Why can't parents ask this question?

[Creole]

Why is it a sin to ask how your child is performing in comparison to the rest of the class? Surely this is what a lot of parents want to know.

Or does this question make you sound like a very pushy parent?

I suppose the key question is 'Is ds/dd making the progress you would like?' If not, why not, and what can we all do about it?

They often offer the marks in a recent test and tell you how that compared to other children. Once you get near GCSE level you have that external marker or comparator - are they going to get mostly A and A* or will they be lucky to get 5 Cs etc.

It's sometimes tricky as a teacher to distinguish between the lazy and the weak IMO - especially with a new class.... interesting stuff though...

but no doubt Xenia will tell me that if I worked in the private sector I would be able to...

Exactly, Issymum. Take it from me, you learn your precious child is doing well by comparison to all the others and you immediately want to know how well the entire class is doing by comparison with every other class in the country, obviously with the appropriate weighting for whatever you need to give weighting for, and really what you'd like to know is how well your precious child is doing in comparison with every single six year old in the entire UK, if not Europe....

....and that way madness lies. In my experience, obviously.

general rule of thumb in 'what to expect from your child' stakes.

these are based on the average levels of attainment for children in England. These are ball park figures only, individual children will vary, as they all have differeing learning curves. There can also be other issues that affect learning.

With that caveat in mind:-

A child who gets a level 4 grade at the end of KS2 should get a level 5 at the end of KS3. A child who gets a 5 at the end of year 9 should get 5 A* to C grades at GCSE.

Children who do better at KS3 should get more GCSEs, children who do less well will probably get less than 5 A* to C grades at GCSE.

Schools with higher value added scores may well get the kids to make more progress.

mb - thanks for your thoughts.

I had parent's night last week, and heard all sorts of lovely comments from various teachers about dd (year one). In fact, several times I was told 'anything critical would be nitpicking'. While I'm very pleased to know there are no 'problems', I have no idea if she's working to her potential.

If I'm completely honest, I must admit to being interested in how dd is doing compared to her classmates. Somewhere in there is probably a bit of competitiveness, but I think knowing how she's doing also gives me some sort of gauge for measuring just how clever she is. But, I don't know if she's top of a clever class, or top of a not so bright group.

What I do notice is that she seems to become anxious if faced with a challenge she can't grasp quickly/easily. She panics if she thinks she's going to get things wrong. I'm not quite sure what to do about that. Any suggestions?

worz, I agree. One of the twins' teachers and I were discussing just that about him. Even I find it hard to know when he's not bothering because he can't be bothered and when he's trying sometimes. What we did find last year though was he had a briliant teacher, got much better, went on fish oil which in my view had a miraculous effect on him in terms of his concentration, but could just be me assuming it was that or just that he was maturing and had better attention at home over his homework too. My eldest is slightly dyslexic. She's 22 and asked me how to spell agreement the other day. She's done tremendously well to work around and with that over the years but in a different enviornment or school or home might have been labelled lazy or not trying.

Tricky one Earlybird..mmmm how about playing games together that offer you a challenge too. You could then model how to laugh off failure and learn from mistakes you make in a positive way. She can also experience meeting challenges in a 'safe' enviroment?