school has surprised me!

[blackeyedsusan]

last week I asked for harder words to read... one (or more) groups have been given spellings!

I also asked for more challenging books as the yellow band books were a "little easy." given that we are reading easy chapter books at home they have put her up one band. I am shocked as we normally play a little game every couple of months where I say the books arer too easy and they ignore me and we carry on doing our own thing in our own happy way. once pmt has passed

ok so she could spell the words first time at home and green band is not a big leap, but i do not know whether she will cope with spelling in a test and at least the green band books are a little harder and we can get something out of it now. she has been asked to practice adding numbers in the teens as she doesn't use the number line to count on. (tends to do these things in her head) well we have practised and introduced a strategy of using number bonds of single digit numbers to check teens+ addition (ie if 2 and 4 =6 then 12+4=16 and 22+4=26 etc) doubt that will go down well! I hope she talks about her strategy at school.

I think I want to push for more, but not until she has had time to try out/prove herself for another month or so. (after all she might go to pieces under test conditions and we have a lot of work to do on handwriting) anyone fancy sitting on me and administering the duct tape for the next month?

(disclaimer, i know she is not doing some of the stuff other really bright children do at this age, though she is the top end of normal and I post mainly because i as fed up of the lack of progress ith reading in school compared to home)

ps, sorry about the lack of capitals, intermittent shift key!

Mrsshears can she join lots of clubs maybe acting/drama groups. It seems confidence is the issue.

How is she socially? Is she shy-is it only with the teacher?

If it is the class then is a smaller school available with smaller class sizes.

Hi iggly
she does lots of activities outside school and really enjoys them(swimming and gymnastics)I really can't see dd doing drama,you're right it would be good for her but i just dont think she would cooperate with it.
She is loads better than she used to be socially and interacts well in small groups,i really feel that dd knows that the teachers do not think much of her or that she has much to offer iyswim.
None of them get her and i think she is seen as a bit of an oddball and i think this is one of the main causes of her lack of confidence.
I have my meeting next week with the head but don't hold out much hope and i'm starting to think dd needs a whole new start somewhere else

mrs s sounds a bit catch 22 really. she won't perform, so they think she can't, so she fulfills expectations and doesn't bother. probably a bit of can't see why she should do some of the easy stuff thrown in.

waiting for the meeting is not fun either, especially as the teacher seems quite negative. for goodness sake I am nervous and it is not my dd nor me going in there to see the head.

I can see why they don't get her in a way. if she is not performing, yet the results indicate the opposite, you would wonder what is going on. is there anything on the nacg website to help you? some of the info is for members only, so I can't read it all.

joyn said something interesting up there^^^ about helping them to fit into school.

have you worked out what you want to know from school? i think I would want to know what she is not showing she can do in school, then i would be tempted to use the questions she reeled off to you as an example that she can do it and ask them to suggest what is it about dd that means she is unable to do it in school. it sort of takes the pressure off the teacher's teaching and focuses it back onto solving the problem.

I can see why they don't get her too,she is such a complex character even i don't get her sometimes.
I just wish they would listen to me and treat her as a high ability child and raise their expectations of her,i'm convinced that would go along way towards solving the problem.
That last suggestion is a good one,i'm really going to try to put a positive spin on the whole meeting if i can through gritted teeth.

after asking a bit grumpily for books that are worth reading more than once, dd has been assessed by the teacher and by the head (ooOOoo) and has come home with reading books from key stage 2

that is not so impressive, because in a lot of schools, they would be available for y1/y2 children. but it is bloody impressive for this school.

the head said that she has some areas of weakness, which as it happens are the ones I already know about (Which is reassuring) and have been banging my head against a brick walll to try and improve. (using phonics to read the word and not guess) and vocabulary which will come gradually I suppose as we read more. we have stopped at about white/lime level to expand sideways as we are not following a scheme at home and different books have a completely different set of vocabulary at a similar level. there is a whole library full of picture books and millions of ruddy fairy books easy chapter books to read before we need to venture onto anything harder.

I have also discovered that i have been talking to her about level 5ish science, which would explain why she doesn't understand it! ( just something I happened to be interested in )

now we need to keep on chipping away at the occupational therapy and physio so that she is able to write. she did some homework tonight and put a comma in the list.... but no sign of a single capital letter or full stop... aaaggghhhh! (and there are more ups and downs than the mountains in Switzerland, so it is difficult to read )

working out what you want to get from the meeting, then working out the best way to achieve it. (sounds so easy) there are a lot of people around who are good at thinking these things through. I think I am seeing the results of going to see the head last term and asking about her reading. pitched it as an I am concerned about her confidence in school given she is reading xyz at home and abc at school. my aim was to raise the issue, so that they were aware that I have concerns and am interested, while trying not to be a pushy mum or acusing them of poor teaching. been on the other side of the fence and remember what it is like having parents come in and say she can do xyz at home when the child can not do it in school. not often though, so hopefully I was doing something right

perhaps say that you had the test done because of problems at home (sensitive to noises, etc) and the inconsistencies between her performance at home school and that you were worried that there was something wrong with the school's teaching dd.

