Fuzzywizard: This is what happened to Ds1 in the year (8) that he has just finished.
In maths, he started year 8 on a 7A. It was the highest score the school had ever had in year 7, and was largely due to the introduction of primary schools teaching level 6.
However, although he was in the top set, and he wasn't the only 7a, most of the others in his class were still learning level 7 material. So, there was no teaching of the level 8 curriculum at all, until I pointed it out in February.
The teacher responded by setting aside 30 mins twice a week for two weeks to teach Ds1 some level 8 material. She invited three others but only DS turned up. For one reason or another, only two of these sessions took place, so he had an hour's 1-1 teaching.
I also taught him at home, working through past papers. I would estimate that I spent about 2-3 hours in total explaining things and helping him work through examples. Then he spent another 4 hours or so practising what he's learned on his own.
Then a couple of weeks later, Ds1 sat a school exam and got 8A.
After that the teacher resumed having the whole class do exactly the same thing again. Towards the end of the year, the teacher made a start on level 8.
Again the teacher was asked to differentiate sufficiently, but nothing changed. Occasionally, Ds and some other children were offered extension work. Ds says it was only marginally less easy than the regular classwork.
I spoke to the HoD a few weeks ago asking for assurances that things would be better next year. I even had suggestions for him about how this might be done (having learned at my own work to come with solutions not problems). He rejected my suggestions on the spot and spoke about extension work.
Honestly, is this acceptable, in practice, if not in theory? All things being equal, DS should do well in his maths GCSE, and maybe that's all I should be asking of the school?