To think 6yr olds shouldn’t have a naughty table at school

[Charliebrow]

My 6 year old son has told us that at school his table is full of the naughty kids. It appears that the other kids on his table are the ones that seem to have behavioural problems and it’s clear his table is ‘bottom set’.
I have parents evening tomorrow and want to say something but don’t know what to say that doesn’t sound argumentative.
Everything I’ve read says all the evidence is that sets don’t work in primary school and are detrimental especially for the kids in the bottom set. However, sadly they are common place in the uk due to schools paying external education companies for resources which require kids to be set by ability. Our school uses twinkl.
I have ADHD (diagnosed recently) and daydreamed my way through school but managed to pull things out of the bag at secondary for exams, getting top grades at GCSE and a level in maths and science and going on to uni. I’m lucky that I was never streamed by ability until secondary school when I’d already demonstrated with SATs that I was good at maths so set 1.
i worry that my son has a higher ability than we and teachers realise and he’s being pigeon holed by being placed bottom set and also it’s affecting his confidence as he’s aware he’s on the naughty table.
Thanks for reading and for any help

Groups for differentiated teaching is not setting (where children are divided into classes based on ability). Setting is harmful as the children do not interact with or be taught with those of a higher ability etc but differentiated teaching within a class is absolutely essential and should be done fluidly and mixed with whole class teaching.

If your son is on the ‘bottom’ group, he can progress and develop from there. It’s really difficult 😥 but try to consider that the important thing is that he learns and progresses and will probably have a major acceleration at some point.

It’s the assumption the only thing matters is getting on with work all the time. High achieving children generally achieve fine regardless of who is sitting next to them - do you not want them to grow up to be adults who are kind, who help those who struggle in the workplace or the community; to understand that not everything is the same as them and what they take for granted is really tough for some people. What a society when you think the only thing that matters is getting on with work without a single distraction at age 6

A couple of thoughts - the teachers write on the written work either “needed help/ with help” vs independent working” to assess progress. I was shown examples of independent working at parents evenings.

Re” I’m terrible!” …with any mistake / criticism . It can be helpful to model failure as parents. “ oh silly mummy I made a mistake. Never mind I will cross it out and do it again etc”. Make sure your son knows that the aim is improvement not perfect.

What you have described isn't a 'naughty table' or a 'bottom set.'

Teachers put a lot of thought into table groups and decisions are based on what is best for the children.

Obviously, children want to be with their friends or the pupils they perceive as 'popular', and parents would like their child to be surrounded by calm, clever children, but it is far more complicated than that.

Please do not go in suggesting that you wholeheartedly believe your 6 year old child, that you know more about these children than the teacher does, or that you know more about child development than the teacher does. Or she will nod and smile whilst inwardly deciding that you are a fool, and yes she will pass that observation to next year's teacher too.

Fine to say that your dc has mentioned that there are lots of distractions on the table and to ask how often she moves the children around.

If he is using the word 'independently' a lot it is because he's getting lots of praise every time he completes work without adult support. I would be investigating whether he needs support because of behaviour or concentration issues, or because he struggles cognitively. I would want to know if they suspect SEN, what additional support he receives and how I could help at home. My focus would be here rather than on table groups, which is really just deflection.

It is likely that a TA is supporting this table for various different reasons. Ask for a chat with the teacher.

My son has dyslexia and was put on a table at the front with other kids that needed a bit more help. The teacher said it was easier to keep them together as he spent more time at that table.

Is he at the same table throughout the day? Sometimes I seat children who might need support together so that I (or the TA) can sit with them and help with work together. I do this for my children who need to be stretched as well. But they move about during the day so they sit in one seat for writing (where I mix abilities) but somewhere else for numeracy (where I don't because different groups are working on different learning outcomes). They also have home seats where they sit at the start of the day etc. So I think it can be hard to tell why a child is sitting in a certain seat at any given point in the day. Do you feel your son is making the right level of progress for him? Is he learning and being supported appropriately? Does he have friends and are the people at his table nice to him? Those are all things you could take to his teacher but I don't think you should complain about him being seated with 'bottom set' children. You could ask how they decide groups though? Or enquire about whether they set and why they've made that choice?

