To ask DDs teacher for more work for her?

[MissDollyMix]

DD is in year 6 (standard state school, class of 32) - so less than a term left at primary school. She has her SATs coming up in the next few weeks so I guess everyone is very busy getting the whole cohort ready for that. We have parents evening tonight and DD has repeatedly asked me to tell her teacher that she is bored in class and that she doesn’t think the work is stimulating or interesting enough and she wants more challenging work. As a bit of background to this I think DD is probably quite bright- she has been scoring 114/5 in her practice SAT papers and was recently offered an academic scholarship to the local girls private school (she won’t be going but that’s another story) Historically the teacher has been sitting her with less able/challenging pupils and she has been helping them with their work which I’m ok about because it’s a nice thing for her to do and helps her with her people skills. So would I be unreasonable to pass on her message about being bored/unchallenged to her teacher? I feel bad saying it because I’m sure her teacher is already working flat out getting everything ready for SATs and also I don’t want to seem like I’m being critical of the teacher (who I might add is also a parent in my other DCs year so I’m really cautious about offending her!) I also think if DD was really bored and unchallenged wouldn’t it have already been picked up? Maybe I’m over thinking this? - 20 years after I left school and I still get nervous around teachers! Many thanks for reading- all thoughts appreciated. I don’t like to mention it to any RL friends.

Many kids get bored doing sats practice.

The amount of repetition needed to really make sure they do as well as possible is very high and they are unlikely to have learnt much new stuff recently.

You can mention it but the teacher will be in a well practiced routine for the last few weeks before sats and is unlikely to change what she or he is doing.

After sats you will probably find it all changes and they do lots of art and or etc etc.

I honestly can't see the point at this stage of asking for extra work. The time to do this was probably a couple of years ago. But you could mention that your daughter is finding the SATs prep a bit dull (this is probably why she is bored and unchallenged - because they are almost certainly going over basics to help those who find them harder in the hope that this will help them do better in their tests). The teacher will probably be able to reassure you about the more interesting stuff they will probably be doing after SATs are over.

Chances are it's revision and if she knows it then she might get a bit bored.

Unfortunately this is the school system we currently have and schools/teachers are under pressure to get results in these one-off tests or else face intense scrutiny.

This is a boring time of year
Once SATs are over next month then there will probably lots of interesting things to do so I would tell your dad to hang in there.

You would be asking the teacher to do extra work planning just for your child when they already have more than enough to do. YABVU.

Organise a tutor for her to come up with some work to stretch her. A teacher looks after 30-odd kids, they don’t have time to be coming up with individual plans for each one

Why is it so unreasonable that a child is given work appropriate to their level? Why should a child not be stretched? Just because the child is intelligent doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be taught at a level appropriate to their ability.

Just look online.
Or buy some books.

She did have a tutor for a while for exactly this reason but we had to drop her because of the escalating costs.

Create opportunities for learning at home, get her interested in a project or something like creating fact files about another country/animals etc.

Encourage her to read, research a topic she's interested in, have her bake from scratch or grow vegetables.

I wouldn't ask the teacher for extra work, there's unlikely to be any real benefit in this for her in terms of expanding her learning.

Lovely ideas- although unfortunately DH and I both work full time so spare time with DC is limited. DD has a lot of hobbies that she does in her spare time- mostly sports. She’s also pretty much in the middle of puberty - with an attitude to match 😬

You could ask the teacher to give her the last few sats questions etc etc.

There might be revision material aimed at her level?

(Sorry - I used to teach secondary and we'd have very different revision material for each ability level).

Failing that the old level 6 papers?

www.twinkl.co.uk/teaching-wiki/level-6-sats#:~:text=What%20are%20Level%206%20SATs,excelled%20in%20maths%20or%20English.

Set her loose on your local charity bookshelves with £15 and let her select anything she fancies reading.

There's no advantage in trying to get an exceptionally high level in SATs. If the child is bored she should read library books.

@MissDollyMix it sounds like she has a really varied and balanced school/life balance then and I'd be inclined to just keep encouraging her as she is. There's very little evidence to support the idea that extra school work or homework increases academic attainment. If she's flourishing and otherwise happy I'd let her be, it's not as though she's GCSE year.

Extra work is a punishment for finishing early and easily. What you want is differentiated work that is set to your child’s level.

if they are doing a specific prep at the moment, that may not be feasible. So I would ask that she not be made to sit doing nothing if she finishes quickly. One good option is that she be allowed to read a book that is at her actual reading level if she finishes her work before the other students.

I am a retired teacher. My first suggestion would be to give her challenging reading material; novels, short stories. Your local library would help.

Sorry to ask but why won’t she be going to the school she’s been offered a scholarship for? Surely that would be the best way of stretching her?

Maybe set her a fact finding project to create a book for the times she's bored

Pick a science subject or whatever interests and stretches her

Surely they have a library she can access there

My DS in yr 6 was lucky because his teacher did give him extra work to do and worksheets with more difficult work than the others esp maths but DS did find a gcse book on maths in their library which he liked to read and a physics book

He's about to do his A Levels and will be starting his Maths degree in Sept

The truly gifted will hunt out what they need and it seems your DD isn't actually quite ready to have the ability to do that otherwise she wouldn't be bored. They find ways to occupy themselves to feed their brains and not just sit around saying they're bored.

They're more proactive because they're bright

Money, I would imagine. No offence to you, OP! I may be wrong.

You’re spot on!!
also, we are really lucky that our local comp is excellent and very good at pushing academically able kids (if that is what she is!)

Such a MN comment

Clearly there are reasons

Poor teacher also works full time, but you want them to find the time to issue, mark and feedback extra work for your child.

The state provides a reasonable level of education for all children, anything extra needs to be paid for (which you don’t want to do) or organised by the parents (which you don’t want to do.

Sorry I don’t think this is for the poor teacher to pick up, could you imagine if every parent asked for this…and I am sure most want it- they are just to reasonable to ask

Preparing for tests and exams IS boring. Wait till she gets to GCSEs and A levels.

My dd was bored bored bored in y6, the SATS drilling was beyond ludicrous at her state primary. She told me she spent most of her time staring out of the window. Her teacher also had her helping the struggling kids, and sometimes she was allowed to read or draw when everyone else was working. There was no extension work for the more able students at this stage, the whole of year 6 until SATS was devoted to learning the oh-so-important content of the national curriculum for the examined subjects. It makes me so desperately sad as her teacher was fabulous, and she must have hated having to do this idiotic exam-focused syllabus.

DD got 118, 120 and 115 in her final SATS. She is now at a lovely state comp where she is not bored and is flourishing in maths and art (probably because she spent SO much time drawing during year 6!). Sadly I can’t get her to engage in reading now and I do think primary school basically killed English lang and lit for her, as the national curriculum made it so dull in year 5 and 6. A real shame as she was a wonderful reader as a young girl.

It did get a little bit better after SATS were over so I agree with pp that the summer term does pick up a bit.

I have said Yabu as honestly the poor teacher isn’t really in a position to do anything except sympathise. I expect the teacher hates it too!