Daughter going to local grammar school, can anyone tell me about the curriculum?

Sendsummer, that approach of if a student is interested in maths they should be able to teach themselves. How much more true for 16, 17 and 18 year olds. So, the shortage of maths teachers could be solved by giving those students books and computers and telling them to get on with it. Perhaps though they may prefer to have a teacher.

She wants to do some A level maths over the holiday and likes having a plan of what she will do
Then let her make her own plan based on a good A level textbook and website

I teach her because it is usual for those doing A level to be taught.
I think that gifted mathematicians at that age will just teach themselves as long as they have the right materials and occasional help with questions and a strong desire to do maths.
A willing reasonably able DC can be accelerated through the syllabus when taught sufficiently but then it becomes more about reaching targets to please or compete.
BTW the tedium of sitting through boring school lessons is completely different to holidays since a DC may choose to do or learn what they want in their free time. Certainly by secondary school age it seems better to be encouraging DCs to independently find and choose what they find interesting and fun to do during the holidays rather than doing all the organising for them.

You are wrong. Unless the words, Have you done your homework is classed as oppressive. "Regime" shows a judgmental attitude over my approach. I promise not to strap her down to a chair for 20 days in a row feeding her only bread and water until she does her work. I promise I will plan with her what days she wants to do work and what she wants to not do work. We will go on holiday during that time and as we walk round and view the sights, I will not follow her with a book of scientific facts for her to learn to recite.
It is nice to know, without having met me you have ascertained I have a wider malaise of bad parenting

JustRichmal I think it's a fair bet that any parent who institutes a twenty day regime of work during the summer holidays also has a very oppressive approach to their schoolwork in general. My guess would be that the holiday regime would simply be part of a wider malaise.

Sorry Errol, yes I did put your name instead of esornep.

Esormep. you are saying there is a direct correlation between students who did work in the six weeks holiday and problems with mental health? And that students in fact need to take 6 weeks break once a year to prevent this?

Someone saying they have spoken to hundreds of students who all confirmed their thoughts on a subject is not statistical evidence.

But being involved with long term projects tracking cohorts through school and university does constitute evidence. Particularly when these projects aim to understand why bright students drop out and under-achieve, why students are less likely to study certain subjects, why this varies between ethnic groups etc etc.

I would also comment that universities are looking in detail at outcomes for their cohorts in the contexts of (i) diversity and (ii) the rapid increase in mental health problems. Reports on the latter align very much with the anecdotal comments of goodbyestranger and needmoresleep above.

She wants to do some A level maths over the holiday and likes having a plan of what she will do. I stress again, she will spend less than half the days of her holiday doing this.
Over half will be spent going places, seeing friends, sitting in front of a games console and generally having a good time.
Doing no maths or science over the holidays is not for her a good time as it is too close to the tedium of primary school.
I teach her because it is usual for those doing A level to be taught.

Lastly, I do like maths and science and so does she
Great so just let her dip in to what she finds interesting as and when she wants. She is old enough and may then be able to impart new knowledge and views to you rather than both of you being resttricted by your interests and education.

goodbyestranger I have not used derogitory terms to describe your parenting decisions and I think you are going to stick to your views as strongly as I will stick to mine, and so the best we can do is agree to differ

I could also quote anecdotal evidence of children who were not asked to work over the holidays who went wild on drink or drugs, Thinking about it I more of these so through the power of anecdotal evidence you have convinced me I am on the right track.

JustRichmal suggesting that a draconian sounding summer 'holiday' regime might kill a DC's interest in learning, make a DC feel under pressure or make the DC worry that she can't achieve without constant work are not scenarios of gloom and doom but a common sense recognition of the risks. My own DC are mostly out the other end of this process as are other posters DC, so we have experience which perhaps you don't. If it helps, I've seen several children put under this sort of pressure fail/ go wild. A close friend at school, an only child, had a Cambridge don mum for whom no mark was ever good enough, nor could she ever do enough work. She went wild on drink and drugs at Oxford, failed Prelims, refused to re-sit and left, taking years to rebuild her life. Needmoresleep has also clearly seen at first hand the fall out of this kind of approach. I would just add that none of my DC have failed to get into the university of their choice, none are jobless, none are homeless and while some can be a bit bossy at times, nor are any dictators. Good luck to you and your DD though, perhaps it will work out fine.

I think we must agree to disagree on this. But let me reassure you, dd will be spending lots of days out and about. In spite of doing work with her, I do believe in a good balance of days of creativity, going outdoors or just relaxing.
I think I'm just one of those people who likes to plan, but then I'm also not that bothered if we do not stick to it.
Lastly, I do like maths and science and so does she. Some families are musical, some sporty, some arty. We are just sciencey.

