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?

They're not "prioritised". Children with learning needs have always had additional help, TAs etc, at the expense of the more able. Almost certainly, the teachers who run these groups do it in their own time, as volunteers, which is their right, not their obligation, realising that very bright kids who are not extended often fall by the wayside. My own son was in the "top group", four very able kids who were left to work independently while the HT, a very competent teacher taught the less able in small groups. Fortunately all four had a great work ethic and shared their own (rather esoteric) interests - ornithology, physics, archaeology etc with each other once the work was done. That son now teaches a Year 7 group of Gifted and Talented kids where he can extend them dramatically - he teaches them partly bilingually in Maori (he's fluent /teaches in Maori and Japanese), music-he's an expert in all the drum rhythms of Africa and Brazil etc, he reads widely and encourages them into reading extensively ...those kids have gone on to senior school well prepared to do University papers whilst still at school. Surely these very bright kids should be enabled to achieve their potential? If you are unhappy, you need to make the HT aware that you believe those with different needs are being shortchanged...but teachers can't be forced to give up their after-hours time, already vastly over-committed.

I 100% agree the children that are struggling should be helped, but not in place of other children; the point is the same for children from the top sets whose parents can’t or won’t give support. What is there for them then?

I went to a grammar school - life changing. For me and a lot of my friends, our parents couldn’t have afforded to send us to private school. I wasn’t tutored to get in, but I did have one teacher at middle school (and parents) who helped me practice the 11+. Should the teacher not have helped me? Before that, I was either extremely bored or had to help other children in class. No doubt when I went to the terrible high school I would have stopped working because it wasn’t “cool” and I was desperate to fit in!

Very few kids of any ability, from low to high, will be getting £24k a year spent on tutoring and enrichment activities.

Your daughter benefits from exceptionally privileged family circumstances. But you’re butt hurt because the school runs a few extra curricular activities for kids who probably spend all day bored rigid during class.

Urgh you’re being so unreasonable.

Wouldn’t be complaining if it was sport. No. Because sport is everything. If your kid isn’t sporty in primary school then there is fuck all for them. It’s GREAT to hear there are some other extra curriculars for those who have interests outwith sport.

Let them have fucking something.

I grew up with some very able free school meals kids and have seen plenty of able pupil premium kids, free school meals doesn’t mean we aren’t able.

Well, that very much depends if your priority as an organisation is setting up as many children as possible to pass as many GCSEs as they are capable of after another 5 years at someone else's school, or if instead, the priority is to get the maximum number of top grades recorded in the Year 6 SATS for your own....

Bluntly, they're not. What's actually happening is they're sitting in the back couple of rows in their primary school classes while the teacher is teaching the class things they already know or can pick up easily, and are bored out of their minds while the rest of the class struggles with it, can't be arsed at all, or will never achieve it. The lessons aren't for them, frankly. And the work isn't for them. They finish it quickly, any extensions are primarily busy work, and they are ignored while the teacher supports the majority of the class with doing the bare minimum. And there's little to no extra support because support staff and teaching assistants have been axed due to budget cuts, and the few they do have the money for frequently leave because they pay is shit and they're treated like shit.

Those session aren't 'more support' ... it's probably the only actual targeted, aspirational attention they're getting after being mostly ignored all day while everyone else gets what available support there is.

It's no different to a sports club or music group after school really.

From a teacher's point of view, I also think that after school sessions with children who are really interested in something reminds us why we went into teaching in the first place! The reality being that day to day teaching is often a hard slog, and it can be quite exhilarating to guide sessions with the more talented and able who, to be honest, are often left to their own devices in mixed ability classes. So yes, it's allowed and it can aid teacher retention.

The other issue is separate. You can certainly enquire about her group to see whether or not they're thinking of continuing.

They will be chasing 'greater depth', Sats outcomes for them.

My daughter is dyspraxic. She is pretty hopeless at sport that requires hand/eye coordination. This has blighted her school life so far. She feels so shitty about the fact that she’s “crap at sport”. She’s the kid that gets picked last. Gets shouted at for fucking up a shot. You get the idea.

She is a fabulous and passionate writer. Do you think she shouldn’t have the opportunity to access a writing club, to boost her confidence and make her feel part of something?

No, it couldn't be done in class .

It's very unfortunate you aren't getting adequate support, whatever the cause.

That doesn't mean bright kids shouldn't have a challenging curriculum.

I think it sounds like jealousy, too.

Thank heavens the academically gifted children are getting a look in. They are often ignored in the regular timetable because of teachers having to devote SO much teaching time to supporting those with extra needs.

The work your DC gets in the classroom setting during the school day is challenging enough for your DD so they don't need extra lessons. It's however not challenging enough for the able kids hence they need extra lessons outside of school hours.

How do you know she wouldn't qualify?

The criteria for the first stage, assessment, are whether she might have SEN, and might need support through an EHCP. She clearly meets the first part of that test. What an EHCP offers is support which would not be available through normal mainstream resources. Given that your daughter is not getting the support she needs through normal mainstream resources and is falling behind as a result, she meets the second limb also.

If the school is telling you she wouldn't qualify, ignore them and get your own request for an EHC needs assessment lodged with the local authority.

Maybe those classes suite the teachers skills set.

For example I know for SEN provision, schools need to bring in people trained, and maybe that’s the schools issue for not having the staff that can provide an afterschool club provision that works for SEN. But maybe they have capacity to host something for the gifted children.

