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?

I know they're different.
Sorry if it wasn't clear.

I am.asking OP what she has in place, what she has done etc.

I’m afraid this might well because you’re clearly ‘that parent’. It shouldn’t filter down to affect the child of said parent, but it probably does.

Yes. It's allowed 🤷

Do they follow the plan?

So the point that you weren’t bothered about support being equal until others got it ahead of your dd still stands then?

And by your logic about other children doing 11+ tutoring, your dd doesn’t deserve extra support in school anyway because you pay for extra curriculars and tutoring yourself.

What has the headteacher said when you’ve spoken to them about the lack of support for your daughter?

I find this view infuriating and small minded. Absolutely your DD deserves the help and support they need but so often in class lessons are interrupted by kids who can’t regulate in a traditional setting and those high achievers are left to get on with it.
both those kids who need extra support and those high achievers miss out. So why shouldn’t the high achievers also get the support they need.

Do you think it’s ok that the SEN kid gets a 1:1 teaching assistant? I’m amazed the school has any capacity for its brighter children and delighted to hear they are getting a little bit of focus for a change.

I was bright at school - I don’t remember any additional lessons that could have helped me excel. Rightly or wrongly, the focus was on what was back then called the remedial class (there were only three of them in the entire school, vs an average of 8 per class these days.)

Op. Remove the fact that your child is being let down. And remove the fact that grammar schools are plentiful in your area.

In fact come back to 1979 with me and the kids I went to school with, we are 10. You know who is brightest, but we sit an iq test and it's almost obvious who would come out top. Some score 120, 130...so very bright

Fast forward to 1987 and we are 18. How many of those kids went to uni. None.
The top boy ended up a drug dealer and the top girl working in a petrol station.

Now if they'd been pushed at 10/11 and encouraged what do think the results would be?

The economy relies on wealth creation and growth, by pushing the bright kids to achieve it helps all of us.

Edit for typo...so no I wasn't either of the top kids

I totally agree with you. I was a SENCo for a very long time and had a MABLE (most able) DD, then known as gifted and talented. Unfortunately, schools push the most able because that’s what Ofsted like to see and it gets the overall SATS grades up.

Firstly, what have the school said about why your DC’s after school support sessions have been cancelled? Surely you’ve asked why they’ve offered (promised?) these sessions then not ran them?

Secondly, why does it matter at all whether these children are having out of school tutoring/attending groups aimed at the 11+ in the holidays? Are these extra curriculars being funded by the school or their parents? If the former, fair enough to be annoyed but it’s far more likely to be the latter and in which case you have no reason to be in any way bothered. People can pay for whatever type of education (or not) they want for their children. It’s really none of your business. If the school then add extra sessions then that’s their choice. I highly doubt every child in the high achieving group has parents that pay for the tutoring and camps.

I was going to say something similar - kids who are at the top of math and writing will probably be motivated by the extra classes. Whereas kids who are struggling will see it as an extra hour of school work.

I say this as a parent of a child with complex additional needs and is barely writing - he’s wiped out by the day, he does not want to do extra work even if it’s disguised as play.

So, to use that Mumsnet cliché, what did the school tell you when you asked why that had happened?

It was the emphasis you were putting on the other parents who do this and that with their children. You didn't mention you were also investing in these things for DD.

What parents invest in extracurricular activities, is nothing to do with the school and completely on each individual parent. Some with favour academics, others sports.

I understand where your frustration is coming from, I just feel it is miss directed. As others have said teachers decided what clubs to run.
I am glad you have recognised the school isn't right for your DD and wish her all the best in her new school.

Slightly different context in Secondary school.
Offer extra support to high achievers - lots turn up, engage and pleasant experience for students and teachers.
Middle ground - some turn up, half of them told to by parents - 10% work hard, 60% treat line a social event and do little work, those forced by parents stop coming & parents then pressure teachers into making them attend, generally hard work for teacher.
Low ability, very few turn up, maybe 2 students work hard, rest are avoiding detention by going to Maths club and do nothing and are a general pain in the neck, soul destroying for teacher.
Unfortunately, attending extra sessions when a student has difficulties with that subject does not guarantee they will naturally improve and they become disillusioned and do not want to attend.

