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?

“Some of us”

i completely agree hence never saying “all”

No, but you implied in your initial post that it was somewhat negligent of the OP to have not done any work over the holidays.

Is this a primary or private school?

I only ask, because if a prep, it could be because of dwindling numbers. I appreciate they are mixing classes (because of ability they say), but in our neck of the woods, split classes were the answer to fewer pupils, which was the beginning of the end as then everyone started to jump ship.

No
I was pointing out that the child would have been having maths alongside a number of children who will have been recapping on their maths during the holiday, which may explain why the OP’s child had been taken aside with 9 others to ensure topics had been fully grasped before moving on to the next task

Your daughter could be Albert Einstein but if she's slow at her work or a bit of a dolly daydream then a small group is a very good thing. How are you raging about this. Calm down good grief. It's not day one, the teachers do handover meetings about the children, her old teacher obviously felt this would be beneficial.

You are raging for absolutely no good reason. Honestly, please just see how the next few weeks go. Support your daughter and her school.

My dc went to 2 different primary schools and they both mixed children within years 1 and 2 and years 3 and 4 depending on ability so a year 1 class, a year 1/2 class and a year 2 class with maths and English being taught according to ability. It caused no end of issues for dd1 and dd2 as they were often put in the same sets and dd2 did better!

I’d see this as a positive personally, they are recognising she needs extra help and acting rather than just ignoring it. I imagine if they let her fall behind you’d not be happy either, as I know I wouldn’t be

I can see OP's point of view perfectly. It's strange that on the first day back after the holidays someone has spotted that your child needs additional help. You are wondering why nobody noticed or mentioned this to you last year. It's possible that this group will change as the year progresses. Some children will be withdrawn from it while others will be added to it. I think it would be reasonable to make an appointment to speak to the class teacher making it clear that you appreciate the additional help but also asking any questions which you have. Best wishes to your daughter for the year ahead.

Just call and ask, to help you understand.

My son was ok at maths, then had intervention classes where they took a handful of kids out. I didn’t know anything about it, until he mentioned it’s what had been happening so I asked the question and was told it’s to provide additional support so he doesn’t tail off / stays at his expected level.

When we spoke to him, he just wasn’t interested in it🙈 I don’t blame him tbh, but I know he will need it and we help him at home, and try and make it as fun as possible.

Usually mixed classes are either to do with space or funding. They need classes to be full to 30 as otherwise you have a funding shortfall as you have to pay teachers for classes that aren’t full.

or there isn’t space in the building to have YR-6 as separate classes as you need 7 classroom

Go and speak to her teacher and ask … pointless asking a bunch of strangers on here to guess 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’m not reading through all the post so this might have already been said, so they will mix classes for various reasons. Maybe need to split up more challenging kids, classes will be similar the tables will be grouped in ability not the classes. They may have TA’s in some classes that are trained to do certain things medical so will put those kids together loads of reasons honestly lists endless.

speak to school and ask the teacher, it could be your child is just slower and needs to be speedier and that’s what they are working on, my daughter can read brilliantly but was slower than she needed be at one point, she struggles with spellings so I’m expecting her to possibly have some help there eventually.

Look at the Y2 report as by law there needs to be some indication of where your child is and whether they meet age related expectations ARE
I’m surprised the school rang you as they don’t need your permission. I sent kids out for targeted group work all the time if I had an adult available.

speak to the teacher to find out what the concerns are.

Thank goodness you did not know. Your DD was able to do what holidays are for - relax!!

But the OP has been told ? She was told today, assuming that’s the first day it’s starting from?

Composite classes are a way of keeping children of roughly the same age together. In a normal year,you have the possibility of the youngest being nearly a year younger than the oldest anyway, so even a single year class in Primary school is effectively a composite. In an official composite class, the younger pupils in the higher year are put with the older pupils in the lower year - that can make them much closer in age within the composite class. Schools do it so that class sizes are broadly the same, regardless of birthrate booms or busts.

What @scorpiogirly is describing sounds much more like setting for maths - which has been done in primary schools for at least 40 years. It sounds like they have decided to bring in another teacher/TA so that the groups are smaller. As there have been no messages from the school about DDs ability, they are probably setting by age.

One last thing - there are several levels of TA - many are qualified teachers themselves - and the highest level ones are both qualified and employed to take classes unsupervised, although the lesson plans may be checked by a teacher. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that children benefit greatly from setting, particularly in maths.

I had that all through primary school. They're called composite classes. Each group is taught at their appropriate level. If, like me, you worked at a higher level, then once you had done your set work you could try the higher level as well. At my school it was preschool+yr1, 2+3, 4+5, 6+7. It was a small school with around 100 children.

That's the piping though. They have only gone back today, there's no way she can have demonstrated any such thing & nothing was mentioned last school year.

@scorpiogirly it sounds most peculiar.

You really think that’s how intervention works? Slotting random kids in because there’s a free space? Confused

10 isn't exactly a personalised intervention, it's a bit of small group work. certainly feasible they start with the group size they can accommodate then pick the kids they think will most benefit.

Our experiences would suggest don't take anything primary schools do personally if there's a possibility it's just logistics.

Hopefully though we’ve at least stopped the op “raging” and charging in to the school like a bull in a china shop!

It's not to do with ability. It's to do with the child finding a particular area of maths-fractions, measurement etc trickier so the teacher is giving her an intervention to help. The pupil may find addition/subtraction/telling the time easier. Most schools don't even tell parents they're doing this-It's very common in schools and in my experience highly beneficial to the children. Also, composite classes are becoming more popular as pupil numbers are dwindling in certain year groups.

You are raging about your child getting extra help at school. Seriously? You should be delighted. People seem to rage as the strangest things nowadays.

This is what happened IMO

they couldn’t tell you in advance because hey might not be able to provide it and then they would be seen as lacking. I think this is why they gave you all the information about merging classes.

the Irish teacher above (can’t work out how to tag them) who said parents are fight for resource spots is dead right. The smaller the group the easier it is to learn for all children. In a small group you can make sure the core elements are understood before moving on to more complex work. In smaller groups kids can ask questions more easily… it is harder to switch off and day dream… they get a movement break getting to the resource class and back to the class room. So many benefits. Sorry if you said but I assume it is the same curriculum just smaller and slower?

I was mildly annoyed that our school never informed me my kid was in a similar maths group (found out via my kid telling me herself).
After reading this....I fully understand why school just did it and never told parent(s).😂