To ask DDs teacher for more work for her?

This. Do not underestimate ‘the wall’.. My naturally bright DD went from breezing through her final year of primary and acing her entrance exams for a top grammar to a crumbling, anxious mess when it came to GCSEs/A levels.

Watch out, OP

My DD was very good at Maths and was seriously bored in class, I contacted the teacher and he said she needs to do work herself at home if she thinks what he is setting is too easy. Do not allow them to tell her that, keep pushing the school and make them teach her and push her. I organised a private tutor to teach her every week to keep her at the high standard of maths she was already achieveing and she got A's in her highers and Advanced Highers. Where I live a lot of the teachers are friends of mine do not ever let that discourage you from pushing for your own child, their education trumps friendships. I am currently in another battle for my middle child which is slghtly harder because of friendships but my children will alwys come above the teachers feelings!

If your Dd wants you to pass that message on then that's what you do. You may get another side to the story. There is no way you will offend the teacher, you sre obviously going to be polite and pleasant. I understand your nerves. Also don't set too much by SATS they are simply a tool for?

Don't ask the teacher. Just give her some things to do at home for additional stretch and stimulation, e.g. reading, cooking, making, or an academic workbook.

Just adding to everyone else really, my DSis in an ex year 6 teacher she has always said that year 6 is boring for them all. The curriculum is centred around these tests and the teacher has to do everything they can to get as many kids over the line as possible. These awful sats do not take into account practical skills, kids that like history or geography, its awful really. The last term does get better!!

My DS was the same as your DC my Sister advised (as someone else said 😀) novels, next step up reading, looking at the KS3 curriculum and seeing what books they may cover, boosting Home Economics skills, using bitesize on the bbc website in topics of interest- my DS liked the science ones. Building stuff - this was particularly handy has my DS in year 7 had to build a model of the water cycle from rain cloud to river! a representation of the planets, and then in year 8 a fully labelled volcano out of paper mache 😬😂.

Local free museums are good, we have a roman dig near us so did a few visits there during visiting times. Like you we both worked too so we never made any of this a must do it was just if and when DS wanted to do something different.

My DD on the other hand struggled through her sats (she failed the English one) and school really - as she has practical skills (woodwork etc) and is wonderful at art.

Y6 teacher here.
It’s a rough time of year for the kids and the teachers. We are doing a lot of SATS practice and it is really dull but it’s pushed on us from SLT. I always set my more able challenges but I have to focus on my borderline children to get them through the Sats. This why most teachers hate the Sats and have tried to get them stopped or changed (we boycotted them years ago)!
Do tell the teacher she is bored but it will get better once Sats are over!!

Scholarships are usually just for the glory and offer only a small discount on fees or eg free music lessons for a music scholar or whatever. They don't mean a free place. That would be a 100% bursary and would be means tested.

If she has won a Scholarship surely its free? Thats the whole point of one .You want the Teacher to set extra work for one child ,and although shes passed her exam wont be going to the private school! Your Comprehensive is excellent so why put her into the exams in the first place?

This is so true with good teachers. My DD is only in lower juniors but is academically able and has read all the Year 6 reference books already. The Year 6 teacher, despite the fact she isn't her class teacher, has given her a list of books to read covering topics like Economics, Business, Philosophy and Politics.

It's obviously late for your DD as it's all SATS SATS SATS but also things like starting a school newspaper, writing to politicians about matters she finds interesting (still waiting for your replies Rishi Sunak) are all things that can be done in a school context to make academically capable kids interested and more interestING.

I also thought 114 wasn't that high. SATs are boring though for most children. Sometimes they use online resources which are marked online and don't require any extra teacher input. Dd2 was academically gifted (level 6s) and when she was in year 4 it was decided that she would be given extra work. She enjoyed the extra work but it was never marked and she became disillusioned with completing it. This was many years ago and she is now a high flying Cambridge graduate.

A lot of the curriculum is really boring. It bores bright children, weak children and the ones in between. Some teachers are able to make it a bit less boring but sometimes it is just not possible.

Sorry but yabu; 114/5 is not an amazing genius level score for SATs. In my DDs class that would be just about mid-table.
But yes your daughter is probably bored because SATs practice is boring, it's going over the same things day in day out.
But if you told the teacher you want her to give your DD (who I'm assuming is also your PFB) more work then YBVVU.

YANBU at all…I’m stunned at the number of posters saying it’s not the teacher’s responsibility, they have enough to do etc !!

We had this exact issue when my son was in P5, he was finishing his work then getting bored so distracting others etc….the teacher then had “concerns about his behaviour” it came as news to her (she was a shit teacher and was later managed out) that she could possibly give him more to do…I spoke with the year head after that, he was set extension work and absolutely thrived on it. We had to do similar at secondary in some subjects too.

Teachers are stretched think I know, but when there are multi ability classes as is the norm, it’s their basic actual job to cater to all these abilities, including the higher levels

Especially if they voice their thoughts amongst, or to, other kids.

Are you a Year 6 teacher? I totally agree with you that part of our job is challenging the brightest, but at this point in the year, a Year 6 teacher is going to be prioritising those borderline kids who might juuuuust get 100 if the wind is blowing in the right direction.

I’m a teacher. Definitely tell your daughter’s teacher. It is our job to challenge the brightest as well as support all the other ability ranges. I would ask maybe for some transition work that she might see in year 7, could be KS3 textbook work if the teacher has little time.

If she's done her work can she read books related to hers hobbies? Or use the time to plan out a project to do at a different time?

So she is using the time constructively, but on something that is of interest to her and that isn't explicitly academic.

For example, designing a decorated cake and working out how to make it and the quantities required. Or planning planting for a window box to maximise colour year round. Or working out how to upcycle one thing into something more useful?

I'd caution against giving an explicit aim of 120 as it could easily set up an expectation that anything less than perfection is rubbish. There will also come a point where to get the last percent takes as much effort as getting the other 99% and realistically won't be worth it for every subject.

By all means encourage smart learning where she looks at the errors she made and checks her understanding of that topic. Possibly even looking for any patterns in what she gets wrong, but not an expectation of 120.

You have a little lawyer.

i have one too. They speak differently to other children. Breeze through the early years of school.

Watch out for the wall. When it hits, it hits hard mentally.

My daughter was bored stupid in her final year of primary.

She is also now bored stupid in the last term of S3. In fact, she is sitting in history class watching videos on her tablet (with the teacher's blessing) because half the class haven't finished the work they have been doing for about 2 months now and her teacher said they can't start the next topic until all the kids have done the work. Before the holidays this was covered up with the pretence of "do a poster" (aka pointless busy work) This is the case in 4 of her 6 classes today. And yet if I keep her off, she'd be marked UA.

One sized education for all does not work. The brightest kids are held up by the slower ones, and there isn't enough resource to make sure both groups reach their potential.

Don't bother asking the teacher, there is no work to give.

Actually we do! Maybe not for each individual child but its called differentiation. And teachers have specific children in mind when planning these extra bits.

Basically, Greater Depth children get extra questions to deepend their understanding whilst Working Towards children get resources to help them appropriately access the learning.

All children can access the GD, but in my experience, only children who need the extra support (resources, teacher presence etc) recieve this unless pinpointed during the beginning part of the lesson where we rule out/explain misconceptions 😊