g and t - really or just tutored?

[2stixoftwix]

At my daughter school year 6 there are now 3 extra after school sessions , maths (level 6). English ( level 6) reading( level 6). I picked up my daughter from her after school clubs, and watched the kids come out who attended these sessions.
(About 15 in each class) every single one apart from 2 had / are being tutored and went in for the 11+ (4 got in)
So not really g & t. Just tutored.

I know this probably only applies to my DDS school, but it seems that the other kids who need extra help don't get it

So most people have had at least some input into their child's reading or the child has been to nursery where this happens. It seem we are just arguing over amount. It is, however, not zero

Also, tuition will increase a child's ability, whether or not you want it to.

For clarity nursery in our case was a state pre school year one in Scotland where no attempt was made to teach letters. There was a pot of letters for kids to play with if they chose!

I'm not arguing just discussing my experience. Obviously if we lived in a no print world the kid would have been studying the leaves in the forest I expect!

Tutoring (also ime!) needs a willing tutee. Otherwise it truly vcan have zero effect. Sad face of experience.

A child will not learn to read without some adult input and I do agree, in the modern world, almost all children do get this from TV, parents, nursery (most of which do have story time). To class this as a child teaching themselves, I don't think it is.

I would draw a distinction between environmental exposure to print and overt teaching of letter recognition / reading. Hey ho.

Because I had two children and two different experiences of the road to becoming a reader I suppose.

Also some children learn to blend sounds easily. I think that many children can learn quickly and easily the letter sounds, and I did this with my children and my minded children (I'm a child minder) and some children will very quickly and almost on their own be able to blend their first words such as cat, car, etc. other children will figure out that bit later, and with adult input.

But to contradict myself, I learned to read 'by sight' with a series of books and 45s records telling Disney stories. Tinker Bell would ring her bell to say 'turn the page'. I listen to these records hundreds of times, 'looking' at the words and that's how I learned to read. Go Disney.

"The level of maths expected at school via the national curriculum is so much lower than what is obtainable by the average child."

So why does average child not get a near-perfect L5 in the standard KS2 SAT? Given the timetable slots they have for maths I think the current curriculum is roughly suitable for the majority in the middle and that's a significant part of the problem. L6 has helped mitigate this a little, but is hasn't solved it and it's quite possible that new-improved primary assessment will reverse some of the gains from L6.

It's when they get past say, one standard deviation to the right that we have trouble. Towards the end of Y4 I looked at both DD and one of those KS3 maths curriculum text-cum-comic books and my reaction was: "IS THAT IT?!?"

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DD is now in Y7 and we haven't taught her any maths outside school. Despite this being a non-selective area there has been quite a lot of "secret" tuition amongst the highers (literally living on the right side of the tracks), presumably because the secondary do set maths in Y7. So why has DD kept her shiny relative ranking?

Well there is a strong correlation between mental acuity and maths. Schools typically don't test things they haven't taught and DD is quick on the uptake, then outperforms the other children despite some of them already knowing [whatever].

I think the moral of my tale is that if you tutor a child with the hope of pushing them to a better grade in a criterion based maths exam, then that might work. However if your motive is to get them ahead of a child like DD in the class rankings (which has definitely happened here) then it probably won't work and perhaps you should also be grateful we don't have norm-referenced exams.

This inevitably sounds even smugger, but it illustrates my point: In practice DD is one of a Y7 whizzy maths trio in a bit of a league of their own in a top-set which apparently contains "loads" of children with KS2 L6 passes. DD has the top-of-the-range CAT test score for her year. The second child has a score which is one insignificant point lower. Not sure, but it sounds like the third child is "spiky skilled", possibly dyslexic, so probably has a shiny score for a CAT sub-test but a lesser cumulative score i.e. this child is a convenient reminder that individual setting for subjects is better than streaming for all subjects and that school selection at 11 is riddled with problems.

"So why does average child not get a near-perfect L5 in the standard KS2 SAT? Given the timetable slots they have for maths I think the current curriculum is roughly suitable for the majority in the middle and that's a significant part of the problem."

Lots of reasons: lack of individual time for a large class of varying ability, not showing the children more when they have already mastered certain concepts, children with underlying learning difficulties that may not be officially diagnosed, different priorities (and correctly so) .... I believe all average children could get a very good GCSE in math before leaving primary (I believe one school in wales actually put in their primary school pupils for math GCSE!), if tutored. It may, however, not be in their interests as school is (correctly) about so much more than 1 subject.

"I think the moral of my tale is that if you tutor a child with the hope of pushing them to a better grade in a criterion based maths exam, then that might work. "

I think it definitely would work. Maths is very easy to tutor/prepare for. If all were tutored the same (and none introduced to new concepts in advance) then certainly I would not expect anyone to surpass your child .

"It may, however, not be in their interests as school is (correctly) about so much more than 1 subject."

I suspect we'd find that maths progress works better in the presence of other subjects. In the real-world where we don't throw too much other stuff away, then I think the top 10-15% with a very good GCSE by the age 14. Maybe.

"If all were tutored the same ... I would not expect anyone to surpass your child"

In the local pond perhaps, but some other child being further along the curriculum simply doesn't feel like surpassed to me. It's partly from the world of piano grades and for similar reasons, but this is strongly influenced by DD being a summer-born who had a split school start which meant the older children in the class were typically better at most things because they had done them for longer. If a child has spent more time going further along the curriculum, then my instinct is to wonder where DD would have got to if she'd spent the same amount of time doing that.

"Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell is good at showing the effects of birth month and its consequences. The effects of having "done them for longer" is very important. I think you are right to wonder where your DD would have got to if she'd "spent the same amount of time" doing certain things- though if she is happy and confident those are really important. Maybe someone further afield may (or maynot-) surpass I still believe that her and many others could get top grades at GCSE in primary school in maths. The difference is they may have to take time from other equally important subjects or do a bit more homework and this long term maynot be worth this (or other) expense.

I've never read Outliers, but I'm not that inclined to do so given Gladwell's take on the "10,000 hour rule" was apparently vague enough to be weaponised and used against brighter children by those pernicious anti-elitist flat earthers blank slaters.

I'll never know now, but on maths GCSE the ~300 hours of school Numeracy in upper-KS2 seemed like more than enough time for DD to polish off that curriculum. Like any parent who talks to their child I've got a good idea of how DD copes with new concepts and I don't think there were any serious conceptual challenges for her in GCSE maths at that age.

Marrying those two paragraphs, many of the concepts we've been having lots of fun chatting about this year are wide-ranging ones around the world of genomic engineering, which is interesting enough right now for me to suggest to DD that her natural life-time may well cover one of the most pivotal periods in human history. See here for one user-friendly take on what has been kicking around in the science press in the last month or two:

www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/science/biologists-call-for-halt-to-gene-editing-technique-in-humans.html

I think one moral of this additonal tale is not to be too snobbish about children reading books like the Divergent series, because they're good start to the topic. Another is that is that the blank slaters have already lost, although it's clearly going to be a while before some of them reach the end of a career invested more in ideology than reality.