To think extra lessons for top students isn’t fair?

[Beepboobeep]

My DD’s state primary school has a “top maths club” and “great writers club” for the top performing students in yr 5 and 6 held outside of school hours. There is no charge for this - so it’s free childcare and free tutoring. You have to be invited. This has been running since the second week of the school year and is restarting on the first day of this half term.

By contrast, my dyslexic DD is in a group for those needing more support in writing, also outside of school hours. But they only managed 2 sessions last year and it hasn’t started back up this year. She gets ad hoc in school support; where it happens she misses other lessons that aren’t then caught up on, putting her further behind in the those.

I appreciate these children deserve challenging, but surely that could be done in class with different work and the teacher’s out of hours time, if available, used to help those struggling?

Is this even allowed in a state primary?

By your own logic, with your DD receiving so much outside support (via the £2k per month you are investing in her) she shouldn't be entitled to the free stuff at school.

Ultimately, however, what parents do with their children in their free time and how they spend their money on their children should have zero impact on what is on offer to those children at school.

Essentially, I think you're missing two quite important things:

1. It is a matter of progress. Each child deserves to make progress. High achievers may have made zero progress for a long time, if they have already breezed through the curriculum. Struggling students may be struggling but are likely to have made progress over that same period of time. A struggling child is no more entitled to support to help them make progress than a high achiever is. Here, the high achievers don't sound as though they are being given equal opportunity to progress during school hours and so the school is offering additional classes for them to get their fill afterwards.

2. Standard classroom lessons are aimed at the middle of the road students, with additional support for those struggling. They frequently offer very little, to nothing, for high achievers. These lessons being offered after school aren't extra support for high achievers already getting something from their daily lessons - the high achievers are likely sat through hours and hours of completely irrelevant and boring lessons during the day, during which time their needs are not met at all.

How would you feel if the school decided to take a different approach and set the standard of normal classroom lessons at the levels suitable for the high achievers and then told those struggling and in the middle that there would be after school clubs to give them the additional attention? Those struggling and the middle of the road students probably wouldn't make any progress during the normal classroom lessons (just as the high achievers currently aren't) and so the extra curricular sessions wouldn't be in addition to those lessons, they'd be a replacement. If the school was to do that, I imagine it would go down like a sack of spuds and you'd be on here complaining even more vociferously than you currently are.

You really do come across as being incapable of viewing this from an unbiased vantage point which won't do you or your DD well in the long-run.

Sincerely,

Someone who completed the entire KS2 curriculum by the end of Year 4; spent 2 years bored shitless, whilst being told not to answer questions to give the other students a chance; and then watched the struggling kids be taken out of lessons for additional support and exciting activities to help them progress and learn new things.

I totally agree with this 100%.

tutoring outside of school though is exactly that & not comparable here. Surely you could enroll your child in outside tutoring if you wished? It ist wrong for schools to offer the club & it is outside the school day so isn’t taking anything away from your child

How could you predict these children will get A* s in GCSEs ? For a start, most subjects studied at secondary schools aren't even on offer at 9 or 10 years old?

It doesn’t sound like extra teaching to me it sounds like they are giving those who are above average a club to make it fun and build on there skill and be able to make it creative maybe even competitive. My child would never be invited to such a thing but let’s face it he wouldn’t enjoy it but these kids get to put the world of their imagination into words, now he is amazing with numbers already at 5 years old miles ahead of his peers so actually being in an environment that would challenge him which doesn’t happen in class would be an exceptional opportunity to do more complicated maths so no it isn’t unfair. If your child is struggling then there is a load of resources out there that you can engage them with and help them get stronger. I don’t leave learning to school I spend time engaging and challenging my child outside of school to help him build his blocks that cannot be done at school.

Teachers will know which are the bright kids by then

Why does a child who has the ability to 'Working at Greater Depth' ned to be trained on Working at Greater Depth?

I don't understand your question, sorry.

Because learning isn't a finite thing. A child doing well, isn't done learning. They can always learn more.

I find this attitude really bloody annoying actually.

YABVU.

By when- 9 and 10? Well all the research shows that rigid labels at a young age are highly unreliable and to predict what high achieving as opposed to exceptional pupils, will be achieving all A*s at GCSEs would be even more challenging. Given that there aren't many pupils, if any in some schools, achieving all 9s at GCSE your theory doesn't really bear out.

Then they are not gifted and talented by any measure then are they!

Well I was just as out of place as you at school and I have a maths adjacent PhD to boot. I cannot follow the logic you are using for OP. The only way I can make sense of it is via the fallacy that parental expenditure is an acceptable replacement for adequate provision by the state schools. That’s repugnant, no matter the abilities of the learner.

I realise that particularly in England it is difficult for pupils to progress naturally, as the system is rather rigid. Also there is much to be said for exploring subjects of interest outside the curriculum rather than accelerating through it. This may involve expenses for families. But there is a qualitative difference from OP’s situation.

I didn't say anything about all 9s at GCSE But you do know which kids are bright and which ones are thick as 2 planks by 9 or 10. We as kids of that age know where our classmates ranked academically

I'm referring to being taught how to be a high achiever. If in SATs you are 'Working at Greater Depth' you won't need to be taught how to do that if you are 'gifted'.

What are you on about?

As- former Russell Group admissions tutor, I have news for you: fully 75% of predicted A level grades used to in admissions considerations are over-predictions. Another 5%, mostly from schools with disadvantaged cohorts, are under-predictions.

That’s right, in recent years only 20% of predicted A level grades are accurate. Tell me more about how well teachers know their pupils’ abilities?

You may know where kids rank academically but you have no clue why.

I'm not talking about grades.

I'm talking about knowing the difference between bright or dim kids. And what primary schools are predicting A level grades??

But that's what an A* is, in fact it is only used to grade A levels now. The terminology is important, accuracy in terms are important, we can't just predict things on a whim, that's not exactly an intellectually rigorous approach to forming a theory.

Agreed. This is a big differentiator in demanding degree programmes.

What do you mean why?

And that has what to do with primary school kids?

The two are almost certainly not linked. As in the member of staff who should be doing the support group isn't doing it for whatever reason. That doesn't mean the member of staff doing the higher group should stop their group so it's fair.

Almost certainly these extension groups are prepping for grammar entry, something schools cannot offer in curriculum time.

Also almost certainly those who need support get a hugely disproportionate amount of teacher time in class.

That makes no sense at all. A student who has exhausted learning that's been set in class isn't gifted and talented because they don't have the means to teach themselves the unknown beyond that?