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?!

It may be something to do with the homework scores - my son's hw instructions say they have to get 100% on Sparks (I think you redo it if you initially get lower)

Sparks is tailored to the child though so my child is working at level 4 whilst some of her friends are level 2 (same class mixed ability), so you might want to find out what level she’s working at before you use her Sparks results as an example of how she is excelling.

For reference my child scored 115 in her SATS and will be in set 2 after half term (2/6). I would send an email marked for her maths teacher asking for more information and saying what you have here. I agree there will be some movement after half term but not 2 or 3 sets.

fight for her, I got moved out of the science top class and my gcse got capped at c. It was so frustrating as I was better than that! No one fought for me. I got almost full marks. Show her you believe in her above all else. Even if they don’t.

There is no way a child in a comp who got 115 in her SATs would normally be in a set 5/6 as a first setting. I'd expect those sets to be mainly comprised on children scoring 105 or less.

My DD had a similar problem and was put down a set in maths for no obvious reason, she was doing very well as far as I could see. I queried it and they put her back up I never did find out why she was put down.

That's mind-blowing! A teacher who confuses percentile score and ranking should be in the bottom set!

My niece was put in a 4/5 maths set purely cause she was misbehaving. She said is was carnage every lesson, just constant fights in class. No one learned anything. My sister got her tutoring and she got an A In Nat 5 in the end.

You need to do all you can to get her out of that class op.

Your sister paid for tutoring rather than tell her to behave in class?

If it is not a selective school or a grammar, why have they got sets? It's my understanding that only in that type of school is streaming according to ability used.

It's the opposite- grammars don't stream in yr7 as they have already been streamed

Oh come on, what a poor dig on your part.

She probably did both. Even if the child behaved, how could anyone learn anything in classes like that?

You are wrong / outdated.

Almost every comp will set for maths because there is such a range of ability and it is near impossible to teach potential grade 9 students alongside potential grade 3s.
Many/most comps will also set at some point in KS3 for some other subjects too.

Setting = per subject / group of related subjects (eg linking maths & science)
Streaming = per general academic ability, for all subjects (can be difficult for eg dyslexic maths genius)

Can also set within streams.

No harm in asking to see the assessment that was carried out to see how she scored so that you can support her going forward.

We went for a parent teacher consultation last year where the Teacher stated my daughter had scored 11/100 in a spelling test. Both my husband and I were so shocked we didn’t end up saying anything.

After going home I spoke to my daughter and she said she didn’t know how many she got wrong but it wasn’t many. So I wrote an email and asked the teacher to share my daughter’s test with me so I could help her with her spellings. Teacher took a week to reply and then sent a message saying there were no concerns and she only got a few wrong. She had written out 7 words and said these were the ones incorrect. When I mentioned it to my daughter she laughed and said the teacher always confused her with the only other child in the class with black hair who is Egyptian and dyslexic. We are asian. So teachers do sometimes get confused.

Only read OP’s comments so apologies if duplicating but has she missed any homeworks or assessments?

Surely if you get put in the set purely on account of bad behaviour, you can be moved to the correct set when you start behaving properly.

DC state secondary - a comprehensive and not a good one - set for some subjects and not others - maths was one they did set for in Y7.

By year 9 more subjects were set and only top science set was allowed to take triple science GCSE - and maths stes affected which papers you would likely sit at GCSE.

I think the point was that children in lower sets tend on average to be poorly behaved, either because behaviour means they attain less well, or not understanding lessons can lead to disruptive behaviour.

Which is a shame for the well behaved less academic DC (like one of mine).

Saying ⬇️ for an example of other stuff going on, which could be altered.
Some yrs ago when my DD started @ secondary sch. she told me she had to be at a ‘table’ with all boys, because she would keep them in order. She has 2 older DB’s, was quite used to bossing them around. Of course it was quite difficult to be a student & maintain her own learning & be an unpaid teachers assistant.

Luckily we were able to get her into a nearby ‘girls only’ state sch., where she went back to her normal schoolchild self, such a relief.

She was behaving 99% of the time, just one incident. Then when in the low set there was no way the school would move her. This sort of thing happens all the time.

The attitude in lower sets is regularly just rubbish, esp in Scotland where discipline is already terrible. Which is a shame for well behaved children that are struggling academically. Makes it even harder to learn.

I have sent an email, but the last day before half term is tomorrow so I’m not sure it’ll get sorted before then. It seems deliberate in both this school and her primary that they send these reports and sets so late, so parents then have 2 weeks to ruminate over it 😥

I think there must be some sort of error, I just don’t see how it’s possible for a child to have gone from greater depth to needing support in the span of a few weeks - not even secure knowledge but requiring support in a previously greater depth subject.

If you think about it that's an odd understanding. Selective schools and grammar take a narrow slice of the whole ability range so the difference between top and bottom is comparatively limited. Whereas a comprehensive school has a much wider ability range. It make no sense to only set in the case with the more homogenous ability.

It's usually the other way round as grammar schools are filled with children who would be in the top set at a comprehensive. My DS is at one and they didn't set at all until year 10.

you never went to a grammar school then- the ability range is pretty wide.

Not compared to a full comprehensive. (And I went to a grammar)

At a Comp, you will have childten who can barely read, write and count, all the way up to 11yos who could cope with GCSEs/A levels that year.