Ds expected to “help” another pupil with work in class

[LostFrog]

Ds is 9 years old, just started Year 5, first year of new school (middle school system here).

He tells me that when he has finished his own work in class, he is required to help a boy who sits next to him. This happens every single lesson, and he says that the boy is reluctant to work, won’t write anything, gives up quickly and mutters all the time that he doesn’t get it, etc. From asking around, this seems to be the standard on every table in the class - there is one or two pupils who are “learning mentors” who have to teach the less able ones.

Is this a) normal, and b) reasonable? It’s not like ds volunteered for this role. If he has finished, Shouldn’t he be offered an extension task whilst the teacher or TA (there is one, I checked) help the ones who are struggling? I have emailed the teacher to ask them to clarify what’s expected, but has anyone else come across this?

What works is more teachers, smaller classes and setting. So that @peaceanddove’s DD can learn fast and be challenged among kids of similar ability; and Jaxx and friends can be given patient teaching by an experienced professional who’s developed strategies to help less able kids and build their confidence.

I really don't care what happens to Jaxxon or how you approach teaching him (which is why I decided not to be a teacher). All I care about is that my DD2 doesn't have to spend her time feeling frustrated and irritated because she's working as his unpaid TA.

@peaceanddove

I really don't care what happens to Jaxxon or how you approach teaching him (which is why I decided not to be a teacher). All I care about is that my DD2 doesn't have to spend her time feeling frustrated and irritated because she's working as his unpaid TA.

You’re still not understanding peer support: she’s not teaching him.

It’s strange you don’t have an idea of how to teach either of them without using peer support, can you not think of any? Your daughter: if we scrap peer support should I give her a worksheet?

@TatianaBis

What works is more teachers, smaller classes and setting. So that *@peaceanddove*’s DD can learn fast and be challenged among kids of similar ability; and Jaxx and friends can be given patient teaching by an experienced professional who’s developed strategies to help less able kids and build their confidence.

I will never argue against smaller class sizes. We should have smaller classes and more teachers and more support staff and more resources, absolutely.

But peer support would still happen within those smaller class sizes. And because we know peer support works, we wouldn’t group them in classes by ability. It’d be age probably, ie luck of the draw.

It's strange you don’t have an idea of how to teach either of them without using peer support, can you not think of any? Your daughter: if we scrap peer support should I give her a worksheet?

It's actually not strange at all because, you know, I'm not a teacher and haven't trained to be a teacher. So, not my circus and not my monkeys.

It’s strange you don’t have an idea of how to teach either of them without using peer support

What is strange is that you don’t seem to have a concept of teaching without learning on peer support.

And strange that none of the kids involved have got the memo that this isn’t teaching. I mean it’s not effective teaching, but that’s what the kids involved seem to think they’re doing.

Can you really not see how much more effective it would be to group Jaxx with other kids of the same ability and teach them together, rather than leaving a 9 year old with no pedagogy training to ‘support’ them?

leaning on peer support not learning on ^^

@peaceanddove

It's strange you don’t have an idea of how to teach either of them without using peer support, can you not think of any? Your daughter: if we scrap peer support should I give her a worksheet?

It's actually not strange at all because, you know, I'm not a teacher and haven't trained to be a teacher. So, not my circus and not my monkeys.

But it is your daughter: how do you want me to teach her? Worksheets?

This used to happen to me all the time as a pupil at primary school and it was awful. I was matched up with a child with bad learning difficulties and behaviour issues. He had no interest in learning and just wanted to hit me/ignore me/play. Total waste of my time and also very demoralising/ frustrating. Just lazy teaching IMO - can’t cope with pupils with higher intellect. (I also wasn’t allowed to sit the higher SATs papers as the teacher couldn’t be bothered to teach us it)

@TatianaBis

It’s strange you don’t have an idea of how to teach either of them without using peer support

What is strange is that you don’t seem to have a concept of teaching without learning on peer support.

