way.

6
Would you find a way to make the teacher know that your child has started writing and reading and ask what you could do keep her interest for it?

The teacher may dislike to be lectured about her job, as it is cantonal requirement after all... but she may be willing to give professional advice about it. And in the best case, she understands that it concerns her and her teaching too. Otherwise, well, that's the given system where you are, teacher have a duty to respect the legal frame work of their profession. Some teachers do not always agree with it in private either, you know.

7
My daughter Emilie started kindegarden here coming from a British school when she had completed Reception. She had also started to read and write. We tried to move her up to primary last year instead of her doing her second year of kindergarden but as she was born 2 days after the cut off line and because according to the Swiss standard they found our daughter not to be mature enough, they refused.

Last year, when I told the teachers about what she did in reception, they did not care, saying it was not important for them .. they even refused to look at her maths and English exercise books.

She has to stay in Kindergarden for her second year when all her friends her age started primary last week in France and all her friends in England have started year 2..

This year, since she started her 2nd year of kindergarden, she comes home and asks me when she will start primary school... It is already her 5th year of kindergarden after all!

However she is very happy , has a great social life and her German is coming up nicely.. She also understands Bern Deutsch now.

To keep up with the literacy skills she had learnt at her last international school, she goes once a week to the English Speaking play school in Bern to attend a reading and writing class. As she did not do anything in kindergarten , she has to repeat the same class but it does not matter anymore..I'm jut happy she can keep uo with her English.

I has already some books from 1.klasse but she only does it when she wants to...I don;t want her to be confused btw the english sounds and german sounds. Has other posters have said, it is up to her primary teacher next year to teach her how to read and write in German.

This year, and as parents are given the chance, I will arrange a visit at my daughter's kindergarden to see what she is doing there. I will attend a full morning a the end of October. You should ask to come and watch the class and see if your daughter could also attend a reading & writing class in English where you live. I know the International School of Bern offers this on a Wednesday afternoon to kids with good English who are not pupils at their school.Maybe you could check with the international school nearest to you.. Good luck.

8
I was also very worried about the late start here, and my child was one of 2 in the class who could read and write when she started school this year. She can now concentrate of building her German vocabulary. (We speak English and high German at home, so its not that bad- but can always be improved) My boy started kindergarten this year, and is better than his sister at reading and writing at that age, but is socially a lot less mature.

Reading and writing are just a small part of becoming a member of our society, which is what school is teaching. A very clever person who studies to become a doctor or lawyer, is of little use to the general public if s/he has no social skills. No patient/client would come. A politician needs a great amount of self assurance in order to argue his/her point to the masses as they throw abuse. A less mature person wont be able to handle this.

The kindergarten system here values self competence, social competence, and "thing" competence (alphabet, numbers, fine and gross motor skills - things you learn).

The "free play" is intended to teach the kids where the boundaries are of acceptable behaviour using the school of hard knocks. So when you see them "just running around, not learning anything", expand your mind. She is learning to make and keep friends. Possibly for life.

Book learning she can do at home - with a 1 on 1 teacher.

9
"A very clever person who studies to become a doctor or lawyer, is of little use to the general public if s/he has no social skills. "

I HAD to go to a DR. For a really quite upsetting and serious issue connected to my daughter, the dr. had the worst social skills and "bedside" manner I have ever seen in a doctor. Obviouolsy he did not learn these at school

to clarify, otherwise I do agree with much of what you have written, there are ways to deal with sending your kid into a different system (swiss) as you have mentioned.

10
Maybe he didnt go to kindergarten - his parents sent him straight to school because he was so "clever"?

Maybe his father died the day before but he still felt obliged to see his patients the next day?

Maybe hes a pillock?

The whole picture is hard to see in a 20 minute interview.

11
True, but personally I think he just gave that I am a DR, and that should be enough for you vibe.

Anyway, sorry probably going off topic...

12
You have to explain to your daughter that in life you often have to put up with things in life (like wives nagging ).

Interaction with other children is important at whatever level.

Also I hope she didn't say "I WANT" but "I WOULD LIKE" because otherwise you need to teach her manners.

As others have said, you need to spend more time with the child yourself doing activities and reading and writing. Your daughter no doubt will get bored of that after a while as well.

13
Hi Telandy,

I do feel for you having gone through Kindergarten and then primary school here... I know some of the stresses it brings... and I am not entirely sure about the swiss school system for lots of reasons. However I wanted to write some of the postives I have found, and some of the ways I have tried to work with the system.

When my daughter went to kindergarten we had just moved from england, so she had been in pre-school and learnt the alphabet, and numbers and all that jazz.

The fact she wouldn't learn to read for another 2 years terrified me, and I freaked out alot. I am a young mum, (I was 26 with a 4 yr old when I moved) and v. unprepared for and naive to the realities of moving to a foriegn country and all that would entail for myself and my daughter.

I dealt with the reading and writing issue, by teaching her english myself and this in the early years stuff is not so stressful. I asked friends who were teachers, I got loads of resources (you can get lots from the UK) and worked slowly through the material. I manged to get my daughter into a private english reading and writing class 2 years later, at the right level for her age, becuase I had done the groundwork. I also supplemented with whatever we could afford in extra carricular activites. Over the years I have not completely come to peace with some aspects of the system here, but overcome that by supplementing in areas I think she is not being challenged in. On the other side, she has found the maths so hard, that we are now repeating the year (4th grade) and this so far seems to be the right decision.

