Y3 top performing child doing at leat an hour extra work set my parent after school Aibu to be surprised/pissed off?

[Starzinhereyes]

Dd has a nice little friend who by all accounts is away ahead of her classmates. This child is always chosen for play parts, was constantly praised on zoom 😬& is just known as the classes naturally talented kids.... However the child does numerous workbooks, twinkl worksheets & parents extend every bit of learning... The mum (V wealthy sahm) freely talks about extending the child... Aibu to think there is no need for the mother to spend an extra hour a day giving the child extension work?

Completely missing the point of the thread! But I have a year 3 whose desperate to do extra work!! Could someone recommend any decent workbooks please. I brought a few over lockdown but they just really went through class work and didn’t do greater depth type work. She s particularly interested in maths work. Thank you

Dh and I both avid readers so as a family lots of books dds read like demons we all talk about what we are reading etc and did this all through primary just because we enjoyed it really. In lockdown Dd2 and I read Shakespeare in the original not the kiddy stuff they were doing at school. Both girls are literally top of their year in English now. I wonder if a coincidence.

Also they both did a little language class with a teacher all through primary as we felt the language provision at their state not great. Meant at secondary they were way ahead dd1 opted for double language at gcse and will do Spanish a level. So yes it is worth it.

What I would also say is that I think your frustration is misguided - what the child does out of school isn’t any of your business but the fact the child is given all the accolades etc in school does seem unfair but that’s fault of the teacher not the family.

Reverse?

I wish my parents had taken an interest in teaching me at that age.

For my own children, they are both bright but schools have a very one size fits all approach to teaching, working with them at hone gives them the chance to learn in their own way.

My children naturally gravitated to the hundreds of books we have (most definitely not a wealthy stay at home Mum!). We encouraged debate about everything, there were no off bounds subjects. I saved every penny to provide acting & dance lessons for my son (fortunately he was talented & won scholarships which saved a fortune!). Likewise riding lessons for my daughter who was just as talented as her brother, albeit in a different field.

They were ‘that child’ in their respective year (and that came with bullying from other kids, unfortunately).

They also had far too much screen time, still went out to play with their friends, we had an open door policy with everyday having their friends popping in & out (as adults now, their mates still get in touch when they need help or pop in for a cuppa).

The fact is, you can’t force a child to do extra stuff. If you do & they aren’t enjoying it or buck against it, then you’re not doing your job right.

Your primary job as a parent is to make sure your child is warm, fed & loved. Encourage experiences & interests. If you see they love learning, fill your home with books from the charity shop or skips (at times we were piss poor, this stuff doesn’t need to cost a fortune). We had a series of ever dilapidated cars costing buttons to make sure we could get them where they needed to be. We went without to ensure they could do what they needed to do. Dammit, even now, when we’re very comfortably off & they’re adults we still have the same philosophy. Being wealthy to provide all these things doesn’t necessarily come into it.

I also taught my kids to celebrate their friends successes & be humble in defeat. We didn’t deride their friends if they got the good parts in plays, nor the parenting styles of their mothers. We flung open the doors of communication so their friends knew they could chat about anything to us. Debate costs nothing.

Granted, I’m an ex-teacher, so I do have a better insight into a child-centric ethos in the home. But all these things are bloody obvious, aren’t they?!

A state primary can really only go so far and do so much.
As I said before, it should be made clear that parents really do need to plug gaps and help dc.
It's so important to catch them while they are young and really outside tutor should be more normal eg maybe small groups of dc who struggle with math could get a shared tutor once a week to help them.
It should be more normal and accepted to step in. I worry from my experience with dd2 at the level of trust placed on school. They don't have the resources or capacity to support dc who take longer at certain concepts.

None of your business! What a jealous person you are.

Why would you be pissed off? Because her child is way ahead and it makes you feel guilty that you’re not putting in that much effort?

Some kids live workbooks. When I gave my dd money at 6/7/8 she always wanted to go to the shop and buy a workbook. I remember at 8 in the Works my mum told them they could each choose a book and she insisted on a gcse maths workbook. Never judge!

I still don't get what you're judging and being pissed off about.

Is it that you just assumed the child is naturally gifted and good at everything and now you know there's extra work involved it's suddenly somehow unfair?

