too scared to ask for harder work

[Habanera]

DD2 is aged 7 and 3/4. She got a 4a for literacy in SATS aged 6 and has reading age 12 or 13 +, is above average at numeracy too though not "gifted" definitely able. A little shy outside the home, nary a complaint from school, but orders us about and can be hard to cope with in private-if you can get her nose out of book, she then talks incessantly, obsesses with stories, bosses us about, gets down and tragic about things daily, hits DD1 and says very cutting put-downs to me and DD1.

Recently she changed schools, another good local state school in year 3. I spoke to head about her reading and was assured there was a G&T person. She has settled well and it has boosted her confidence socially (phew!). She has found the classwork very simple and is already looking down a bit on new classmates which I try to combat.

Problem: Teacher yells at the kids-she tells me not at dd2, but because of some naughty ones the whole class gets it, and she finds him scary. She now says all of the work is too easy, she hands in everything early with 100% but is told to read some "stupid Spot" book on the table while the rest catch up. The teacher is male which she hasn't had before, seems very nice to me, she doesn't like noise and I imagine he is more powerful than her female teachers when raising voice. But maybe he is yelling a lot who knows.

I told her to ask politely for harder work, but she says she is too scared and everyone in the "handing in" line will hear, and told me about their Traffic Light system which will culminate in her being expelled for such impertinence!

am I going to have to go in already? How long should I wait do you think?

In defence of men, the only male teacher at my primary school was the least frightening of all the teachers. Some of the women were terrifying and shouty!

Though my dd does not have behavior issues she is one of the quiet ones at school. She will happily get on with her set work. It is only me who thinks she should be learning something in maths and not doing the same things she did a year or two back at home.

The reason I raised the issue of the glass cieling of level 3 at ks1 was that after telling each new teacher that she was advanced in maths, I thought that I would leave it and let her KS1 results speak for themselves.

I was told she would only be tested further if she got nearly all the questions on the level 3 paper right, and was told this would be unlikely in her case.

They took the papers early and at just over 6 and a half she still got 26 out of 30 on the harder paper.

I spoke to HT and phoned LEA. APart from talking to her new teacher and doing KS3 with her at home I am lost as to what to do.

richmal - Have you spoken to your dd about the work and whether she finds it too easy? ie is it just that she's too quiet to comment, or is it partly that she doesn't want to be stretched if she doesn't have to be and is quite happy? Your post seems to indicate the latter, which does make it harder to convince her teacher that she needs stretching, as he or she will be seeing neither the motivation, nor the evidence of capability. It is a bit of a catch 22 for you and a shame the school does not appear willing to help you work through it in order to come to a mutually acceptable conclusion.

How worried are you that not stretching her now will cause problems later on in her education? (eg I wasn't remotely stretched at primary school, but I did love school and developed a good attitude to learning. Luckily I went to a good secondary school, did well academically and went to Oxford, so I'm personally glad that my mother didn't make too much of a fuss about my rather enjoyable primary school experience, but then that's just me and my personality, and my subsequent secondary school). If you are genuinely and seriously worried and want to do something about it, perhaps you will have to go down the route of seeing an educational psychologist and asking for advice and assessment. If someone other than the parent sees the need for a child to be more challenged at school, then the school may be more willing to listen, rather than assuming you aren't asking for what is in the best interests of your child. At the moment, there is a difference in educational philosophy between you and your dd's school, I think, or at the least a difference in the school's view of your dd's strengths and your own.

ps also maybe a difference between your dd's views on education and your own! You are the parent, though, so you have to do what you think is best for your child.

At level 4 though, richmal, I would have thought a child would probably get all level 3 questions right.

Your DD sounds like my DS Hababera.

Just changed schools, previously recognised as G&T. Fluctuates between Devil and Angel and home, perfectly well behaved at school.

I've spoken to the TA and Deputy Head (who happens to be DS's teachers mentor) informally. I don't think his class, and his teacher who is newly qualified, are really set up to deal with the brighter children. He tells his TA he is bored and the work is to easy (he has no issue with his teacher, it is just the TA hands the work out). DS came home with more difficult spellings this week, so something has changed, and I'm waiting until parents meetings after Christmas before I bring it up again.

I was surprised he wasn't tested at a higher level, as they have been before.

You do need to either 'catch' the teacher for a 'quick word' or set up a meeting. But I think it is you who needs to do this, not DD.

Am watching your thread with interest.

Rabbitstew I admit I do love love doing maths, science etc with dd. Some like doing cooking, art or sports. It is something she likes doing also. I know because I've asked her. I've even pointed out others don't do accademic things at home and still she wants to.

Also, wanting to keep her away from my concerns about her schooling so do not question her in a negative way about school.