And strange that none of the kids involved have got the memo that this isn’t teaching. I mean it’s not effective teaching, but that’s what the kids involved seem to think they’re doing.

Can you really not see how much more effective it would be to group Jaxx with other kids of the same ability and teach them together, rather than leaving a 9 year old with no pedagogy training to ‘support’ them?

I’m not sure where you’ve got the idea that I’m leaning on peer support, or that it’s a common view in 2021 that peer support is unpaid teaching for ten year olds. I think I’ve explained it pretty comprehensively.

It wouldn’t suit Jaxxon or any of the other kids in a similar ability group to never spend any time with kids of different abilities. Can you explain to me why you think it would?

@Driftingblue

This practice doesn’t reinforce concepts, teach kids empathy, or perform any of the miracles that some people claim. All it does is reinforce the divide between the high and low performing students. The students who grasp concepts quickly are already frustrated with the slow pace of the class. Explaining easy concepts to students who are the reason the class has to move so slowly is only going to breed resentment.

DH 80s school was big on peer support - and he remembers many a time being taken out and being told that some children were just slower and he had to be patient with them and I think it breed resentment and contempt.

I think it was particularly bad with maths - he just "sees it" inate ablity - but I've encountered similar with a few teachers and spelling - they naturally got it so are stumped when my kids haven't. Even my old PE treachers - I think the DC's have been better- who didn't quite "get" some people weren't coordinated sporty and had prior knowlege of sport rules because they weren't that interested.

I think I got good peer teaching when it happened - not always the teacher or one struggling different groups but I was in a village school with smaller class sizes and a floating teacher. So was probably easier to manange the entire class and supervise peer learning properly. I think it's been mixed experince for our DC and sometimes they've just ended up doing the work twice.

We’re talking about maths currently. Having maths lessons with kids of similar abilities doesn’t mean Jaxx won’t spend plenty of time with kids of differing abilities. Can you explain why you think this would be a problem?

@TatianaBis

We’re talking about maths currently. Having maths lessons with kids of similar abilities doesn’t mean Jaxx won’t spend plenty of time with kids of differing abilities. Can you explain why you think this would be a problem?

I will, but can you first answer the question: even in maths, why would it be more effective for Jaxxon to only mix with kids with similar abilities?

I think I got good peer teaching when it happened

Don’t use the T word - according to @Pumperthepumper it’s ‘support’.

I will, but can you first answer the question: even in maths, why would it be more effective for Jaxxon to only mix with kids with similar abilities?

I’ve explained why above.

But it is your daughter: how do you want me to teach her? Worksheets?

I wouldn't want you teaching her at all, frankly. But if you had to I would want you to set her plenty of extension maths work which she would have happily worked through at her own speed. God knows where Jaxxon would be, but he isn't her problem.

@TatianaBis

I will, but can you first answer the question: even in maths, why would it be more effective for Jaxxon to only mix with kids with similar abilities?

I’ve explained why above.

No you haven’t - you asked me why I couldn’t see why it’d be more effective. You haven’t said why it would be.

So what’s your theory? Why would it be more beneficial for Jaxxon to do maths only with kids of similar abilities?

@peaceanddove

But it is your daughter: how do you want me to teach her? Worksheets?

I wouldn't want you teaching her at all, frankly. But if you had to I would want you to set her plenty of extension maths work which she would have happily worked through at her own speed. God knows where Jaxxon would be, but he isn't her problem.

And what should those extension tasks look like? Teacher led? Or pupil led? Ie do you want me to spend that time with her, or let her work through something alone?

@TatianaBis

Jaxx and friends can be given patient teaching by an experienced professional who’s developed strategies to help less able kids and build their confidence

[quote TatianaBis]@TatianaBis

Jaxx and friends can be given patient teaching by an experienced professional who’s developed strategies to help less able kids and build their confidence[/quote]
That’s not mixing with similar abilities, that’s one-on-one taught support. Why would it benefit Jaxxon to be in a maths class only with kids of similar abilities?

