What is your school doing with their highest achievers under the new NC?

[amillionusernameslater]

I'm very about the new approach to G&T pupils of deepening not letting them learn new things.

What are others' schools doing with those who are well ahead of year group expectations in maths in particular?

IguanaTail, if you are a teacher, I would rather like you to suggest how we can make relationships better with teachers who aren't so keen to dealing with parents like me.

Dealing with highly able child who's not happy because of their ability is not easy things to do.

@IguanaTail "You all seem to have such a desperately poor regard for teachers"

I blame my parents. Specifically my mother for indoctinating me with her opinion of a profession in which she apparently did a very good job given the size of the "If it wasn't for your mother..." count. Her regular refrain back in the pre-NC day was "Never become a teacher" and that was largely because of other teachers, not the teaching. The very vocational Y5 teacher I know in personal life is much the same. Both of them had significant lives before they turned to teaching, something which obviously makes a few quite common attributes of the 'culture' much more visible.

I genuinely liked DD's upper-KS2 teachers who were opposites in terms of sex and age, but quite similar in terms of honesty. They knew what DD was and generally told me how it was in plain English, with none of that ultra-super-defensive by default stuff or hiding behind deliberately opaque eduTwaddle. Pragmatically this didn't deliver much more 'stretch & challenge', but it was an order of magnitude better and we occasionally did some genuinely useful business in that phase of our little 'home-school partnership'.

I currently teach at a very academic school and lead training on stretching the most able. It's an interest I have, yes. When I opened the thread I started thinking about lots of suggestions and also colleagues I could contact for advice. As I read down the thread though, the tone seemed to change; the discussion element had gone, the focus changed and I didn't want to be a part of that.

Best of luck with your quest. Genuinely no need to defend yourselves - you are entitled to behave and post as you wish.

IguanaTail ouch! You think you might know how to help but you are put off saying?

Another story (which may be related, but may be not): Yesterday I went to collect both boys from school. The parents park in a public car park about 1/4 mile from the school. DS2 appeared and got in the front seat, and we waited fro Ds1 to arrive. Eventually, I saw him coming into sight. He was walking oddly, sort of scurrying, I thought to myself that I wish he was easy in his skin, like Ds2. Just as he went to cross the road, he turned round as the boy near him said something. Then DS1 got into the car and his chin started wobbling. I asked what the boy had said, and Ds1 told me (it was nothing offensive). I could see Ds1 was about to cry though, so i asked if he was ok. Then he punched the back of the seat and started sobbing. I heard him say something about how he hates his life.

We were in the middle of a car park, with hundreds of children who go to his school all around. I thought the best thing was to get him out of there before someone saw him cry. By the time we got home, he'd pulled himself together and went back to that bright, but brittle, look he always has on his face these days. I asked why he had been upset and he said he didn't know but he was sure it was nothing. The subtext was that there was no way he was going to let me or DH try to help him. He knows we have other, serious worries right now, maybe that's why he won't share. Maybe he believes we can't help him.

I know DS isn't popular at school with the other boys. He tries to hide his interests from the boys in his class and he just doesn't seem to share their's (computer games mainly). He feels like an outcast - if he displays his subject knowledge in class, he sounds like a know it all. So, he keeps quiet, scared to reveal himself as a nerd but without the confidence to fake being anything else. He often goes whole weeks without speaking to anyone - he has taken to playing football at break, so it could be worse.

There is no doubt about it that he'd be better off in a different (paid-for) environment, but DH and I cannot even begin to afford it. So we plough on, trying to make the best of it and always hoping that it will get better next year.

The other posters on this thread will have different outcomes (I hope). However, this belief, held by so many who don't have highly able children, that we are smug or boastful and our children deserve no help is just wrong and very, very unjust.

var your description of your ds reminds me of dc1 :(:(

IguanaTail, I wish we can afford to send my ds to school with teachers who are trained to stretch most able children.

var that's so upsetting to read. And illustrates the point that being the most able can have exactly the same social issues as the other end of the scale. But often without the same support and allowances made.

From experience and general observation I find the able children who don't have social difficulties are the ones who are naturally uber confident or have some other lucky combination from a social point of view. It takes a certain personality to pull off 'most able' without social consequences. Which I think is incredibly unfair, because personality types that would be fine socially in the big middle range of ability, end up struggling when combined with ability at either end of the spectrum.

One of dds friends she met at an outside activity is at our catchment school. Having seen her in various situations, it's fair to describe her as entirely normal from a social personality, sometimes a bit nervous, sometimes confident. So like the vast majority. Apparently within a few weeks of secondary, she's already really struggling socially. Admittedly at that particular school bad social situations develop to extremes quicker than at most schools. But it wouldn't suprise me if the same core issue occured at other schools for this girl long term. Despite the fact if she was just in the normal range of ability there is no reason to suspect she'd have any difficulties.

The first time dd had a snide comment made by a new peer group, she would have immediately crucified whoever made it with witty one liners, tailoring to suit the understanding of the audience for maximum impact. Not all children are like that, whatever their ability.