She is in the top group and I once asked her what happens if she finnishes her work first. She said she helped the others. Wanting to instill some equality I said "And they help you if they finnish first."
She replied that never happened.

The flip side is, if I don't teach my 7 year old at a level she is capable of and is wanting to learn at, will I be failing her? She may thrive in secondary, but she is thriving accedemically now and I want to go with that. I just want the shool to join in without having to get an educational pychologist. I think I will keep up the dialogue with the new teacher but will bear this in mind as an option.

Hi, richmal. But is she unhappy with the work at school, or is it actually the case that she enjoys learning with you and enjoys being at school and the other things it can offer, beyond the academic? Maybe the school doesn't need to be as involved as you think it does, in the relationship you have with your dd? Unless she is dissatisfied at school, of course.

Do you enjoy teaching your dd? She clearly enjoys learning with you.

Ha, I realise my second paragraph partly answers my first, and is already paretly answered by your own comments!

Thanks Rabbitstew. I think you are right. As I said I may try again to get more differentiated work for her at school. (actually her new teacher does seem more approachable), but other than that I shall look on it as a hobby we both enjoy together, separate from school.

Hello Feenie. Thank you for your advice on the website. It seems they can be assessed higher. I don't think they have to get 100% at one level before being assessed at the next or else vey few children would sit the level 3. Anyway, I've decided not to persue it.

Appologies to OP for going off at a tangent. All I can say is this is my first go at this.

What I am saying is that they would have to easily be able to answer level 3 questions to be able to begin to answer level 4 ones,

The decision as to whether a child can be teacher assessed at level 4 would depend on much more than how the level 3 paper was answered and would depend on what level she worked at day to day in the classroom. For example, answering a level 3 paper and getting 26 out of 30 questions right would not be enough on its own to assess a child even at level 3 - many, many more pieces of evidence are required, and quite rightly so since a test can be very narrow in focus.

Without knowing your dd and what she can do in the classroom, it's difficult to make a judgement - I would say, however, that the level 4 children I've taught in Y2 would have been able to answer all the level 3 questions (but that would be because my teaching would have ensured that they were taught level 3 concepts).

"I don't think they have to get 100% at one level before being assessed at the next or else vey few children would sit the level 3."
Do you mean that children should get all the questions right at level 2 to sit the level 3 paper? That's not the case at all - only one test may be given, and the teacher has to make a decision as to whether a child is working on a day to day level at level 2 or level 3 when deciding which paper to give. So many children sit the level 3 paper, because they work at level 3 habitually.

I think the process of assessment and ensuring concepts are fully understood and sufficiently practised to be entrenched is what would put me off the idea of home teaching (as opposed to mutual home-based academic enjoyment!). I talk about mathematical concepts with my children, share books and ideas, tell them stories from history, have fantastic trips out, but I don't view this as formal teaching, because I move from one subject to the other as interests them and me without checking whether they have truly understood every aspect of what I talked about and learnt it off by heart. In other words, I don't care whether they fully understand, I just like sharing it with them and hope that little bits of it sink in and make sense, so that when they learn it properly, they can remember the sense of shared excitement when we talked about it in the past. I get bored too quickly with ideas to keep going back and reinforcing them with my children and am not certain how to ensure they have understood everything, anyway. That's most definitely the teacher's job - the more boring bit of it, anyway.

Although I do reinforce where I'm told to by the teachers (eg reading with my children, testing their "mental maths"). I'm very good at doing as I'm told! I wouldn't really know what and how to reinforce without their guidance.

And that's why I think, if you seriously disagree with a teacher's assessment and feel that this is genuinely detrimental to your child's education, you need to get some external evidence and support for your view. Otherwise, you will have to defer to their expertise.

"What I am saying is that they would have to easily be able to answer level 3 questions to be able to begin to answer level 4 ones,"

That a child has got some L3 questions wrong is not conclusive evidence that they can't get it right (though it's usually the case that they can't).

My DS is known to have completed his two times tables using both numbers and letters because he reached a stage where he couldn't be bothered. A few days later he scored an L5 on KS2 - a paper that didn't look babyish to him.

Keep evidence of the work your child does at home and don't be intimidated by a teacher saying your DC hasn't yet grasped certain concepts if you know that to be untrue.

"I talk about mathematical concepts with my children...move from one subject to the other as interests them and me without checking whether they have truly understood every aspect"
This is the other side of the coin: Even if they have understood, they'll likely forget in a few days without reinforcement.

I said as much, if you were to put my quote back in context, DaL - I would have to know much more about the child's attainment, and so should her teacher.

Sorry that I missed Thursday's measured response from you, Dadatlarge. Have you considered HE?

Thanks for your comments DaL. I'm unsure whether they're supportive or not, so I shall take them as such. I've read your previous thread and TBH DD is not L5. I strongly suspect however, she is somewhere in L4.

