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?!

I would not let this go ... your husband is wrong

Maths is too important and she will likely be surrounded by kids who may well not give a toss about how they do.

We must advocate for our kids, if you don't she will move up one set at a time and others will race ahead and it will be hard to find her level. If she's gone from greater depth to set 5 in 2 months and she's not in grammar school then it's either an admin cock up or the school are absolutely failing her. Fight this.

Just email them. After all they’ve messaged you. Message them back. I’d expect 115:120 to be too set.

This. It’s a perfectly even toned and reasonable email to send. Exactly what I’d do in the same situation.

I’d 100% say something. My son is good at maths and there’s no way I’d just sit there if he was put in a bottom set, it would be a total waste of his time.

Your husband is weird. Of course you should email (in a polite way). Must be a mistake.

I had this exact situation with one of my children where they were put in the bottom set for Maths. My child was devastated to be put into this set.

i queried it with school via email, citing confusion over set given their SATS results and then school’s own assessment results. School rang to apologise. They doubled checked results following my email, and realiase there was an administration error in the set my child was placed in.

My child was placed back into correct set for their ability. If I had not complained, not convinced it would have been picked up on within a reasonable timeframe.

ignore your DH, email school and query setting. You have nothing to lose by asking. You won’t be the only one asking either if it was anything like our experience.

You have to advocate for your child as no one else will.

Many state schools make pupils sit exams once they start year 7 to determine which sets they are placed in. It sounds as though this may have been the case at your DD’s school.

Ask if this was the case and how she scored.

I think this is what happened, DD says the teacher says she did well. If it turns out she did badly, I’d still query it based on one test, they aren’t looking at the whole picture.

No they won’t. They will just look at those ‘entrance’ test results.

Always query as a parent - you are your child’s biggest advocate!

Yes, speak up for your child. The decision doesn't make sense and mistakes can happen.

Definitely query it. If she is in the wrong set then the work in set 5 will be too slow. She may get bored and not progress. If they insist that she is in the correct set then I would call a meeting with them to find out exactly what has gone wrong since joining the school as prior to this school she was high achieving and confident at maths.

The teachers will not think anything less of you for asking.

I think you sound a perfectly reasonable person with a perfectly reasonable question. I think your husband is being a bit silly. Go ahead and ask.

My mum always said - if you don’t stand up for your kid, no-one else will.
No need to be aggressive, but take it up.

Agree this sounds odd. My DS had similar marks and I expected him to be put in set 1 or 2, he was. There is huge variety in maths ability at this age which is why most schools have sets. The lower ones will still be doing times tables and primary level stuff, that is definitely not appropriate for a child with high SATS scores. Just ask the question, it could be purely admin or you received the wrong email.

I think making contact is a good idea. It could be a simple error eg. data inputted incorrectly ?. I'd point out that u concerned re this set as she gained high score in SATS too snd gets high percentages in hwk tasks. .

I would not read too much into the SATs results as I was told primary schools inflate them and even sometimes teachers are instructed by head to give answers to the pupils. I was told by the secondary school that is why they do their own assessments in the autumn term before splitting into set groups.

I would definitely contact the school. If your DD has been put in the lower set by mistake, it could set her back quite a bit in terms of the syllabus. Certainly in my DCs’ school they only moved pupils between sets in half term and holidays, so once they were in a set, they were stuck there for a while.

DS2 moved between sets 1 and 3, and the biggest difference he noticed between the sets was not just the difficulty of the lesson content, it was how much the other kids messed around. The lower sets generally had more kids who were disruptive, making it even harder for the well behaved kids who struggled with maths. You don’t want your DD stuck in a class till Christmas doing maths that’s way below her ability while the teacher focuses on crowd control. She may as well not go to lessons at all!

Oops duplicate post - deleted

Absolutely not true- yes we revise and practise, but the tests are sat under test conditions and send off to external markers, there is no way we can “overinflate” the results.

any school giving the answers runs the risk of maladministration, we have spot checks from the local authority to ensure they are run in the way they should be and that the papers are held securely and not opened before the time of the test.

I’d 100% message the school. It’s not being a busy body at all.

Definitely raise it. I was accidentally placed in a lower set for gcse science. Spent most of my time almost tutoring the rest of my table- managed to get double a despite not covering all of the curriculum as we had to go over things many times for many of the class to grasp them. Went on to do bio and chem a levels and master of chemistry before dentistry at uni. Only right at the end of 5th form at parents evening was it raised. That myself and another girl had accidentally been placed in the wrong set. Was hugely frustrating.

I would just ask in a non confrontational way. 'Hi [teacher], just wanted to follow up on the letter re DD being in set 5. DD scored X in her recent SATS and has told me in her recent test she scored X. I wondered if there may have been a mix up - I appreciate there are a lot of kids to juggle so these things do happen. If this is right, can you please confirm what scores she has received that have caused her to be placed in this set, as for me such a sudden drop in maths performance would be a concern given her interest and previous aptitude in it, so I would like to work with her to support her.'

Probably a mix up.