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Original poster

Math Sets at new School

26 replies

Sparklingbrook · 05/07/2012 17:54

DS1 Year 8 started a new school last week.

He is (for now) in the top maths set. At his old school he was in 2nd set.

They had a maths test today, and he came out a bit fed up because it was really hard, and some topics he had never even done. So can I assume as top set they are doing Year 9 maths already?

I need to drop a line to his Maths teacher, but not sure what to say. He says theses tests are to set them for September. I have no idea what will happen.

OP posts:
soonbesailing · 05/07/2012 18:21

I think it depends on the school, our school all work a year ahead (they start year 8 maths in yr 7 as a high number of pupils join the school already at level 5) and the top two sets work from a higher level book than sets 3,4 & 5.
Set one just works faster than set 2, but some years there isn't much difference between the two sets as you can only fit so many in top set.
It's also hard to compare school to school, so it may be that he is good enough to be in top set at his new school, but the bar was a bit higher at his old school, so he ended up in set 2.
My DC was in the top group of his primary school, but started out in set 3 in maths, he's now in set 2 and would love to be in top set but to get there he needs to be top of set 2 and better than the person at the bottom of set 1, so it may not happen.
2 of his friends from primary who were also in the top group went straight into top set at their school and have stayed there.