Really pleased about the books susan,about time too!

let's hope that your school gets more cooperative soon too!

Susan Why is the school generally reluctant to allow KS1 kids to read KS2 books? DD2 was reading junior books in year 1, no problem. Some schools are odd.

Mrs Shears, I think we are facing some of the same problems as you and, particularly if you have a child that isn't entirely expansive about what is going on in school and you don't want to ask leading questions, it's very hard to unpick them. So I'm going to run through some of the thoughts we've been having (still very much a work in progress) to see if they're helpful for you.

One is that people expect 'bright' children to be loud and shouty and always asking questions and, if they are temperamentally different to that, they are therefore not bright (I could start a whole thread on this and will one of these days). DD won't complain at school about being bored (she's so shy that she won't even complain about eating bananas which she hates) so they are less inclined to think there is a problem. It took me until my teenage years to act out being bored at school; then suddenly I got lots of extra work. I don't want DD to be invisibly bored for that long.

There is also some kind of feedback loop between this kind of character and underachieving. DD is never asked to perform at the top of her abilities for her teacher, and can also see other children being praised for achieving much less. So she's getting less and less inclined to show them what she can do (our school has been particularly bad at praising her for fear of differentiating her from the rest of the class, and it is starting to be demoralising).

Perfectionism is also part of this whole mess too. DD's natural inclination is to only do what she knows she won't fail at, and she does need encouragement to go outside her comfort zone. Because school isn't doing that, she isn't revealing half of what she will do (I found out the other day that she doesn't like writing at school because there aren't rubbers in case she makes a mistake and she refuses to ask for one telling me that there aren't any in the whole class. At home she writes whole sentences with punctuation in.)

So it may be a bit more than simple confidence issues, more like a whole whirlpool of small things which together have a very big effect.

The other thing which really struck a chord with me was her liking smaller groups - DD is just the same, but she thrived so well at nursery that we thought she had grown out of that. We had a choice between a bigger local school or driving to a smaller village school. We thought that she'd now be OK with the bigger local school and I am increasingly thinking we have made a mistake. Exactly what I had feared is happening, which is that she is invisibly muddling along in the middle of the class and being overlooked and she's not standing up for herself because she finds it overwhelming. More and more I think a smaller school where they would get to know her would be a better fit.

I happen to think that not liking big groups is a perfectly valid character trait (speaking as someone who would always prefer meeting 2 people to go to a party) and I don't think it is something to be beaten out of children

The only disadvantage with smaller schools is that oddball children have less of a chance of finding a kindred spirit, which does matter. How are her friendships at school?

Blimey, that was a bit of an epic, wasn't it. Sorry about that. Also, I have joined the NAGC and so am happy to tell you anything you want about it.

We did it because 1 x telephone conversation with one of their advisers is £20, membership is £42 and you get two of those convos a year for free. Our first one is booked for ten days time, so I'm hoping to have the chat with school after that one.

Hi onesandwichshort

Thanks for your post,i love the fact that we have this forum it's a godsend for me at the minute.
What you have posted about people thinking its the outgoing shouty children who are the bright ones is so true,i'm always saying this ranting about it.
The 'top' group in dd's class are all these type of children,when actually 70% of gifted children are introvert.
I think a smaller school is one of the things that dd needs too,your dd does sound alot like mine.
I have joined the NAGC and had a telephone conversation too,which was very helpful although i think i'm going to try and get another one prior to my meeting at school,posted on the forum for the first time today too.
DD's actually very popular at school which surprises me(that sounds awful but she is not very forthcoming),but saying that she has a very strong sense of right and wrong and i think this may play a part as she would never dream of treating anyone unfairly and is also very kind and caring,however because of her being well liked she can get a bit overwhelmed and intollerent and the teacher has had to speak to the other children about dd's personal space.

the bright children stereotype. are they not alloed to have personalities/experiences that do not fit the stereotype?

dd is certainly bright, but can't work out how much because she does not perform at school. she is shy and does not like to get things wrong and will not attempt to try something if she is scared and does not speak out. sounds like there are several similar children. how are they going to know if she can take away with negative numbers, they are hardly going to do that in y1 are they? but then she doesn't seem to be doing stuff in the middle she shoulld be able to. perhaps I have missed a big chunk of maths out somewhere.

however, I do think that the teacher is beginning to piece together things about dd so we will get a fair view of her capabilities at some point. i am trying to branch out and supporrt dd with other areas of the curriculum. (geography/history/science)

They are all cut from the same cloth aren't they? And I think the combination of shy/perfectionist/bright/sensitivities makes it very hard for a child to stand out in the classroom and show what they are capable of.

Today (for the meeting but I forgot it, of course) I printed out a list for the teacher of the 8 books that DD had read when she was off with a cold for a day, along with what she currently has out from the library. I may do more of this kind of thing too, because I just can't see how DD can show what she can do within a reception classroom.