This is from the article I read
Findings revealed that grouping is seen as experienced practice, encouraged by Senior Leadership Teams, and viewed as a 'necessary evil' in preparation for high-stakes tests such as the Phonics Screening Check and key stage 1 SATs.

Not being able to focus does not mean he’s distracting others I imagine he’s sat quietly picking the skin around his fingers. I used to be staring out of the window daydreaming

Thank you, I’m not complaining about him sitting with bottom set children, it’s more the idea that bottom set children are all seated together, from the little reading I have done, teachers know this isn’t good for kids but the pressures they are under and the teaching resources they are given mean they have to

But if these kids struggle to concentrate then surely putting them together they’ll all distract each other more?

Nope, it means that the teacher can go over to sort out Charlie who is having an issue and being obstructive, and while she's there she can check in that Ava knows what she's doing and refocus Izzy who is staring at squirrels out the window.

Putting all 3 on the same table means that 1 contact opportunity becomes 3. If all 3 were at opposite corners of the classroom then Charlie's shouting would have been sorted but Ava wouldn't know what she's doing and Izzy would still be enjoying the squirrels.

You really need to get out of your head that support needs are in any way equal to ability and outcomes, they're really not. School doesn't (shouldn't!) work that way any more.

But if you don't have resources to handle them - if there are too many to spread around without them disrupting everyone else then there isn't much choice

You need to talk to the teacher and work with them how to lift your child to an acceptable standard not get yourself labelled as uncooperative complainer and your child as therefore not likely to be improved - caution

I’m not saying I think support needs are equal to ability. I had undiagnosed ADHD and did very well at school and in further education but we were never grouped in class according to ability (apart from maths from yr 7 and French from yr 10), so I never thought I was in a low achieving group, I think that may have knocked my confidence and limited my aspirations

But if the lower ability children were all spread out then they would still be getting the differentiated work and notice it’s different to their more able peer sitting next to them. And it would be harder for the teacher to support the children who need it if they’re all spread out in the room.

children need differentiated work. You can’t just give all children the same work regardless of ability- that’s demotivating for both the lower and higher achievers. The teacher sounds like they’re doing a good job especially if your ds knows the importance of working independently which he has obviously been praised for in school.

you could maybe raise with the teacher at parents that your ds has said he is worried he is on a naughty table. Then the teacher is aware of his feelings but you haven’t claimed that ds is or isn’t on a lower set table or a table for those with behaviour issues. It might help that the teacher is aware that this is a concern for ds.

The thing is OP, what is actually possible given the dire state of education funding and the enormous pressures on teachers means that some educational 'ideals', like mixed ability tables, aren't always practical or become completely impossible.

I started my teaching career when education funding was much better and our school was lucky enough to have a team who were absolutely amazing at fundraising, so we had support staff and resources to actually implement these things. So I didn't need to do ability groups- I had amazing TAs who could work with me to support children without putting all the children needing help on one table (I'm aware TAs are STILL amazing, btw, but it's much harder now they're often moving between classes for them to develop the same knowledge of where each child is at with their progress). Mixed ability groups worked amazingly, but that's because we had what we needed to do it effectively.

We also had specialised TAs with experience working with children with SEN whose job it was to provide tailored support even if the child didn't have 1:1 funding.

This is what teaching used to be like. If I went back to it now, I'd have absolutely no choice but to do ability groups. I don't see how else you can manage to provide this kind of support to kids who need it if there's one adult, 30 (or more) kids and the ones needing a lot of support are scattered through the classroom.
I still believe that mixed ability groups are best, but ONLY if you have the resources to do it properly.

Yes this is basically what I was asking for help with

Thank you. So it turns out my son thinks working independently means not making any mistakes, so I told him everyone makes mistakes, working independently is working without the help of the teacher. He said “I’m on the helping table! I don’t ask for help! The teacher just always comes over and helps!”

Thank you so much, this totally backs up what I’ve read and what I feel the issues are. I’m also conscious that shy bairns get nowt and wondered if anyone can help me with what to say just to even let the teacher know that we really care about our sons education and we have high hopes for him and we will help him whatever way we can. We aren’t pushy either I know it’s a balance

The teacher will be helping every table, ensuring work is being done. Honestly KS1 is just frenetic, children don't stop moving, rocking in their chairs, tapping table legs, balancing pencils on their lips, distracted by things going on because they are just 6, they are not soldiers all sitting perfectly still. It is expected that they try to sit still and get on with their work.

