Confused by call from school

You really think that’s how intervention works? Slotting random kids in because there’s a free space?

All primary school work in core subjects is differentiated by ability.

Nope it is not as that limits what children can achieve. If the kids who were working below expected standard always only ever got work that was below expected standard how could they ever get to expected? The curriculum is set that all children have the same work and it get progressively harder. Each question is slightly more challenging than the previous one.

Work is differentiated only for those who are working significantly below.

Typically, the teacher teaches to the middle group of kids. The higher end get given extra/harder work and expected to teach themselves with a bit of extra help from the teacher if they need it.

This is not so. Teachers teach to all children at the same time. It is a ping pong method of teach a little, do a little, teach a little, do a little. The teacher circulates and works with different groups. The higher children do not get extra or harder work. They all get the same unless significantly below.

Those who take longer to grasp something often get a 'pre teach' they get 10-15 minutes before the lesson going over the concept so they have some understanding before the lesson begins.

It probably did.

But to stop parents overreacting, brooding on it over the Summer and making their kids do work at home, they probably thought they'd leave it until today.

In the words of Bart Simpson, "...so we're going to catch up to the others by going slower than them..."

OP, have a chat with the teacher. It is a shame you weren't told before if your DD was struggling a bit. It may be some kind of make up the numbers exercise where your DD is actually doing fine, but they have 10 places in the extra help group and they think she'd benefit more than the next child.

Why are you ‘raging’ about it? You should be grateful that the school is spending time and money on your child to give her extra support.

Read the rest of the sentence, it must be a typo. She says she's glad the support is there. Maybe it was supposed to say /not/ raging about it. OP confirms in a later post that's not what she meant to type.

As opposed to a shit Teaching Assistant? You’re very rude and obviously have no idea what type of people take up a variety of roles in education. Many TAs have teaching qualifications, degrees and years of experience.

A teacher should never be too busy to spend 5 mins talking to a parent when they’ve identified that their child needs some extra support.

Don’t ask for a meeting!! The teaching staff will be very busy at the start of term. Just let them get on with it.

Why are you ‘raging’ about it? You should be grateful that the school is spending time and money on your child to give her extra support.

They will have used their data over the summer to make informed decisions about which children would benefit.

Calm down and don’t give the teachers grief.

They’re on the ball OP. They’ve looked at performance over the break and identified your DC as needing extra support to be on track for High School. I fought for extra help for one of my DC at primary, would have been very grateful for what they’ve offered.

It might not be about ability. I ended up in the B stream because I had a speech impediment so that I mispronounced words badly, aged 8. This was taken to mean I could not read (I learned to read at 4) and I was put in the remedial group as a result. My mother explained about the impediment but the 'remedial' label stuck - which resulted in my failing (just, apparently) the 11+ (yes, that old) because the B stream were not taught how to pass it.

They told the OP mixing the classes was not due to ability not the maths group. There are lots of reasons for doing this mainly uneven numbers in year groups.

If OP 's daughter is getting help in maths it is surely a good thing. They will analysed data, targets etc from last year and made the decision on this basis. If the person taking the group is not a qualified teacher the class teacher will have set the work.

I wonder if the school didn't allocate the extra teaching resource before the summer holiday because they were still working out numbers (pupils and teachers). The decision to include your DD in this group, receiving additional support, may have just been made. So today was the first opportunity to tell you. Can you message/email the class teacher for more information?

They might not have had the facility set up last year. also
A. they might have wanted your child to have a normal relaxed holiday without "working" at school subjects
B. They might not understand why she has an issue with maths so there would have been no point asking you to work on x y or z.
Honestly I have no idea why you are raging.

Sounds like they are on the ball and giving extra attention. I assume she is at the lower end of normal range or you would have heard about it before now.

This is likely to be linked to staffing. It is quite possible that there was no slack in timetables and staff allocation to guarantee intervention for the students last term.. and rather than tell parents in the summer, risking disappointment and then constant requests for what was promised they waited till now to announce it. Budgets are tight and staff do want to help I would be pleased that this was able to be offered at all.

Why are you so upset OP? Even if they told you months ago my sense is you’d still be ‘baffled’ and want to know ‘why I’m only finding out for the first time now’. Whenever they tell you, it will be the first time you’re hearing it.

Presumably they did some post Summer break work and saw that your DD is struggling to keep up. It’s great the teacher called to explain in person and actually asked you if it would be ok. I’m honestly not sure what else you want or expect. Also, she’s Y3 so no need to stress. DS was in a catch up group for reading in Y1 because he was a slow reader. He is now 9yrs old and has a reading age of 12/13 according to his last report.

All primary school work in core subjects is differentiated by ability.

Your child’s school has decided that there are enough children working at a similar pace to make it worthwhile taking them as a smaller group. I think the only thing you need to ask is whether this is seen as a short term catch up after the holidays to get them back on track solution or something more longterm.

This isn’t true. Some children have something called “Slow Processing”. One of my children has it - His intelligence/attainment is very high (Greater depth in SATS, passed the 11+, top set in Maths at Grammar School) but his brain processes mathematics/numbers at a much slower speed than most other children.

@scorpiogirly chat to school and ask if this might be a possibility. Our Primary School SENCO was able to test our son for it.

What subject out of interest?

It might be that she's average or above average so will help pull others up. But, like others stated, go ask for clarification. You don't have to agree with a suggestion or a question.

I used to help the low ability children in a classroom. I am not a teacher but a teacher doesn't just teach, they assess levels and comprehension which is way out of my remit. I have a degree, I have specific qualifications for helping in schools and an SEND qualification.

I was given a plenary ahead of the lesson, so I knew what they were teaching and how they were going to do it. The children were then taught by the teacher and when they moved onto independent work I took my table of 4 or 5 children and basically kept them on task and showed them they could do this. Just walking them through it again. At year 3/4 there does seem to be a point where children start to become very aware of their ability and literally shut down with the whole I can't do it attitude. There is a name for this but it won't come to me. It is where you can't do one question so you assume you can't do any of it.

I would be very happy that my child was receiving that kind of teaching as honestly in a class of 30 children even with 2 adults it is hard to get round everybody. We had a system in place to make sure everyone had done the first step and had their work marked before they moved on to the next step. Pretty much what @InMyShowgirlEra said, teachers teach to middle ability.

Make your mind up, 10 minutes ago you were "raging" 🤔
Seriously just talk to the school about it, they'll be able to give you a better explanation than hundreds of random uninvolved people.

What I don't understand though is that this is the first I have heard of any problems with her maths, yet seemingly on the first day back, it's glaringly obvious. If I had known we could have worked on it over the holidays.

TBH we found this a lot - flip flopping on where there was an issue or not often one at start and gone by end with confusion inbetween - and not having any suggestions of what we could do at home to help.

I myself went form bottom suppot group to an extension in primary - with no explination really to my DP withing two terms. Both kids and I have underlying issues - dyslexa, dspraxia and other things.

It's possible they've done some setting tests on first day - though they'd be quick of the mark if they have or more likely there something form last teacher and term that this one wants to address before it becomes a bigger issue.

I'd try and grab the teacher to ask a few more questions but I'd also try and do more maths at home over next year as well.