My middle DS is very academically able, particularly so in maths. He spent his primary school years finishing the work set very quickly with minimal and then being told to read a book while the rest of the class completed their work, or to help students who were struggling. Or even on one occasion to tidy the classroom. He got no attention from the teacher, was not stretched or challenged and got very bored. I am pleased to hear that the tide is shifting slightly. We always felt as though he was not being given the opportunity to reach his full potential, which felt unfair to him. There were always others who needed more support in the classroom and the focus was on bringing everyone up to the minimum standard, which I do understand to a degree. Offering extra sessions outside school times seems eminently sensible to me as it leaves the teacher/TA free to concentrate on those who need support most during lessons. I’m sure parents would be complaining if it was the other way round and attention was given to those who found it easier in class and those who struggled were offered support out of school hours.

Our DS is extremely high functioning and classed as exceptionally gifted. We have been repeatedly warned that it is very likely he will get bored and will lash out or completely shut down in school. When we spoke to his headteacher about it they said "we are very good at reaching down to underperforming children, we are very bad at reaching up to gifted/2E children". We spent 6 months calculating private school fees and wondering if it would work and finally found a school with activities similar to the one the OP is discussing, and a gifted program/extra work for them. I am praying it works. I think no school is good at everything tbh, hard though that may be. Our first school is evidence of that the other way around.

On paper, it may look like these top achievers are getting more teacher attention. However, from my experience teaching, what often happens is that the children who struggle are getting the teacher and TA’s attention a lot more during day-to-day class work. I try to spread attention around as much as possible (because all children deserve help reaching their potential), but even with all the best intentions, the children at the lower end of the ability scale get far more time and support while the rest of the class just has to crack on and do their best independently.

This time isn’t always evident because it doesn’t happen in a designated slot- but time spent supporting a child during normal lesson time still counts. So I do try to factor in specially allocated time to work with my middle and top achievers too. This can’t be in lessons because it would be constantly interrupted by the children who typically struggle wanting help. The time spent on the children who really find learning tricky still significantly outstrips the time I spend with others when you add it up over the course of a week or month. My struggling children don’t have a club or extra session for support because they’re the ones receiving most of the support in class- extra clubs or sessions for high achievers are simply evening things up slightly.

Does the private school that you are moving your daughter to specialise in SEN? If not, I’d reconsider. I dread to think what your daughters self esteem must be like after attending her current school for so long, and a general private school isn’t going to improve that.

Teachers don’t generally get to choose which clubs they run. In 27 years of teaching I was directed to run certain clubs, not asked which ones I’d like to run.

I agree with this - private isn’t always best unless it’s specialist provision.

If it’s after school then the teachers running it will almost certainly be doing it voluntarily as teachers cannot be directed to run clubs after school, it’s likely that this is something the teachers have an interest in and so are happy to run them in their own time once school and their directed time are done. The school can’t run a club if nobody wants to do it voluntarily and can’t force teachers to commit to a club they aren’t interested in and if it’s a club that happens outside of school it won’t count as teaching time.

That said, after school clubs should be inclusive and can’t discriminate so if you feel your DD is excluded from the clubs on account of her dyslexia you could raise this as discrimination due to her SEN. It is reasonable to have a maths or writing club but it shouldn’t exclude students based solely on ability and if a student with SEND wants to join the school should be willing to put adaptions in place so that they are able to do so.

Being gifted or 2e is a legitimate special educational need in itself. Dyslexia is also, but no more, worthy of support.

They gnaw off their own arms with boredom

"Sure, help all the kids. But mine first because mine is so much more deserving of making progress from their starting point than the next kid. No, I won't help my kid outside the school. Others shouldn't either because I don't."

It isn’t right that your child isn’t having their needs met or being supported.

My best guess would be that the primary school are putting in resources in order to be able to show parents that they help students to pass the 11+ and attain a high number of places at grammar school. That is an issue with being in a selective area: parents want this and will compare schools based on this criteria.

The school is responding to that pressure.

The school should also be providing intervention for students who find accessing learning hard. It’s not okay that it isn’t.

But there isn’t enough money; there aren’t enough teachers; there is too much pressure from myriad directions and there is an increasing need in the system.

So this is where we are and who knows how we get out of it!

It is really hard to see your children struggling and to feel as though you’re banging your head against a brick wall. I’m sorry.

I suppose that children who are struggling could also have extra sessions paid for by parents, just as those who are excelling do.