When she was 10, she was at the local park with an older friend who has developmental delay, meaning that for everyday purposes dd was slightly older mentally at that time. Some girls who went to school with the friend saw fit to turn up and start insulting her about her intelligence. Dd casually reported exactly what she'd said in defence of her friend. It hadn't crossed Dds mind that when a group of 15yr old girls are saying 'we aren't having a go at you cos you're y5 so stay out of it' the usual response isn't 'well I'm having a go at you' before metaphorically ripping them to shreds.
That type of confidence in yourself at an early age, or some other social advantage seems to often be almost a prerequisite to pull off being an outlier without struggling with peers. Otherwise it seems to me high ability and social happiness is a huge uphill struggle.

I work in the state sector Irvine. Training doesn't necessarily involve cost, other than personal time and motivation.

Yes I agree personal time is a BIG factor.

@var123: "without the confidence to fake being anything else"

You make me count my/DD's blessings. On this point I don't think she fakes it, rather she switches between some quite real personalities. With-class, with-friends and at-home are all different in various ways. They're all her, but I'm not sure which is the most her now.

At-home DD never stops talking, opining and fidgeting. With-class DD is a very reserved hands-down girl, but being sporty and musicial she has common ground with a handful of children in the class and appears to be respected by the majority. The parent-disturbing part is when the seating plan doesn't put her close to that handful because she essentially turns to stone. We obviously don't get to see that very often, but courtesy of a couple of school events the scene is a typical restless, noisy class with the one child in their midst who stands out a mile because of their lack of motion and apparently(!) contented detachment.

@Lurkedforever1: "It takes a certain personality to pull off 'most able'"

With-class DD seems to have stepped beyond the fray. My theories come and go, but I think the message her peers absorb from the broken android impressions is that although she's one of them, she doesn't need them. Most girl-fighting here tends to involve isolating a victim, so perhaps she escapes hostile attention because she doesn't look like that would trouble her in the slightest. Again being sporty probably helps and although she's much too modest to mention them, some of the derring-do tales get around and convey 'fearless'.

Y8 is early days, but so far we haven't had a hint of DD being the target of any abuse targeting academic ability or anything else. With-class DD doesn't need at-home DD's verbal fencing skills.

IguanaTail, I really envy the children in your school.

If there are a lot of teachers like you, we don't even have to whine on MN
anymore!

The funny thing is, my ds's great yr2 teacher left school, and we didn't know about it until school started in September.

I just wondered, because I know she went great length for my ds last year, it has something to do with her leaving school?

Is school difficult place for motivated, enthusiastic teachers?

There are several primary school teachers in my family, though they are mostly retired now as it was the thing that the girls did for a career in the 1960s.

From their stories, I'd say it got harder to make a difference. Originally, there was a high level of autonomy about what they taught and how they taught it, but decade by decade, it was whittled away at from on high.

Then on the other side, parents and children became less and less respectful, more willing to challenge, sometimes from a position of complete ignorance. When they started their careers (which most saw as a vocation), people did not question the teacher, but by the time they came to retire, it was an every day event. Perhaps they had bad experiences of school themselves, so some parents seemed to be spoiling for a fight.

Amongst parents (at a school in a rough area), it was a common misconception, apparently, that working with older children was a promotion and moving to work with younger ones was a demotion.

Teaching theories also come into and out of fashion. Every new generation of teachers arrive thinking that they have been trained in all the latest thinking which has never been done before. That's a joke too.

I strongly suspect, that against that backdrop, it is extremely hard to stay motivated.

Thank you Var123.

I was talking with my dh that when we were students, we had kind of automatic respect for teachers.

I wasn't educated in England, but teachers had more freedom of approach towards how they teach children.

Now with enormous pressure from school to bring everybody up to NC standard, reports, work load etc., I assume it might be physically impossible to do something extra even if they wanted to.

Even sometimes I feel like I've been let down by some teacher, I still have great respect for what they do for our children.

There are fads all the time, and cycles of what is considered best practice. But when it comes down to it, challenge is all about unlocking deeper thinking. Theories on that evolve more slowly.

Irvine- parents complain no matter what the situation. But I would say there is a core of motivated teachers in every school. In some schools the core is bigger than in others.

Thank you IguanaTail.

I understand that is true, from teachers I met, and all the great teachers I encounter on MN.

I know one teacher who reluctantly changed to the private sector when the curriculum took over to the point she became frustrated she could no longer teach to the best of her abilities for each child. And another that used to specialise in struggling students, before we had sencos etc who went freelance out of mainstream. Her gripe was silly imposed things her students should learn, when it was counter productive. Eg she wanted to continue with education as valuble life skills. So teaching reading from whatever they were interested in, or how to do basic daily calculations, even if that meant a calculator, how to write a letter, how to make basic meals, how to use things like computers and dictionaries to bridge gaps in ability, in some cases supporting the root cause of their problems. When they started insisting she had to teach them English lit, and the maths curriculum, and home ec, and essay writing and so on, so they left with no qualifications, no interest, and no skills, she couldn't cope with it.