Mrs Shears: It's great that she's popular, although it may make changing schools a bit harder to sell if it comes to that. And at least you can be confident that unhappiness isn't a reason for her underperforming.

i am getting worried that they are going to introduce taking away soon and some clot is going to say you take away the small number from the big number, because dd wil think it is true. she came out of school saying that the teacher said thet her high viz jacket had to stay in school now, because the teacher did not realise that it was hers from home and thought it was one she had borowed. dd did not realise that the teacher can make mistakes too and did not speak up. we had a situation of going backwards at school after her previous teacher said something.

We started take away last week susan using find the missing number,things like

19 - = 12 and 14 - = 7
dd has not done too well at school with this same old same old but has managed at home once you tell her to stop guessing and use her brain and work it out!! I think this is a factor too as dd has never been stretched she does not like having to think about things.

might try that. can't think why I have not tried it earlier given that we do "what do you add to 6 to make 10" sort of questions already. clearly not gifted and talented parent!

Can I join????

Ds (yr2 although 31st Aug) has finally been put on G&T for reading, writing and spelling. Think he might be on it too for mental maths but not sure

All of yr1 I was hounding asking for harder books as he was complaining his school books were too easy.

He finished yr1 on ORT 9 (which was still too easy) and at the beginning of yr2 has been put back to ORT 7 [shock

He has 2 teachers as one teacher works 4 days a wk and he has another one (who assessed his reading) on fridays.

She basically said he cannot expand from the book as to "why" things happen etc (which IMO he can but finds teacher a bit scary)

Anyway, went to parents eve on tuesday (with his main 4 days a wk teacher) who said she has assessed his reading herself and said he is on ORT 12.

Finally I have a teacher who is going to help!!! She has arranged for him to have an hr a wk getting extra support/work etc and has worked out ways to extend him in his work alongside the rest of the class and bless her has brought in her own books from home (they were her sons but he has outgrown them) for him to read and has given me a list of books for him to read also ie Harry Potter, The Demon Headmaster, The secret 7 and Jeremy Strong etc.

The only thing she says he has to work on is his confidence as its letting him down a bit (glad to see other parents have same problem, well not glad but you know what I mean!!)

I think it often takes the one teacher ( and here -whisper it- I do think smaller classes help) and continuity. If the one teacher realises something is outwith the normal level of progression they may then be more receptive to you taking in things done at home (as they have already realised for themselves IYKWIM). They may ask for it (DS's school did). Could you try this now they are increasing book bands etc?

To simpson I would add Dick King smith and especially Roald Dahl to the list (Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate factory, Charlie and the great glass levator...). DS favourite book is Witches "where they only get through 1 child a week !"
Harry Potter first book is good but they get progressively worse (editor did not have the strength to edit them down due to popularity-i guess it is like the Hobbit is soooo much better than LOTRs).

Reading wise I must admit I am happy to go with whatever is sent home from school as I know he can read what he likes at home and use school books to practise reading out loud. But I think reading book levels can be used as a marker for how a teacher sees a child as DS gets lots of extra 1-2-1. I know they get him.

Thanks

Forgot to mention Roald Dahl The teacher did put that on the list too. Have added Dick King Smith

Spellings seems to be his main "thing" iyswim. He just has to look at a word and he remembers how to spell it. He told me once he "locks in it his mind until he needs to use that word and then he unlocks it"

His teacher is not prepared to give him more than 9 words a wk but has asked him to think of 3 words a wk with that weeks sound on (ie this wk was words with "OW" like sunflower, downstairs, know, how) which he did and she did test him on the 3 extra words which was good

His teacher in yr1 was very good at building up his confidence as this time last yr he would not even put his hand up in class but seemed IMO to let him cruise the yr a bit as its a very mixed ability school and there are kids who cannot yet read, write do sums etc.

Simpson, I echo igglys point on books, yah to Rahl Dahl & just Harry potter & the philosophers stone (the others get longer & progressively darker - think you have to bear in mind she wrote them sequentially with intention the audience would be growing up alongside the characters).

Iggly, you're totally right it does just take that 1 teacher to 'get' your child doesn't it! Once they have a teacher who recognises their abilities that teacher helps them not just for the time they're in their class but also beyond, they hand on what they know to the next etc & I think as long as you have a school where the teachers respect each other then they will listen & things just seem to flow! Never realised how important the teaching side of ks1 was, (don't get me wrong, I always respected teachers, but in 'infants' thought it was more about wiping noses, getting them to listen, learn the alphabet & sing songs,) but the amount of academic variation they have to deal with even after 1 year of schooling is a big juggling act!

"But I think reading book levels can be used as a marker for how a teacher sees a child." oh yes! also behaviour plays a part. if they behave like a younger child (dd) then they can't possibly read!

simpson, just been researching the questions you need to ask in reading.

some guidance here

archived documents here, but be quick they may disappear