I used to volunteer in a primary school, I have a degree and I took some relevant education courses including SEND to enable me to understand and help more. This very long post is just to give you a look inside a classroom.

Originally the school did sets, so 90 year intake, 1 class high ability, 1 class middle ability and one class low ability that had all 3 TAs plus me in the classroom. Everyone moved classrooms for English and maths. This then changed and everyone stayed in their classrooms and they went to mixed ability tables. Yes it does benefit the low ability students because there is peer on peer teaching too which cements the concepts for the higher ability children too but this is KS2 not KS1.

Depending on the amount of space in one classroom I had my own table and low ability children came to me and I oversaw about 4 or 5 children. Mainly making sure that they are engaging with the work, being their cheerleader and making them realise that they can do the work. It isn't beyond them and teaching them resiliance. This is far easier than me trying to get to every table with a low ability child on. I can see instantly when a child isn't writing if they are sat with me. Some children know they can just run the clock out on the lesson before break and it does them no favours in the long run. Higher ability children are given "differentiated work" to push them as they complete the work relatively quickly.

For behavioural issue children they used to be taken out of the classroom and given 1 on1 or 1 on 2 to help them get through their work. Sometimes because of the behavioural issues and not engaging with work they fall behind, ie I had year 5 children working at a year 2 level. We cannot accommodate that teaching in the classroom. It is difficult to try to keep their attention when the class is doing something entirely different. Also as a volunteer I am not trained in dealing with violent children who break the fingers of staff, slam books into their faces, kick and spit, oh and the lickers, who know that licking someone's face/hand/arm is awful and do it anyway to staff etc so the classrooms I am put in do not compromise my safety. By the way this is an outstanding school in a lovely area and this was pre covid.

Lack of funding now means there are less TA/LSAs and so that extra help in the classrooms is disappearing. It was at least 1 TA per class, I can see from their staffing that that is no longer the case. Some of those TAs will disappear from the classroom to become cover supervisors ie teach a class in the afternoons when no core subjects are taught. Teaching staff have PPA time which means they are not in a classroom. Their class is covered by a TA, so art, PE, tech, assembly, hymn practise etc.

if he gets a word wrong even if it’s just cos he’s rushed it and i correct him he throws the book down and cries out that he’s “terrible at reading”

Then stop correcting him even if he makes a mistake. Just listen to him. The most important thing you can do to help him is to let him keep up the flow amd continue to read.

If you think he's always going too fast then try to think of other ways to slow him down a bit. Maybe say you didn't hear him, can he say it again? But still don't correct him.

If you are asking for help for how to lift your child up (so to improve his attainment)

Reading and maths are key at KS1.

Reading first:

how did he do in his phonics test? Does he know his sounds?

The one thing that makes a massive difference at that age is reading as many days as you can possibly manage with him.

Does the school have a reading scheme? Where is he on it?

Maths:
What's his maths like? Is he y1 or y2?

Can he add one, two digit numbers?
What are his times tables like (1s,2s,10s)
Can he subtract one and two digit numbers?
Should be starting on division as sharing.

Again, the best thing to do to improve his maths at this age is to do a little bit every day.

Schofield and Sims publish some ks1 maths workbooks, or kumon are actually quite good at this age - grade 1 or grade 2 material.

That does not sound appropriate for parents' evening ( if at all!) Parents'evening is to discuss the kid's progess.It is NOT to interrogate, a professional on how they do their job!

The OP does not seem ti understand that the teacher has to do what is the optimal solution for ALL the children with the resources at her disposal, not just her son!

my issue is that from what I’ve read all evidence is that pupils perform better when they’re sat with kids mixed abilities

Don't bring up your own beliefs or studies you have read about how the classroom should be organised. Teachers are usually weighing up a million factors that we don't know about and the teacher can't tell us about.

But do tell the teacher that your DS thinks he's been put with the naughty kids and he's said they never get merit marks. That's something she can mitigate.

If he's unhappy on that table, if he's worried about the other kids behaviour, or about why he's on the table, or about his own performance, that's something you can ask about. And if you think he's not doing well you can ask what help he's getting.

And honestly, the teacher will know that you care about your child's education just because you are talking to her. Parents who don't care don't bother.