To ask the school to stretch my DD

[PaxAeterna]

Is this something schools do?

My DD is doing very well at school, is one of the top performers I’m told. The problem is that she is starting to find school very repetitive and boring. She has constantly complained this year that everything is explained over and over again and that she has grasped a concept and is ready to move on. I had paid little heed to this to be honest but now with the end of year report stating that she is a top performer, is it unreasonable to ask the school, next year, to stretch her with harder work basically or accommodate her in some way so that she doesn’t continue to find the academic end of things dull and repetitive?

How old is she? They will likely start setting some stretch tasks for the class so whenever a child has done the normal work there's something extra to do

Schools are expected to stretch high attainers of course. You say the school said she was a top performer, what did they actually say as those are words I wouldn't expect from a teacher without more specific explanation really? I would also expect them to still have targets for her. What year is your DD and is it a specific subject she is doing especially well at?

I really struggled with that with my DCs school. I think it came down to the fact the teachers just don't have time (not their fault at all) but are pulled in so many directions. In the end a friend suggested Twinkl, so we do stuff on there at home together now. Will probably look into a tutor too in a few years.

At our school there are usually a range of tasks for different abilities:high and low.
At the end of the day the teacher has lots of pupils to try and help. Your daughter does need to learn resilience and not be complaining about being bored, a gifted child should hopefully be able to edit and improve her own work or extend her own writing or maths during a lesson.

I'd ask what the school is doing to challenge her rather than just assuming they don't.

I have a child in class who is a 'top performer' (but that's relative to the rest of my class. He's still not GD. But he's closer to it than the others).

But both he and his parents expect me to be giving him work that is 'harder'. That's not how it's done nowadays. They should be deepening her understanding though.

We could have done with knowing her age really OP.

You could mention but not sure how well received it would be, a teacher has a class full of pupils, they aren’t a personal tutor for your child nor do they have time to take on that role.

Can't she just skip a year? Because teachers will focus on getting all students to point D so if she's already at point F they won't make any efforts in streching her further.

This is generally considered a very bad idea. It causes all sorts of issues down the line when you are not in the correct age group.

Yes they said top performer. We don’t live in the uk and the comment was based on her standardised test scores and her performance this year. She is doing well across the board but her standardised tests are in English and Maths.

She is primary and will do her last year next year.

It depends. The OPs child is bored because it's too easy for her. When that's the case skipping a year can be what's needed.

One of the bits that my DDs have found repetitive is the initial teacher input in maths each lesson. That's partly because they seem to have some sort of teacher input on the same topic repeatedly when they do a topic for days in a row, but also because of the spiral curriculum. They might look at place value to 100 one year, then the next year place value to 1000 and 10000. To a child who actually gets the concept of place value, doing it again, year after year, is really dull and they don't perceive it as something new. Both of my DDs have been excused from listening to that teacher input, except when it is actually something new. So they've got on with their work.

One year DD1 was given a folder of other maths to do when she finished her classwork. It had things like nrich puzzles. That was great, but I couldn't get anything like that from subsequent teachers.

DD2 moved to a private school for year 5 and her maths teacher plans for her separately - so he plans that she does the same work as the other high performers some of the time and then has her own work some of the time. I doubt you'll get that in a state school as the concept of mastery means they avoid teaching beyond that year's curriculum and are too busy trying to sort out the weaker students to be able to adequately challenge the most able.

Thanks @OldChinaJug i’ll ask if they challenge her. That is good language to use.

I completely understand that teachers have multiple students and are not personal tutors ect… but at the same time I’d like to advocate for her if that’s possible.

@Mayflyoff

Thanks for that. Yes that seems to be it. She grasped concepts very quickly

There's a real issue at the moment, especially with maths, that its become completely taboo to allow children to cover any content ahead.

They call this "mastery" and claim its about deepening understanding by covering the same basic stuff from every angle and in more problem solving style ways. However, the primary curriculum is driven by arithmetic and for a child who is very able in this area, there are only so many ways you can cover division & multiplication, all of which they will find easy. There is essentially very little differentiation as the emphasis is on "keep up not catch up" which requires that you do not allow your more able learners to open up an ever widening gap betweem them & those struggling.

It is a noble and well meant intention from the perspective of the cohort as a whole but it limits the learning opportunity available to some.

What are your plans for secondary school? Another year being bored at primary school isn't ideal, years and years of boredom at secondary would be really bad.

I hadn’t even thought about it in that light. I’ll have to consider it.

We have the same problem. Both kids say they are bored in class, maths is easy etc. They're always sat next to the naughtier kids, in the hope they'll be a good influence. In practice, the naughty kids just disrupt them.

I honestly think though, that teachers are just too stretched to do anything about it. Hopefully secondary school will be better. When looking round, one of DDs questions was when they stream for maths, she wants to be with people of the same ability.

The curriculum really isn’t driven by arithmetic. I have some very able children in arithmetic who find reasoning and problem solving very hard indeed. The standardised tests we do during the interim years (I’m in year 4) were weighted at 50 marks for arithmetic and 70 marks for reasoning. Even a talented child can struggle with depth.
it sounds like the OPs child could do with more challenge though. I would recommend maths puzzles from nrich, open ended problem solving such as ‘how many ways can you …’ etc

Just get her to dangle off the top of the door frame, should work a treat

Have you seen her work and whether or not she has been challenged already? Challenge activities are always given on worksheets at my children's school but the expectation would differ with it not being expected that all children will reach it.
Kids are likely to say they are bored and done all the work, but actually they need to remember core skills hence some things being repeated more than others, and children needing to complete the work to prove they can do it.

Questions to ask school:

• what opportunities are you providing for her to
• make progress
• demonstrate the full extent of her knowledge and understanding
• be exposed to new concepts that allow her to learn

How are you ensuring that she has the opportunity to achieve her full potential

Ive seen the challenge sheets provided at my DC school. They are barely any harder than the main content and cover the same concepts. In year 3 & 4 there is often a drilling of times tables with little/no provision for the 3 or 4 mathematically able kids who can already do them at lightning speed.

The best response i ever got was when i sadly asked a teacher if she would be happy with the challenge on offer if it was her own child.

Even a talented child can struggle with depth.
Oh certainly but lots of very able children do not struggle with depth, and refusing to allow them to move on to more difficult concepts they are ready for limits their progression.

I'm going to go against the grain here I think. Let your daughter be a child. Unless she's some sort of next level genius any differences in ability will likely level out over time.

My DD is in P3 and is a bit bored of school but she's happy and that's much more important.

I was a very high achiever academically at school but socially and emotionally life was and continues to be very difficult.

Socially and emotionally my daughter is completely different to me and I count that as a real blessing. I know she will do well but I've no interest in trying to push her too far beyond her peer group.