Year 7 (who is very good at maths) has been put in the bottom sets.

[ReevesJeeves]

My DD has always been very good at Maths. In Year 6, she achieved Greater Depth in her Maths SATS (achieving 115/120). Since joining Year 7, she has been in a mixed ability Maths Set. In the work that has been sent home from Secondary and that is set on Sparx, she is getting 80% - 90% correct, independently.

We have just had a letter home today, advising that Maths will be set after half term, and my DD will be in Set 5 of 6! The letter also explains that she has been assessed as finding Maths challenging and not to worry about sets, every child will be assisted individually. AIBU to think the school doesn’t know my DD at all, and to send an email querying how they came to this decision? I fail to see how she can now be finding maths challenging and in Set 5 of 6, having achieved 115/120 in her SATS only months ago. Maths has always been a subject she has excelled in, right down to her KS1 Times Tables test where she scored 100%. BTW this is not a selective school or grammar, it’s mainstream state, so it’s not as though the department will be awash with Maths geniuses (in the least offensive way). I also don’t want to appear as a trouble maker or someone the school will be fed up with, but I think this needs to be questioned to find out what has gone wrong so to speak.

My husband thinks I shouldn’t say anything as the school will just think I’m a neurotic mum, I disagree and I think it needs to be dealt with and questions asked pronto - something has clearly gone drastically wrong either with the teachers assessment of DD or in the way DD is presenting herself in class?!

Sorry OP that must be a real shock given the circusmtances. Something similar happened to my DD. They put her in set 4 out of 6 (in Year 7) and I was really shocked as she'd always been very capable at Maths. It turned out it was a technical/admin error and eventually she was moved up to set 2 and then to set 1 a few weeks after that. I would definately speak to the school...and even if you don't (I didn't), they will soon realise that she has been placed in the wrong set and will re-allocate her themsleves. Good luck :)

I'd ask how their sets run. 6 could be top set?

yes absolutely contact school! Her teacher is obviously missing a trick. Kids with 115 plus at my kids school were in set 1. Push this!!!

Retired teacher here (not Maths): as a parent I would certainly contact the school, starting with the maths teacher (or Maths Head of Department) - not to complain (at least not to start with!), but to ask what evidence suggests she finds Maths "challenging" given her KS2 results. If a polite enquiry leads to the school responding badly then you will, at least, know what the school is really like! But in (most) of the schools I world din such an enquiry would be absolutely fine - and not unique.

There is no way on gods earth that 5/6 of children in a state school (or any school) got 115plus in SATs. Just impossible statistically. So she’s either had a wobble (in which case she is still able and needs to be with people her own ability) or they got this wrong. Either way she is most certainly in the wrong set if 1 is most able.

These days the bottom sets do Foundation maths at GCSE so they would just not be taught the more difficult material.
At DC school, only sets 1 and 2 get taught the 7-9 content, so after Year 9 it's impossible to catch up.

OP, I see you have queried it, I think that was best. They can't always move people immediately because sets can be full, so I would get my foot in early and hope for the best.

I was the opposite to this. My son scored 97 in his SATs for Maths, when they then placed in sets, he is in one of the top 2 sets 6 months into year 7 but he sometimes he finds sparx difficult. But yet, he is now excelling still in year 8. There must be some observation of struggling in some areas even if not all and it will soon rectify itself. I would simply ask the teachers what can be done to improve and move back up

Really? Wow! I never realised this. Is this true at a lot of schools? Don't they have to teach the whole spec which includes all elements? For higher surely they have to teach the actual spec which includes 7-9 by default?

Just ask them. It's perfectly reasonable. Not sure what 5/6 means. Is 6 most able? So she's in second?

Absolutely not.
Because maths builds there is no point teaching grade 9 stuff to pupils struggling with grade 6 content.
Maths is a bit of an outlier for this, though I guess MFL may have some aspects of this @Clary ?

Whether you think they're easy or not is irrelevant. They quickly compare all children in England against a standard. There is not a chance a child with 115 is going to be one of the weakest mathematicians in a comprehensive - most of the bottom set wouldn't even have reached expected standard (100).

Absolutely say something. Likely a mistake..that needs sorting quickly.

This is hardly the point but there is no 'greater depth' in Maths - a scaled score of over 110 is called the 'higher standard'. Only 27% of pupils achieved this in 2026. It's vanishingly unlikely that the top four sets entirely comprise children from the 27% in a genuinely comprehensive intake.

My money is on an admin error. Does she have a common name, @ReevesJeeves?

I can't speak for all schools but at DC bog standard comp, I had a set 1 DC who was taught the whole spec and then a set 3 DC who sat the Higher paper but was only taught content to a 6/7.

This didn't start in Y7 obviously but the groundwork and pace was laid pretty early on.

Also, on Sparx, it's a few years ago now but ours was set to the level of the student, so they should be scoring 80-100% (in fact, at DC school, they had to score 100%). For less able kids, the questions were just easier. I hope Sparx is a bit better now.

Thanks. I never knew this. My kids are all so different and all go to different schools I'd never would have thought to check this.

I had assumed if they were sitting Higher, they were taught every element of the higher paper- IE to arm them to get a 9. Even if 'not capable ' they would still be actually taught the content, and then ability would determine what they end up with.

I didn't realise they may not be taught it in the first place.

Yup and mine all go to bog standard comps.

And Sparx is still woeful.

Definitely raise it with the teacher. They do make genuine mistakes.