When I was younger, the gifted students always had days out and fun things to do. Now that I have children who are academic I wish there was more for them to do that challenges them, but I also appreciate that the lack of provision for other children is problematic.

Unfortunately, it's very often the top performing pupils who are just left to get on with it in class while the staff concentrate on others. Homework clubs or tutorial sessions can give those children the rare opportunity to have the focus on them.

Schools are required to provide differentiation/adapted teaching, however -
including at the top ability end as well as for SEN. This is something that Ofsted look at, for example, and something which primary schools are required to monitor in their internal baseline and tracking data. Some of this can be provided in lessons (eg. TA support; differentiated worksheets for “greater depth” etc.) Some is provided outside the main lessons (eg. 1-1
reading or mentoring support; intensive phonics or times tables check groups; SEN support of lots of different kinds). Greater depth provision is one form of that, just as other forms may be provided to support other children with different needs.

They also aren’t necessarily being delivered by the same teachers. Teacher A who is head of KS2 maths and teaches Y6 might be running an after school maths club. Dyslexia support may be delivered by teacher B who has a special interest or qualification in this but she can only do lunchtimes and is off ill with a chronic illness a lot. If your child’s extra support isn’t happening, OP, or is getting cancelled, follow this up with the head, rather than gripe that maths club is happening. (It also doesn’t necessarily follow, as others have pointed out, that the greater depth children are all well off advantaged ones. Many of the greater depth kids at my DD’s primary were also pupil premium children.)

(OP you also seem especially exercised that these clubs are “childcare”? Do you think that way about running club or football club for the sporty ones?)

I'll add to my previous post that a child will be given work which can be differentiated by task or by outcome, but it's often the case that the child's only opportunity to access extra time and attention will be during an after school club - there simply isn't enough time in the day for a teacher to give 30 children individual attention for each subject.

Broadly speaking, gifted and talent students are not the ones who have behavioural issues. I am not saying all other students have behavioural issues. I am saying the behaviour in classes is now much worse than it used to be and G&T students get lost in the mess. I’m a teacher.

When I first started teaching there were clubs for G&T, G&T from disadvantaged backgrounds was a big focus. It isn’t a new concept. They have just became rarer when staff haven’t been replaced. When teachers have been so stretched they can’t do anything else after school. When schools couldn’t afford to get outside agencies in.

It’s a good thing this school is offering it.

If your child is behind, it's nothing to do with the bright children and clearly they aren't taking any time away during lessons and instead are having to do it after school. You said yourself your child gets special support during her school day as well as an after school session when the school run it.

It's a breath of fresh air to hear schools are offering something extra to bright children. Too often state schools are forced to pour all their resources into getting the struggling children to meet the expected standard and the bright children are ignored. It sounds like this happens during lessons and they are compensating by offering more challenging work. You have to remember that those children deserve your child's teacher's time. SEN children take up significant resources including extra attention from staff which parents get free of charge. I think if they were to charge extra for the high achievers after school club, then they would need to charge you for all the extra support your child gets which I suspect is far more expensive.

Can you be sure of this? My son was highly gifted and it took ages for our school to provide for him. He was so bored at school he would be crying in the car at drop off begging me not to send him. It took a change of principal to move him up a grade (after doing an IQ test). At first the teacher told me 1. I was putting to much pressure on him (I was not), 2. I must have been using flash cards as home to get him ahead (again, I was not, he taught himself to read before prep), and 3. She has her hands full with ESL and additional needs students, so best she could do was get him to help the kids who were struggling, which he enjoyed for about 2 days. She also complained to me that he was a bit chatty in class when he'd finished his work early! This was when he was 5. I never sent him to tutoring or school holiday academic programs, because I'm a big believer in kids having proper play time. School suggested extra lessons at lunch, I said when would be able to play with his friends? It is not easy having a gifted child, and it gets harder as they get older as well. There is very little understanding and some of the school mums made snide comments to me - i never thought he was "better" than anyone, just that he needed something the education system wouldn't provide. Let them have it for goodness sake. Those kids don't really know they have an advantage, they do know they are different in a way that some people resent. If a kids could run really fast, or had a talent for music, would you feel the same way about the school providing for them?

Completely agree.

I have many teachers friends and they are overwhelmed by the number of SEN kids now in classrooms and the legal and policy based obligations to make sure they meet the minimum required. This results in complete focus on the strugglers, and bright children not reaching their potential.

We need children who have been to state school to be in the boardrooms, court rooms and heads of education and the NHS when they're older and for it not to be exclusively Etonians in these powerful positions but adults from a variety of backgrounds. We will only get this if bright children are also pushed and nurtured.

Perhaps consider tutoring if you feel you aren't given enough extra support and of course speak to the school about their obligations but don't forget your child is already getting extra.

No its not, so raise it with the school.

There should be space for both in an ideal world. Unfortunately you need to fight for any kind of support and keep on at them. If you feel your daughter needs more support, contact the school and ask them what they are providing and keep on at them until you see results.

I think it’s a good thing overall. We should want all children to do as well as they’re able. If the teacher feels they’re able to stretch the most able in a small class of their academic peers, I can well see why.

I think you sound cross that these children are already being tutored? I’m not sure why that matters really… If they started a club only for those really good at football, and some of the children invited were already in football clubs elsewhere, I don’t think anyone would think that odd?