Are you perhaps a bit jealous op? Put out that the mum has the time and the inclination to support her child? That’s how it comes over.

1. The child probably is enjoying the extra challenge and the time spent working with her parent.
2. The parents may have purposefully made the decision that they will prioritise the mum staying home with their child, over the benefits additional wage.
3. It is really not any business of yours how that live/parent, unless you think there is a safeguarding issue.
4. It is obviously paying off as the child seems quite accomplished and well liked by what you have written. Confident children are not downtrodden, leading back to point 1.
5. If you are worried about your DD being unable to ‘compete’ you are free to support her education yourself. This girl is just one, in one class, in one school. Up and down the country there will be children, and parents, like this. Many who speak additional languages and do have the additional benefit of learning in those too. Shall they all stop so your dd gets a fair chance? Your child, your responsibility. Their children, their responsibility.

Both my DSs demanded extension work until secondary level. The teachers cannot keep on top of the needs of every child, no matter how much they wish they could.

Lol ... are you my neighbours!?
Mind your own business, why don't you do some extra work with your own?

@Starzinhereyes

Dd has a nice little friend who by all accounts is away ahead of her classmates. This child is always chosen for play parts, was constantly praised on zoom 😬& is just known as the classes naturally talented kids.... However the child does numerous workbooks, twinkl worksheets & parents extend every bit of learning... The mum (V wealthy sahm) freely talks about extending the child... Aibu to think there is no need for the mother to spend an extra hour a day giving the child extension work?

Why should that child miss out on education and extra because you won't do the same for your kids?

“Parent Annoyed that Child is Working Hard and enjoying academic success/recognition.”

This is like something from one of those parody newspapers. What a bizarre attitude. And people wonder why there’s a performance gap between state and private...

Didn’t you realise that loads of people do this - why do you think there are so many workbooks available to buy. At a minimum I’d expect most interested parents to listen to their child read every day and help them with their spellings and times tables. When I worked in a primary school it wasn’t a coincidence that the kids that never had their home reading diaries filled in were less good at reading than they could have been! Lots of people do work over the holidays too - mine always did about an hour/30 mins on holiday weekdays and so did most of their friends.

Also op, with my older dd I was amazed when I realised how many dc were getting tutors and extra school for 11+.
Many dc will be getting lots of extra help but won't be top sets..

Yes, of course you are being unreasonable!

The parents are doing something great for their child by giving them extra help and support. There is no need to be so bitter about it.

If it’s driven by the child - great. If it’s pushed by the parent then you’d do better to feel sad for the child rather than pissed off. That child was my friend at school, even at 5 years old their mother forced them to do extra school work at weekends/holidays to stay ‘top of the class’. Every time they visited the conversation was ‘what did insane get for the maths test...? my child got 5 marks more....’
The mother stopped talking to my mum when I got better grades at GCSE.
By 16 that child was drinking in secret most nights and before she was 18 she took her own life as she never felt she was ‘good enough’ or ‘clever enough’

It’s really none of your business at all OP!

Almost that's an extreme situation isn't it?

What’s it got to do with you?! If you don’t want to do something with your child, then don’t-but other parents can do what they want!

It’s perfectly normal to do extra stuff if you’re going for the 11+ as well.

Often, if kids get extra support, they usually enjoy school more as they feel confident, this encourages a love of learning and they’ll often want to learn more.
Most parents at my dcs schools have done extra work with their dcs. It’s pretty normal.

Sh05
Why is it any of your business?
If the school were setting her extended work then you'd have a leg to stand on but the parents can do what they like with their own child.
Even then I don't see what the op would have to complain about. My son gets lots of extension work in school because the normal stuff is too easy.
Yes, I remember in primary school my year 5 and 6 teachers bringing me in books or recommending books from the library for me to read as I had completed all the reading levels in the school and read all the books they had at that level! They were great at encouraging me and pushing me where they saw a passion and a “talent”.

I’m not expecting OP to return to this but it would be interesting to know why she is so offended by a mother educating her child.

I would have loved this as a child, I always had my nose in a book after school and if maths work books had existed I would have done them for fun. I read “Look and Learn” every week and did all the activities, I just loved learning. My own children would have run a mile, every child is different.