My mum was reluctant to get involved as Dad didn’t like to question anything the teachers said, but she got me moved back to O level English from CSE back around late 70’s. I think the male teacher didn’t like me as I’m clearly autistic (obviously unheard of back then) and questioned everything which never goes down well with some teachers. I ended up getting an A, unsurprising really given all my other subject results. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Book appointment with school asap. This happened to my son. He achieved Level 5 in English at end of KS2 but in Year 8 was put in 4th stream out of 7. Went into school and saw Head of Year. They claimed at first he hadn’t done well in end of year exams but when we got results, he clearly had. He was moved to 2nd stream (should really have been in 1st stream!) Turns out there was a child with very similar name and the 2 boys had been mixed up. School never apologised.

Definitely query. My greater depth child’s school did sets in Y7 (top) and then experimented with mixed ability in Y8, and there was no recovery. Battle from that day on with them. Different scenario, but the point is still the same-absolutely do not let it go, and if you end up ‘that mum’; well someone has to be.

Yes you should query it with head of maths, she could end up doing foundation maths if it's not sorted quickly

Good at times tables and arithmetic does not equal good at maths, although those skills are necessary for maths. You say she gets 80 to 90% of her homework correct but you may not be aware at what level the homework is set i.e. you can be top of set 5 and not very good at maths. Nevertheless, I'd check with the school. If they turn out to be wrong they will notice, too.

It is utterly futile to teach someone something knowing they don't have the prerequisite skills. You can't teach short multiplication if a child has no understanding of times tables, for example, even if it is on the curriculum. You could stand at the front and explain it, but you would be as well teaching PhD standard maths for all it matters and they would not be able to attempt a single question independently. A teacher will know what level their pupils are at. They won't be denying them information unnecessarily.

The most likely explanation is a technical glitch.

In order to allocate to classes, it's necessary to

1a. Export an allocations file, put Ts in the column (for true), save the file, upload the file, remember to set it to overwrite existing class memberships from the effective date and run the update class memberships routine. Whoever is either copying from a spreadsheet - which can have typos or errors - or putting Ts in the columns direct can make an error. Or they could have a really helpful email or five with Jess A, Jessica A, JezA, JesikaAA and Ajess featuring in those emails.

OR

1b. Manually click each kid's group box in the curriculum management module whilst flipping between spreadsheets/emails, save and run update class memberships.

This is assuming that there hasn't been a new timetable that needs to be applied first, as that adds a whole new level of complication and opportunity for things to go wrong.

2a. Then there will be a flurry of emails where people are asking that JessA and JerramyB aren't in the same classes as there has been a few problems, that JamieC and Jolene are moved to class 3 because that's got a TA in there, JackR has broken his leg in six places so needs to be in the class that isn't up five flights of stairs, the Maths class determines the science and tech ones and although a standard class can accommodate 33, the tech block can only fit in 25 so a whole bunch need to be moved. And now JuneF's mum has found out that she's in a class with AprilG, she now needs to be shifted across bands in order to ensure that they never meet in a classroom environment at any point following some very unpleasant events over the summer holiday between her, June's Dad and April's Auntie.

2b. There are a bunch of leavers and joiners around the end of September who have also needed to find the KS2 data for and put in for CAT4s. This means another go around of the updating.

2c. The roof in one of the Maths classrooms is leaking. The intended 6 classes has therefore shrunk into 5 and at the same time, it's been decided that actually, one of those classes needs to be a bit smaller than the others so the allocations need to be done again.

There are many pinch points where something can go wrong completely aside from it being a deliberate decision of staff or down to a kid deciding they don't want to stand out, not speaking up when taking online CAT4s and the screen has frozen on the quantitative reasoning set or behaving in a way that means their assessment scores are significantly lower than their actual ability.

In short, there is absolutely no harm at all in checking and it may have absolutely nothing to do with inadequate assessment and everything to do with it being a seemingly simple but technically complex process to create a new timetable. I prefer having a moveable structure in place from the outset to minimise the opportunities for problems, but sometimes you just have to deal with what you've been given.

This happens all the time. I don't disagree with setting but I do disagree with not teaching every set the entire syllabus for the higher paper. Everyone should have the chance to do well on the day, not have their results stymied in this way.

Query it. She may be a quiet student, meaning she gets overlooked, or there's just been some mistake that means they've got this incorrect. This happened to me, both being moved down in Maths so the max you could get was a C, plus wasn't put forward to do an additional GCSE that lots of other pupils who the teachers knew because they were more forward were offered. Got A's across the board, except for the Maths, which still irritates me now, all these years later. Friends who were put forward for the additional GCSE got D's, E's and U's in all/most subjects, I remember I felt so cheated and just invisible. Wondered why they hadn't thought I was good enough, despite previous excellent test results. Sometimes schools just get it wrong. My parents didn't have a clue and wouldn't have been interested if they had. Query it, who cares what the school thinks. Squeaky hinge gets the oil is my experience.

As somebody who works in Y6, the difference in mathematical understanding between a child who achieves greater depth and one that I would expect to end up in the second to bottom set, is quite significant. Even if she went to a school that taught to the test and performed slightly above her natural ability in SATS, there's no way you can bump it that much. We have children that even if we spent all year just practising maths SATs questions with them, they still would not achieve GD.
I wouldn't necessarily expect someone who got 115 to be in the top set, as plenty of children across the year group will have got 119-120, but I would probably expect set 2 depending on the cohort.