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?

But I’m not clearly how you’re working for him to work “against” you?

How do you mean?

Well aside from “raging” (yeah yeah, we know… a typo), what is your approach?

It's going to be working with her after school. To try to help her catch up.

Doesn’t matter as long as you do

and by the look of it, until suggested on this thread, you weren’t planning on doing it either

Planning on doing what?

I wouldn’t worry too much, it’s a sign of a good school that they are putting interventions into place early on. It may be something as simple as being a little bit rusty on the first day back. I would arrange to talk to the class teacher to clarify the situation, communication is key and I expect that he/she would be delighted to signpost you to maths resources if you wanted your DD to do more maths homework.
As a TA I would often support small groups in maths work, the teacher generally provides a whole class input and work is set by them. TAs generally then support by keeping pupils on task/providing concrete or pictorial resources to scaffold understanding.

I'm not sure what screen time has to do with this or how you can enforce something like that at her Dad's when it's a decision you've made without his input. It's likely to feel like a punishment for your daughter too, which will not improve her attitude to maths.

There's a lot of screen apps/TV for maths nowadays which could help rather than hinder. Times Tables Rock stars, Hit the Button and Adaptive Mind are a few options for maths play.

Schools are legally obliged to report to you on whether your child is meeting age related expectations. If that's not on the report, you need to ask and remind them it's a legal requirement.

What you absolutely should not do is make your daughter feel like she's in anyway in trouble or force extra maths on her unless she's happy to do it. If she internalises the idea she's "bad at maths" and "hates maths" now, you're setting her up for a lifetime fear of numbers.

FWIW my SD was "behind" in maths throughout primary school and just got an 8 in Statistics in Y10, predicted 8/9 for both maths and further maths in Y11.

Oh no, I'm not punishing her. I haven't mentioned the maths to her or spoken about it in front of her at all. She has too much screen time in my opinion so reducing it can only be a good thing.

Setting a rule and expecting both houses to enforce it without any discussion or agreement never goes well in my experience- especially an arbitrary rule like that. But that's your choice, as long as your daughter doesn't link it with the maths sessions.

Out of interest, what's your relationship with maths like?

She doesn't stay at his house. He takes her out on the weekend and does the school run on a weds.

I was really good at maths in school.

It was the mixed classes that they said wasn't to do with ability not the maths.

The ability comments are not related to the maths. They are related to the mixed classes that OP questioned.

Good lord op

sitting down with her regularly and doing something school work at home

I would imagine it will be activities developing times-tables and word problems skills with games etc. Not a criticism of her ability, as you seem to have taken it, but consolidation to enable her to progress in class. If you engage and ask you can better support her.

You don't know what I do with her or not. Like I said, I would have worked on maths over the holidays had I known there was an issue.

Gosh, what an overreaction. It often dosen't become apparent until the start of a new school year that there is a need for support. It may be that she has lost some skills over the summer holiday or the move to year 3 has highlighted a few gaps in her learning as they move on to more difficult work. To be furious is the complete opposite reaction to what you should have. Your child is in a school where the have picked up on this and are putting measures in place to help. To be furious is bizarre.

Well what I do know is that you didn’t do anything over the 6 weeks holidays.

So a reasonable assumption surely that you don’t do anything maths with her post school.

and for the 100th, she wasn’t behind LAST TERM

On day one they do lots of little tests to gauge the child’s current level. And clearly not having done anything over summer perhaps was evident compared with others that had regularly done, let’s say 15 mins 3x a week.

So give her a few weeks and if ability isn’t an issue, she’ll be out of the godforsaken! Group.
if you want to expedite the process, sit down with her a couple of times a week and once at. Weekend

Hmm well a lot of people would argue that processing speed is an important aspect of ability and intelligence, otherwise tests and exams would not be time limited

A lot of people would be incorrect then, which is why there is such a thing as extra time in exams.

Pause
Think about it
Slowly

I'm assuming it's vertical grouping, where the children stay with the same teacher for two years. This is how I used to teach, and I loved it. The first year, the yr4 children help yr3 settle in. The following year, they are confident and settled and help the new yr3. Transitioning to a new year is easier, and the teacher gets to know the children better, With a wider age range, children who need support or who need extra challenges can be catered for. The two parallel classes probably work together, making for a more interesting and rewarding experience.

Children move in and out of needing support, and the nature of the support varies. If your child needs a different approach now, that may change later. It doesn't mean that they are less able, just that extra support will help them now.

Extra time is to compensate for specific disabilities which slow students down though, for a range of reasons including processing speed.

Exams like the 11+ are designed especially to test speed and accuracy as part of suitability for Grammar stream.

There are different factors which affect academic potential and a child who is highly skilled in other areas might be able to compensate for a slow processing speed, but being able to take information and process it quickly is definitely one factor.

A child with slow speed of information processing would get extra time for a grammar school exam