Sets

[lyndar]

My 11-year-old has been put into middle set in high school for maths and English . Will he be moved into top set if he shows he is capable or is that it ? He excels at maths and middle set isn't going to challenge him , he was marked down for silly things like not putting a space between bars and carelessness. Is it true that he is at a disadvantage to children in top set because they will be doing things that are more advanced ?

What do you mean he didn’t put a space between bars? Do they put students in the same set for maths and English? That would sound a bit of an odd set-up.

Sets are generally fairly fluid and he should be able to move up if he demonstrates that he’s capable. If you’re concerned you could email the school and ask them what he would need to do.

Year 7 is pretty fluid and there is room to meet every year. The teacher will differentiate for your DC.

My dd high school put maths/ science as one set and English/MFL as a separate set. She’s in top set English and set 2 maths. (Of 8 sets)
They move up and down at the end of term so Christmas and Easter. But I don’t know how much movement they actually make as she’s only in year 7

@noblegiraffe he saw the results of his maths paper today and said he got zero out of 5 marks for not putting a space between the bars on a chart .He was one of the best at maths in his year at primary as confirmed by his teacher , I am worried that he is not going to be challenged enough , when do they next get assessed?

Generally not putting a space between bars on a bar chart would lose one mark tops. Other marks would be for doing bars of the correct height, labelling axes correctly, that sort of thing. Has he misunderstood where he went wrong? (Or has the question been mis-marked?). Can you get him to bring the paper home and look at it with him?

Being among the best at maths in primary doesn’t necessarily mean top set in secondary - big fish small pond etc. Do you know what he got in his maths SATs?

If you are worried, or want to know when they do set changes you can ask the school, they get queries like that all the time.

How many sets?

I am sure they will move up and down. Year 7 is a bench mark, and as they do more tests, they will get a better feel of how well your DS is doing.

My DD has been up and down like a yo-yo. She started in the top set, then moved down, then moved down again, and she did get very upset. However, she is now really happy in Set 3, as she is top of that set, and therefore feels she is not struggling to keep up, or standing out as the bottom of the higher set. She does gets extension work in order for her to be stretched, but when she was asked to move up again, she declined as she has found her happy place.

Totally agree with what Noble says about big fish, little pond. My ds got a 6 in his SATS at primary. Off to secondary and 8 sets of 25 kids per set. Turned out that in his Y7, 25 kids from other primary schools were better at Maths than he was so he was in set 2 - right at the top of it, but set 2. That's how it was and he was always stretched. One of his things was he never showed his working because he didn't see the point and it took him a long time to understand that not showing his working lost him marks. He learned in the end.

He moved up and down between Set 1 and Set 2 for the next 4 years finally ending up in Set 1 again for the whole of Y11. Maths GCSE mark from this summer reflected that expected of a child in top set!

I wouldn't worry that much to be honest.

@mimbleandlittlemy I checked his maths paper yesterday and am angry at him because he didn't take it seriously he didn't use a ruler for his bar chart and wrote wobbly bar chart underneath he was asked to draw a different rectangle with the same perimeter as the one next to it he drew an identical rectangle with the words the same but different inside and also 32 multiplied by 100 is now 32000 -he is not stupid he knew the answer so that was a silly mistake
He redid the paper at home and got full marks but 32 out of 54 in school

He needs to suck up being in the middle set and then ace every assessment to get moved up. He needs to work hard in class and ask for extension work if he finishes early.

If he was capable of (but didn't get) full marks and only got ~60% you can bet there were loads who scored higher who have earned their place in the higher set.

It's quite a good lesson to learn at this point in Y7 - that messing about and not really bothering because you think you will do brilliantly regardless doesn't always go well. He'll now know there were other kids who took it seriously and so did better. He might also now know there are kids who are as good at Maths as he is.

Just keep a slight eye out, and without making a thing of it - my ds spent Y7 and Y8 thinking it wasn't great to let anyone see you are clever. Y9 he got in to the group I think of as the Geek Squad, who are all very clever and are all his friends now still in Y12. They are the ones who got a very great number of 8s and 9s in this year's GCSEs partly because the academic rivalry amongst them all drove them to achieve.

I'd just make sure that he isn't messing up in order to avoid a bit of unwanted attention from some Y7s for whom academics are not considered important or interesting and who are not always very nice to the academic and high achieving.

Maybe this will make you feel better.

My DD1's friend got an 8 at GCSE and she was in set 3 of 5 in a comprehensive. She is now doing A Level maths.

DD2 is also in set 3 of 5 and has been told she is capable of getting a 7 or more at GCSE.

You need to speak to the teacher and ask what they teach towards in each set. If a middle set is taught towards the higher tier of GCSE maths and teaching covers everything needed for grade 9, it won't make a difference which set your son is in and it might be perfect for him. If his set only aims at an entry for GCSE foundation tier andonly teaches to a grade 4 (5 is highest Mark anyone anyone can get on this paper), you would need to push for him to be moved up.

I wouldn’t worry too much. DS was top set in Maths at primary school but all through high school has been in the middle set. Despite this, he had the 6th highest Maths mark for his year on his Nat5 - class of 240 odd.

I’ll be honest and say I did worry a bit about at the time, though.

he is not stupid he knew the answer

ds(14) is the same, very strong in maths and knows all the theory but makes silly mistakes, not noticing a -ve in a huge formula or not reading the question correctly.

Accuracy is as important as knowing the theory and they lose points, will go down a set if they cant master that skill in the school environment.

@BrokenWing good point

While accuracy is important being inaccurate is very different from lacking understanding. Going down a set won't help improve accuracy. The school should set according to ability (which won't always be illustrated by initial test results) so the children are working at an appropriate pace. A student who is inaccurate still needs to be given work which is challenging and sufficiently in depth for their ability. Usually there is quite a bit of movement between sets once the teachers get to know the children better.