Confused by call from school

[scorpiogirly]

So my daughter who is 7 just went back today in year 3.

I get a call half an hour before I'm due to collect her to ask me if it is okay if the teacher who helps out takes my dd in the mornings in a group of about 10 to do maths. Apparently not that she's going to be taught anything different, just taught slower. What the hell does this mean? It's her first day back and they have never said anything like this before and she has always seemed fine with maths.

They also always tend to have mixed classes. When I questioned it, apparently it is nothing to do with ability. But strangely, they have split two year 3 classes and 2 year 4 classes and mixed them together. Whats the point of that?

Well I would have thought her ability in maths would have appeared sub par a mere 6 weeks ago.

I would want a conversation with the teacher. This isn’t because I necessarily disagree but I’d be baffled how they made this assessment in one day. If it was a week or two in I’d just go with it but there feels like a miscommunication and I’d want a more detailed understanding.

There’s so much more than ability- processing speed, style of teaching, repetition needed, easily distracted etc.

Whatever it is, it’s to help her.

But if the first you’d heard of it was 6 weeks ago, would you have been less cross?
Who are you annoyed at? The teacher who has noticed an issue now and implemented something to help, or the teacher who apparently didn’t notice an issue last year?

It’s good the school are offering support. They likely had discussions at the end of year 2 and identified students who would benefit from extra support.
it might not be to do with ability, it could be slower processing of information.

I'm not even cross. If she needs the help and they can offer it then great. But her reports and parents evenings along with feedback has been fine and nothing has been mentioned.

You said in your OP that you’re raging about it.
The best thing to do is to arrange a time to go in and speak to the teacher, and figure out what’s going on. There might be ways you can support at home too.

Perhaps spend a minute rereading your own op

Parents’ evening and reports should never be the first time you hear or something, especially negative.

I really didn't.

This is what I mean. No mention of it before but there is after 1 day.

My son is one of these children he's in 2nd class & his resource teacher is amazing,& it has helped him so much. It is suspected he is dyslexic so hopefully will be tested this year. He is a real visual learner & remembers facts really well but he does need that little bit of extra help & honestly I'm so grateful he gets it

Why?

Apologies, it was your second post. No difference really though, you still said you were raging.

I'm raging about it

This happened years and years ago with my DD.

I was a bit bewildered but let it play out.

I was bewildered because I had watched her use Scratch on Kahn academy and after basically aged 8 come up with algebraic functions to write code to make a ball travel in various linear directions and also her party piece was factors and multiplying very big numbers in her head.

It actually turned out she was and is extremely mathematical, top grades in school, Engineering in Uni but she had difficulty with the way questions were worded at that age due to what turned out to be dyslexia so taking it slower set her up extremely well until she got very bored and they moved her up again.

Oh crikey. I just read that! That was a typo. Confused or baffled was meant to be there. Definitely not raging 😅

That's reassuring. Obviously I'm worried now that something is wrong but like I said, I've had nothing mentioned and haven't noticed anything. We even do maths in the car whilst driving.

I wouldn't think twice about it, there's nothing wrong with your DD getting a bit of extra support. You do sound offended by it, don't be, it's not a slight on you or your child.

If I had known we could have worked on it over the holidays.

many will have done

so it’s just trying to get everyone on more of an even keel

My daughter is the same - it's a symptom of her dyslexia, according the the ed psych. She is also a very bright girl who scored extremely highly in other areas - but her processing speed was in the bottom 5%. She too was given additional maths support in primary. I, too, freaked out about it because it is wasn't explained to me very well. (And she is now doing very well in an academically selective secondary school - but maths remains an area of relative weakness. She gets by in it though - her dad and I may seek extra Maths tuition for her before GCSE if necessary, but hoping it will not be).

Don't worry OP, your response is natural. None of us actively want our kids to be struggling in a subject, and if they are we would of course like this to be properly explained to us.

But on balance, as others have said, it's probably a good thing she is getting this help.

Maybe request a phonecall with the form tutor, so you can get an overall picture of how she is doing in all subjects, what you can do to help etc.

Her previous teacher would've identified a group of children who woukd benefit from this type of intervention. They would have communicated this with the Y3 teacher at the end of last term I imagine. It should have been her Y2 teacher that suggested it to you at end of year parents evening or in her report so you and your daughter would've been both prepared.
At the start of term teachers are expected to produce action plans identifying intervention groups using recommendations from the class's previous teacher.

I can think of a few reasons why there was nothing mentioned earlier. Your DD was probably doing 'fine' but at the start of the new year they find they have some extra resource they weren't expecting and thought these few children might just get a boost from some time in a smaller group with more personal attention. It doesn't mean there's an issue or that she is struggling with maths, just that a smaller group setting can help some children build confidence and ask questions. I know my DD for example at that age would wait for ages to put her hand up and ask something and then everybody else had moved on, so this kind of thing was great for her. It was very little to do with maths ability.

There doesn't always need to be a slow burn of from a tiny challenge to a bigger problem before an intervention is considered (and then people would complain that nothing was being done for weeks and there was now a lot to catch up on), it's more likely to be 'oh look we have a few hours of this person's time, let's see if this group might benefit in a smaller setting'.

I think op meant the mixed age classes weren’t split by ability, not the intervention class?

I wouldn't be overly worried. Maths has always been my weakest subject. But that's because I'm arty & creative. We can't all be the same! You never know your DD may catch up when she is abit older. She is still only very young.

I think there are some studies which show that children taught by TAs make less progress than those taught by teachers. I would get her some support at home - there are good online programmes as well as workbooks you can do (I always like CGP).