Richmal, I was musing on the whole thread, maybe that was meant for esornap?

Never mind - doubtless all our kids will happily survive and thrive on our various styles, as mine (now 17) has done ... having parents who clearly care, whether they get their summer activities optimal or not! Fortunately for me I've just had guidance from the heads of 6th form ' We would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a very enjoyable summer and a well earned break.'

And I wish everyone here the same, whatever age your DCs.

Admittedly I was naive in thinking schools could cope with every child regardless of their level. I just did not expect their way of coping would be trying to convince the parents they were not at that level. When you have several discussions along the lines of "yes she is", "no she isn't" and a child upset because their favorite subject is becoming tedious, would you have any better suggestions of what I should have done? Have no one teach her so the argument "the rest will catch up" becomes a self fulfilling prophecy?

ErrolFirstly I am being quoted out of context, as that was a reply to imaginary scenarios put forward to show how teaching a child could lead to doom and gloom showing equally silly scenarios could be put forward as a counter argument.
Secondly, I agree teaching would be a lot easier if children were all kept at the same level, but is that reason enough not to teach a child who is capable of learning.
And yes, the evidence you have is anecdotal not statistical. Someone saying they have spoken to hundreds of students who all confirmed their thoughts on a subject is not statistical evidence. Do you teach maths?

Reading this thread, it occurs to me that the old hackneyed first-week-back assignment 'what did you do in the holidays' may be quite valuable to teachers in working out which kids are being crammed, which are lucky enough to participate in non-curricular activities, which enjoy benign neglect or suffer from real neglect ....and which have fantastic imaginations!

Is that not just anecdote again?

Hundreds and hundreds of students over twenty odd years is anecdotal and not evidence? To quote from above If you do not do work with your child over the holiday they could be unable to put the work in when it comes to A level, not get into the university they want. This hypothesis is directly falsified by teaching hundreds of successful students who were not asked to work through their school holidays when they were 11 or 13.

Of course I can't publish verifiable evidence on Mumsnet (without obtaining permission from the cohorts of students involved) but in that sense everything one reads on Mumsnet is anecdotal.

It's not hard to find academic studies on related issues. For example, see the Unesco report on tutoring:

unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001330/133039e.pdf

It does not include tutoring by parents in its remit, but some of the issues highlighted such as pressure on young pupils and distortion of mainstream teaching are also relevant to parental tutoring. For example, the report highlights the fact that tutoring outside school can mean that teachers face greater disparities within their classrooms than would otherwise be the case. (Specific example: pre-teaching a child the maths curriculum and then asking the school to make special arrangements to teach that child maths separately strains the resources of the school, at the expense of other pupils.)

I reckon dictators are quite busy folk.

I think one problem of making sure your child does X, Y and Z means that when they need to self-direct at University, they can fall by the wayside and expect others to do everything for them.

As an example, rely on others to get them up for exams. To cook for them. To go over their work etc. My DD kindly reminded one student that an exam was on that afternoon but it turned out he was in London. He thought they exam was the next day. Quick sprint to Paddington ensued. Of course his parents could have made sure he knew what day the exam was........

esornep, you have statistics from talking to your students? Is that not just anecdote again or did you actually do some comparative study?

I have no evidence for this, but then neither do you.

Not true actually. Every year I see high achieving students come into university. I get to know them very well in one-on-one meetings. Some of them come with me when I am doing outreach work in schools and talk to me about their own school years. So I do have statistics about what many very successful students did during their school years.

And in 20+ years in academia I have not yet had a student who did GCSE maths in primary school. (Though I've had many who undoubtedly could have done GCSE maths in primary.)

BTW nobody has advocated kids doing "nothing". Self-directed activities, reading, music, drama, sports are not "nothing".

Gosh, JustRichmal- you don't have much faith in your child, do you?

I make sure mine read over the summer- and we have a tradition where I give them each a couple of books they probably wouldn't have thought of to read. They've always really enjoyed this. In fact, yesterday, my dd now 20 and at University said "I hope you've chosen my summer books"!!

If you do not do work with your child over the holiday they could be unable to put the work in when it comes to A level, not get into the university they want, become disillusioned when they do not get 6 weeks of doing nothing every summer in their career, drop out and become homeless. Alternatively they may become so over confident at how little work they have to do to succeed they may become a dictator. I have no evidence for this, but then neither do you.

Opps,
As I was saying, it would be interesting to have some statistics rather than just anecdote or imagined scenarios.
Just may be dd will benefit from extra education over the long break. Could that be a possibility?

goodbyestrange, than you for those 3 separate scenarios of doom and gloom for my daughter.
The 6 weeks holiday is there so that children could help on farms when it was a much more rural economy, not as some well thought out strategy for learning.
It would be ineresesting to have some statistis