Knowing DD2 she would have been happiest working through extension papers on her own so she could go at her own pace. If she had a problem she could raise it with her teacher. It's really not rocket science.

@peaceanddove

Knowing DD2 she would have been happiest working through extension papers on her own so she could go at her own pace. If she had a problem she could raise it with her teacher. It's really not rocket science.

So worksheets in the end then?

Can you explain why you think this would be a problem?

I did give example - DH just sees patterns in maths and frequently as a child couldn't grasp that others couldn't (he has a first in maths/physics for undergraduate degree PhD in related field so idea he isn't good is not correct).

With me and spelling - truns out I'm dyslexia- I didn't need people who were natually good at spelling marveling and commenting on how bad I was I needed to be sat down and taught encoding and decoding - as it was I was left to muddle on knowing that others though I was stupid because I struggled.

Also being told to read a lot - I did it didn't improve my spelling and I already was . I was told with our children correct spelling would emerge - a concept that wasn't supported by research as it turned out and they actaully needed to be taught systematically - which in their schools didn't happen. They did get a lot of random spelling lists to learn which again didn't help and there' research that shows it doesn't and peer marking and teaching there just made them feel worse about their issues.

I think peer learning has it's place - but I think OP has a right to be concerned here.

@randomlyLostInWales

Can you explain why you think this would be a problem?

I did give example - DH just sees patterns in maths and frequently as a child couldn't grasp that others couldn't (he has a first in maths/physics for undergraduate degree PhD in related field so idea he isn't good is not correct).

With me and spelling - truns out I'm dyslexia- I didn't need people who were natually good at spelling marveling and commenting on how bad I was I needed to be sat down and taught encoding and decoding - as it was I was left to muddle on knowing that others though I was stupid because I struggled.

Also being told to read a lot - I did it didn't improve my spelling and I already was . I was told with our children correct spelling would emerge - a concept that wasn't supported by research as it turned out and they actaully needed to be taught systematically - which in their schools didn't happen. They did get a lot of random spelling lists to learn which again didn't help and there' research that shows it doesn't and peer marking and teaching there just made them feel worse about their issues.

I think peer learning has it's place - but I think OP has a right to be concerned here.

I’m not sure if this is to me, but I’ll reply;

Maths mastery is a completely different thing from being ‘good at maths’ ie your husband having a PhD in maths doesn’t mean he has maths mastery if he can’t use information he already knows in different contexts. What we do in classrooms now is remove the importance of the correct answer and instead look at ways we can manipulate numbers. I gave an example in this thread already so if that’s something you’re interested in there’s an example here. The idea behind maths mastery is children (and therefore adults) get a much wider knowledge behind what they’ve learned - so they don’t only know that 3x4 is 12, they also know what double 3 x half of four is another way of looking at it. They can manipulate numbers and concepts for a true understanding of what they’re doing. And it’s not just maths, but language, social skills, expression, literacy and all the rest.

Missing a child’s dyslexia is rubbish teaching and there’s no excuse for that. Again, that’s something teachers are trained better in too - it’s quite common for dyslexia to be picked up in early years now and we have research to support different techniques and their effectiveness. One massive difference too as we’ve moved towards a more holistic approach to education is to stop focusing on spelling as the important part (much like the answer in maths) and look at phonics, or sentence formation, or digital dexterity. So it should be, I’d hope, fairly unlikely for you now to 1) have undiagnosed dyslexia aged 10 and 2) be paired with someone solely to improve your spelling. Again, I’d say that’s poor classroom management rather than something inherently wrong with peer support.

Not quite sure what you’re struggling with @Pumperthepumper

I’m saying it’s more effective for a teacher to teach Jaxx in a group of similar ability so they can be taught at the same speed (slower than the kids who pick up mathematical concepts fast,) using strategies developed (by the teacher) to help less able kids master mathematical concepts effectively and build their confidence.