My daughter is good at language, and reading and writing in english, but that is not the only thing schools teach, so my thoughts that she would be bored learning to write again in 1st grade here, have been balanced out by the fact that she has struggled so much in maths. The problem with any school system is that they are basically a one size fits all kind of thing. As we are moving into an awareness of how children learn differently (e.g. howard gardners 9 intelligences / montesorri mehtods), we are becoming much more aware of the psychology of education and learning, and our childs individaul needs. As yet school systems cannot fully ever fulfill the unique education curriculum that each child would truly benefit from. So as parents and I guess teachers, we have to work with and understand our children, and work with the schools we place them in. Trust yourself to teach her stuff she isn't learning in school, I think we mothers are more gifted than we think to teach our children in all sorts of things. Even teaching her to sort out the washing is an essentail life skill no?

I am not sure this really helps you, as it seems you have made a decision already, so I wish you luck, and maybe this post will help someone else

14
I think 4-5 years old is a really tough age because they don't generally know how to entertain themselves in school, how to find something interesting about a lesson. Stuff is either interesting to them or it isn't... and they don't really have a concept of pushing through the boring stuff to get to the interesting stuff next week, let alone next year.

If your kid was in the local kindergarten back home, and came home one week complaining that "school is boring", what would your first reaction be?

(a) Ignore. Kids are kids, they get bored sometimes.

(b) Sympathize, try to explain that sometimes stuff is important even though it's not exciting.

(c) Mention it to the teacher, see if she can suggest some at-home work to complement what they are doing in school.

(d) Think about leaving the school.

(e) Think about leaving the country.

Not saying that any of these reactions are wrong or inappropriate, just wondering if maybe some bigger anxieties are at work here, pushing you to consider (d) and (e) sooner than you would at home.

Anyway.... assuming you're not ready to take the plunge and homeschool my advice (and IANAP so take it for what it's worth) would be to keep her in Swiss school and supplement it by encouraging all sorts of bookishness at home.

What you don't want to do is "supplement" in ways that overlap the Swiss curriculum too much (e.g. teaching her to add and subtract while the class is still on counting) as that will just render Swiss school even more boring. Find interesting stuff that is orthogonal to the curriculum and do that. Learning to read and write English is perfect - intellectually stimulating, won't interfere too much with Swiss school - and of course makes it easier for you to facilitate all sorts of other interests later.

15
Not sure what you are really looking for with this post, but can relate a very similar story of some friends of ours from a few years ago.

Their daughter was bi-lingual and about to enter public school at 4 years old when the parents went to the school parents' orientation meeting. Their daughter was very bright and had attended 1-2 years montessori pre-school. Upon going to the parents meeting, the parents were quite taken aback to discover that their daughter was basically going to have organised play for 2 years and they thought it even going backwards compared to the monetessori program she was fininshing. She was doing pre-reading and asking to read and write at this stage. Thus, the parents had the guts to raise this ask about this issue, (ie. if a child wants to read and write and asks will you accomodate this) publically at the parents meeting with the school director. Well, they were shocked to be berated and treated like criminals for even asking the question. Which of course was answered with a 'how dare you ask and this is our business not yours...bla bla bla' Needless to say, they went running out that meeting as fast as they could, and immediately enrolled daughter at an international school where she has thrived, never looking back.

I only relate this story for the fact that these parents realised that they could not change the 'system' and they quickly realised that their daughter, even if this issue was ever resolved satisfactorily, would never thrive in such a system. The parents also said that they themselves would go insane trying to deal with such closed-minded persons on a regular basis, who did not share the same values and could not support open dialogue not to mention any form of questioning or critisism. In the end it was much better for all concerned to just leave.

16
It's also difficult to explain to 4 yr olds that even in the UK, the only country I know of that teaches reading and writing to 4 yr olds, she would still only be spending an hour a day at most doing those things. And that the remaining 5 hours would be spent doing gym, craft, singing, class discussions, listening to stories, 'science' with sand/ water/ plants, etc - ie, all the things she is finding so boring now, but for many more hours a week.

I'm all for encouraging the bright spark of learning, and this can definitely be done by feeding her interest in reading at home, in English. I'm doing this with my daughter (although we've slacked off recently as she's entered 1st grade so I want to give her French reading time to bed it).

But this is more a problem of managing expectations, I think, same as it would be with a child who wanted to only do craft at school, or only do gym at school, or only do playtime with friends at school. That school is so much more than desks and worksheets is a tricky one to explain with 4 yr olds, though.

kodokan

PS: How are the boys doing now they're in 1st grade, are things a little better for them?

17
When my son was bored in Kindergarten, the teacher insisted I take him for a hearing test. There was nothing wrong with his hearing, he was just bored. He had been in daycare for years, and he just wanted to read and write like his older sibling.

The school principal gave me a copy of the famous essay.

" All I really needed to know I learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum"

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned: Share everything.

Play fair.

Don't hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don't take things that aren't yours.

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life — learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

Wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup — they all die. So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned — the biggest word of all — LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all — the whole world — had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are — when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

18
I totally hear you on that one, however it is not unique to the Swiss system.. This is exactly what they also do in French Kindergarden and English nurseries too. Plus they go to school all day so they have also the opportunities to expand their social skills at lunch time for instance. I just have the feeling sometimes that here, they don't trust the academic potential of the children. I have read an article in England showing that learning to write or read from the age 4 is not helping the kids to become better students, which is direct criticism to their system. However starting at 7 to learn the alphabet, is also late. I don't see why my daughter who is now doing her 2nd year of kindy could not start being taught the phonics etc.. She is nearly 6 1/2 now...

Anyways, the main thing is that we have 2 happy kids here in Switzerland. Emilie loves going to her kindy and can't wait to start Pirmary school as well..

19
In my personal situation, my daughter attends this weekly 2 hour session at the English school because neither my husband nor me are native speakers. I can't accept the fact thay she would lose everything she learnt in China.. Plus she loves reading the English book she 's chosen at night time.

20
Too true

makes me cry....

*deep sniff*