About two years ago we had a situation whereby ofsted were insisting that lessons should be able to show and evidence good progress every 20 minutes. There was then this ridiculous, stilted thing of having to have 3 separate "plenaries", often with mini whiteboards so that you could literally show that something they didn't know 20 minutes ago they now did.

I just couldn't bring myself to do this. How do you measure a slowly improving skill in 20 minutes? How about savouring a deeper idea? Learning doesn't happen in neat, 20 minute chunks. Teachers set aside their "ofsted" lesson, which was always something brand new to the kids, and wheeled it out for the inspectors. I didn't (and luckily the inspector was extremely complimentary), but I knew it was a risk.

Nowadays they don't do that, and indeed they don't give individual grades for lessons, but it's another example of a ridiculous protocol which was in place in the very recent past, and which undoubtedly changed the way some teachers approached their lesson planning.

I am at my wits end with my DD's primary school over this 'deepening but not extending' guff.

DD is in Year 2 and absolutely bored shitless in Maths. She said to me the other day 'Mummy, we have been doing number bonds to ten since the beginning of Year 1.'

I'm meeting her teacher about it next week, but I feel unite despairing. The teachers seem like automatons, just giving the same responses when ever I have tentatively raised the issue previously at parents evenings and whatnot. That list above made me laugh. So true.

*quite despairing

Not that long ago a friends childs was the cause of some ofsted criticism. In brief, sn severe enough to get a transfer out of mainstream during ks1. An ofsted inspector objected to the fact the class teacher wasn't just differentiating the class lesson to this child, and instead had a lovely range of planned tasks that were perfectly suited to that child. And that in actual fact it was commendable in regards to the dx that those sort of tasks in a classroom environment were even possible at that age. It didn't actually end up in any official report, the assumption was somebody else looked at the actual specifics, which aren't mine to share, and set this particular inspector straight on just how ridiculous this criticism was.

I think a core, perhaps the core problem is that the long-standing accountability regime has led to the system selecting more bureaucratic also-rans and/or bullying types for school leadership.

Intelligent, vocational primary teachers don't want those leadership jobs. Many of them will be genuinely working those 50+ hour weeks and can get a lot of pointless crap and thuggish idiocy thrown at them by their school leaders. I know quite a few primary teachers and the usual refrain is: "I don't think I can take this any more! It's not the teaching, it that bloody [headteacher | deputy] with their..."

I'm aware this is a sweeping generalisation, but this view isn't plucked from thin-air and no one will convince me otherwise.

Var, your post made me feel very sad for your ds. Does he have friends out of school who share his other interests?
Can you post what they are without identifying him as I wonder if there's potential for an email pen pal for him among some of our dcs so yours feels less alone?

Also, is it too late to look at a bursary at a private school in year 9? I suspect it might be but depends on where you are based as some schools have occasional vacancies throughout.

DH and I tried to give DS1 a stress free weekend and he seems much more content now.

What does he like? There isn't one thing. The only thing that all the things he is interested have in common is they all involve taking on new information. He doesn't have much interest in the arts though e.g. he loves sport, especially football but he also loves watching documentaries, visiting museums, having stuff explained to him, reading - fiction and non-fiction. He seems fascinated by geography and, to a lesser extent, history. He has a fair amount of interest in current affairs and some in politics. However he doesn't have much interest in RE and not so much in science (but I think that has something to do with school). Also he loves watching Top Gear and he seems to know a lot about cars.

Last night he asked us to wake him at 3am so he could see the lunar eclipse and back in may he begged us to let him stay up all night to watch the general election results coming in. (Not that he'll reveal that at school today).

The problem with the sport interest is that although he likes playing football, he talks about it with the sort of background knowledge that is more usual for the football pundits have. He does something similar for rugby, motorsports, athletics etc. He just knows thousands of facts and figures and he puts them together into arguments that make his conversation a little different from a more typical 13 year old boys ability to discuss sport.

He has no friends outside school, but I think there are 2 at school. However, they are both the sort of nice boys that don't judge and make friends with everyone, so i suspect that neither would list DS1 as their close friend. Certainly he didn't get invited to the most recent birthday sleepover for one of them.

var ((hugs))
Your description reminds me so much of ds1.
As you have seen from my other thread, I don't have a lot to advise as I'm struggling myself to see how I can help and support him.
But I wanted you to know you're nit the only one with a child who is not in sync with his peers and is struggling with it.
If I'm honest I was like this too as a child, apart from the fact that I never felt bored at school. I was moved a year ahead do at least it felt easy but not like I knew it all iyswim. Plus 30 years ago, information wasn't as available (and certainly not where I lived) so I couldn't actually learn that much more than I was taught (well I still did but it was about politics and discussing ethics with my parents, none if which were ever broached at school).
I never felt I could really connect with my peers until I reached Uni and I suspect the same will happen with dc1.

From my own experience, what I'm on the look out though is stress and depression (looking back I actually think I was depressed as a teenager). So I've cone to the conclusion that this us the area I need to concentrate on with dc1. Finding ways to help him deal with stress. I know what helped me (MH dullness techniques) but I also know he isn't very keen (I think he feels it's making him even weirder). But he us happy to get acupuncture as he knows it helps with his tension, stress related headaches. That's a start.