I do keep all her work and have even taken it in to school

It isn't that the school is saying that she hasn't grasped concepts, it's just that they have stages they have to go through. So she must use the grid method to multiply a two digit by one digit number, inspite of being able to do this in her head and being able to do long multiplications as one sum on paper. I think her present teacher is going to try and speed her through this.

In the mean time, she likes learning. She just started getting her round why dividing by a fraction is the same as multiplying by its reciprocal, to give some indication of where she's at.

Why don't you ask them to show you how their judgements are made? They will have to have a lot of evidence - which my make you have some faith in the assessment, hopefully?

may make you

Feenie Thanks. Never thought of that. I've seen very little of what she does at school and assumed it was all wipe off white boards etc.

"So she must use the grid method to multiply a two digit by one digit number, inspite of being able to do this in her head and being able to do long multiplications as one sum on paper."

This sounds like my DS. He uses Trachtenberg and Vedic maths techniques to do large multiplications/divisions in his head. But I still insist he learns the school method. For one, it gives him something new to learn and that's always a good thing.

If your DD continues to progress at a fast pace, which I hope she does, you'll find that running out of things to teach is a real problem (unless you're a double maths grad), so grab whatever opportunities you can while she's at this level. I always insisted DS was able to comfortably use every single method and that he use the school methods when in school however inefficient he considers it. This doesn't make a smart DC less smart, it teaches them when to draw on their abilities and when to just fit in.

DD is about the same level in English and science, so hopefully she'll choose her own direction as she gets older. There's alway books and the web if she gets further ahead. I also keep meaning to do "nrich" but never get round to it, so more effort there I think.

I too want her to fit in, and as far as I can see she is. This is why I don't want to rock the boat too much with a school which is getting so much else right for her.

I think I have lost trust in the school in this one area partly from not wanting to make a fuss. Asking to be kept informed more of their assesment will perhaps build this up and give me the oppertunity to question if I think she can do something.

Thanks for advice.

Sorry, missed your reply earlier on schools averaging kids down and state schools in general being pathetic at catering for the higher ability pupils.

Feenie: "Just wanted you to know that I still refute this statement massively, DaL. MN teachers regularly discuss children working at level 6 in Y5 and Y6, and I wouldn't say we are all rare exceptions."

Feenie, with the best will in the world to have every G&T child achieve the best they can possibly achieve, it's impossible in a class of widely varying abilities. Further, your competence is measured not by how far a few children have progressed, but the average progress of all the class. So if half a dozen are already working at L6 in Y6 (and have made the number of levels of progress they needed to make - the new "gold" yardstick), your focus is going to have to be those who're struggling and are on course to screw up the stats. If not you'll be shown RAISEonline, the SEF or whatever and told to change your game.

The whole system is skewed. How many levels of progress are gifted children expected to make between KS1 and KS2? Why is it the same for them as it is for the rest of the class (when they are capable of progressing at a much faster rate)? What the education system asks of you teachers is skewed from the start!

And let's face it, not all teachers want these priveleged middle-class kids to get further ahead of those with learning difficulties, those from disadvantaged backgrounds ... and I appreciate the dilemma. If I were a teacher I'd probably put my efforts into making things fair and devote proportionately more time and effort to help the laggards.

BTW, L6 in Y6 isn't that big a deal. I believe at least 10% of children in state schools should comfortably be working at L7 by Y6 (in maths at least). I can't find the link now but I recall reading about some HE children almost 30% of whom were working to L7 in Y6... because the expectation from them wasn't x levels of progress per year - they were allowed to progress at their own speed!

I thought I would check in as I haven't been back to MN much lately. DD2 is now 8 and never looked back after settling into her new school. I don't think the school is any better at challenging her on the 3 r's but she has found ways to make the most of what is on offer, and doesn't need the teacher's approval, so not being fond of him isn't any drawback (so different from DD1!). She soon stopped worrying about every shout (and they continue to impress!) and stopped misbehaving at home. She's recently been invited round to 2 other children's houses for playdates and had a lovely time, accepting each other for who they were and being fun to do things with, making them laugh, writing signs and making up stories saying they were "better at doing the colouring in" (sounds patronising said like that, but she is popular with them so must be ok-ish). One isn't even in her class, she made friends on the playground with help from a teacher (well done whoever you were!)

So socially, so far so good. I pay for some outside tutoring to help fend off the "switch off" that has affected DD1 (10) as she got so bored in early years of school. I never thought I would need tutoring with a bright child, but in fact it really helps, they speak up with more confidence at school so get more notice and in turn don't get relegated to a slower group for daydreaming (constant problem with DD1, who then gets annoyed). I give lots of support for music, instruments (2 each) and singing, which is an excellent way to engage them, and I'm trying to fit in some art at home, they have done almost none so far at school which is sad.