Extension work

[RueDeWakening]

In an ideal world, what sort of extension work would you like to see for your HLP/G&T insert acronym of choice here child?

Year 3 DD is currently not getting any, although school have previously promised small group work in maths and various other initiatives which happen for a few weeks then quietly disappear again. I have a parent's evening next week and want to raise it with the teacher. I don't know what's reasonable to ask for though!

If it makes a difference, DD also receives pupil premium and afaik none of it is being used to benefit her specifically at the moment. Should it be? Is extension stuff something it can be used for, and if so, how?

Thanks for any suggestions.

[var123]

It depends how far advanced she is, and how far advanced she is relative to the class. Could you give some examples of what she can do? How does that compare with the rest of the top set?

I think I read somewhere that the pupil premium was supposed to be used to directly benefit the children who merit it, not generally the whole school. However, I just read this:-
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/283193/Pupil_Premium_CoG_2014-15.pdf and page 6 states


^"Terms on which PPG is allocated to schools

1. The grant may be spent by maintained schools for the purposes of the school; that is to say for the educational benefit of pupils registered at that school, or for the benefit of pupils registered at other maintained schools; and on community facilities, for example services whose provision furthers any charitable purpose for the benefit of pupils at the school or their families, or people who live or work in the locality in which the school is situated.
   
2. The grant does not have to be completely spent by schools in the financial year
   

beginning 1 April 2014; some or all of it may be carried forward to future financial years."^

Its all written in legalese so it should be precise. However, either the pdf is badly worded or the money really can be just put in the general school pot instead of being used specifically for the education of forces and FSM children.

[var123]

If you decide to be a royal pain (I can see you don't want that at all!), then you could make a freedom of information request to obtain a copy of the report that they are legally obliged to publish each year showing how the use the PPG!!

[var123]

Anyway, after all that, in case I don't come back to this thread, my short answer to your question is she can do the times tables, then learn about simple division i.e. 3 x 4 = 12 and the reverse operation is 12 /4 = 3.
Then multiplication up to and including 20 x 20.
Then using two digit, then three digit numbers. then multiplication with decimals.

IME Years 3 and 4 are all about learning these things and a child can press on without having to wait for everyone else. Actually year 5 is also about this and some children are still doing it in year 6.

[RueDeWakening]

Thank you! That's a help, I'll have a proper read of that doc this evening.

In terms of what she can do, she asked to do some reading comprehension over the Christmas holidays (she enjoys it) and DH gave her an old 11+ paper, to see how she reacted - she has perfectionist tendencies which we try to help her with. She passed it. She's 7, not 8 till the summer

In maths she can do her 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 x tables and is working on 8 and 9 at the mo. She can reverse it to do division too, though less confidently. She enjoys maths related puzzles too, and chess.

She has one other person at school at a similar level in maths, but in English she's streets ahead of her cohort and school have a habit of wanting to hold her back so others can catch up, which she gets frustrated by.

[RueDeWakening]

Perhaps I am jumping the gun - she's come home from school today saying that she was given a year 4 "reading" test to do, and her teacher "told me in private that I got all the questions right". So perhaps the teacher is aware that they've been a bit rubbish with her and has plans well, I can dream. Looking forward to seeing what they have to say next week now!

I think I might ask if school can fund a membership of the school's chess club for her - it's a lunchtime club but costs £40ish a term.

[var123]

That sounds fair. Just as long as they don't think £120 pa = no need to think about it any more.

English should be easy... just harder writing targets.