What should we be asking the school to do?

[cunninglydisguised]

dds teacher made an off the cuff comment that dd could be working at gcse level for her maths (she is year 6) So we are having a metting hith the teacher and another member of staff to discuss ways of challenging dd.

We dont want her to go down the gcse path yet. Not sure what it would achieve in the long run. We would like to see dd stretched sideways. Something the school tries to do, but finds very difficult with the constraints of the national curriculum and a large class.

So, how can we help the school with this? We don't want to go in all demanding and guns blazing, in all other areas they have done brilliantly with dd - challenging her to just the right level. Its just the maths that seems to be tricky.

[MyDearGirl]

WOW that's brilliant! I would definitely suggest stretching sideways for more breadth of knowledge than going for GCSE just yet. My DS's (also y6) school have been really good at stretching him with problem solving and working on the KS3 curriculum. He has also been studying historic mathematicians which has really hooked him!! The trouble is in Y6 its all SATS SATS SATS!!! Primary teachers will struggle with KS3 maths unless they are very specialist so make sure that the secondary you have chosen get to know the range of your dds knowledge so they have a good starting point. Good luck with the meeting!

[cunninglydisguised]

:) thank you. I guess that should be our focus - making sure that the school communicate very early with the secondary school, so they don't have to play the catch up game.

I think I'll see what they say before I chip in with my suggestions.