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?

Blimy var, I've just found this document (not sure if it was the one you linked to, the site took me elsewhere)

ccea.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/curriculum/guidelines_general_strategies/sen-gifted_guidelines_for_teaching.pdf

It's the best thing I've ever seen come out of a government department in this country, I think,

This document is really interesting. Thanks!
I think it lays out very nicely what needs to be suported by who for the different 'type' of Gifted children.

Time to move to Northern Ireland, i think! So much of that document is exactly hat we've been saying on this thread esp. those myths and truths.

So, the English education world does know what its like, and yet they deny it rather than respond appropriately. Why? because they can't (don't know how / no resources) or is it the jealousy thing?

All those reasons I imagine. Plus the fact able kids are a tiny easily ignored minority. And one that nfortunately either doesn't exist or doesn't deserve anything more in many peoples eyes, so there's never going to be any major objections.

Much easier to continue putting everything behind the strive for mediocrity.

Ps not read those links yet, I'm saving them for tomorrow when I have time to read them properly.

New email sent to the head of dept at the secondary school today, requesting challenging work for Ds1. He said give them a chance to see what year 9 would be like first, so I have.

Last time this teacher wrote to me, apart from asking me to wait until the end of September, he said
"All of us within the department look to challenge the students so that they continue to find interest and a passion for Maths. DS1 is clearly a very able mathematician and we will continue to seek opportunities to nurture his interest and develop his skills."

So, will he be true to his word? As much as I respect and like him both as an individual and professionally, I don't believe he will actually change things for children like DS1 (or Ds2). The email was just giving him the benefit of the doubt.

I'll still keep my fingers crossed for you and him anyway

I got a prompt reply. The HoD has looked out for DS but he finds him unremarkable within the top set. Unremarkable because DS didn't get 100% in a recent test (nor did anyone else, he says) and DS doesn't contribute much to class discussions.

I wrote back saying DS is very quiet by nature so won't volunteer to speak unless pressed. But does the HOD think that DS's exam results fit the profile of someone who is somewhere in the middle of the class?

I can see that I won't get anywhere, although at least the discussion will be polite. I'll teach DS at home a few hours each week this year. I'd already decided I would unless the school were prepared to change things to challenge him.

Having worked with a large number of mathematicians in my career, and gone to university with them (as the HoD would have done too), I am surprised that he doesn't realise that the majority are quiet, and sometimes a bit introverted.

Not to mention even the ones like mine who aren't quiet or introverted don't tend to be motivated by discussions of things that to them go without saying, and don't want to be seen as the one who always gets it right.

It's also impossible to find out how remarkable or otherwise a pupil is without challenging them in the first place, which I'm sure he must also know.

DS1 tells me that he only wants to contribute when he has something to say that no one else is likely to have to offer and it doesn't make him look like a geek. Unsurprisingly, that leaves DS1 with very little to say, especially in a subject like maths where there is a right answer, not just a viewpoint.

Even though I think the teachers are wrong to make assumptions about his understanding, without actually hearing him speak, I do see their point that they need feedback or otherwise they'll have to guess. The problem is that I was offering it this morning (albeit 2nd hand) but they don't seem to want to accept it.

Ds1 needs to start fitting in with the world and leave his comfort zone of silence. I think he's getting quieter as he gets older, rather than coming out of his shell as I'd hoped. I''ve said everything I can to him about this already, using every bit of persuasive power I can muster. He's bright enough to understand it. I think he agrees with me. If I say another word, I'll alienate him. BUT. HE. JUST. WON'T. DO. IT!

So, that maths exam that the HOD said Ds didn't get 100% on in an email this morning, and no one did.... I asked him what DS did get and he said he didn't have the results in front of him.

So, I asked DS, and he said "What exam? We haven't done any exams or test until today. It turns out that Ds was actually sitting the exam that he hadn't got 100% on at exactly the same moment that the HoD was writing to me telling me that he didn't get 100%.

That's a pretty abysmal job of even attempting to fool you.

$deity help us, or rather our children. My two pet hates are definitely:

1. Hands-up being used to assess children's attainment and teachers being too dim to comprehend the inherent imitations of that approach. We get all that inclusion & diversity twaddle yet they expect children to have indentikit personalities, presumably modelled on Big Brother contestants.

2. 100%. To err is human and with that expectation they're encouraging some nasty perfectionism and not challenging them.

100% on an exam that didn't exist though, piqueaboo. Who knows, maybe Ds1 got 0% on it. Anything is possible, since it was entirely fictional.

Oh dear var that is really appauling...

I also hate the 100% stuff.

1- because it exarcebate the idea that yoou have to be 'perfect' and neither dc1 nor dc2 need that

2- because actually it leaves very little margin for improvement. If you more or less consistently get 100%, what are you going to learn? I thought that the best learning youi can do is to learn to learn from your mistakes. It teaches resillience and show when your efforst are making a difference.
If instead you always have 99 or 100 ....

I have been thinking about teaching dc1 but he is actually reluctant himself saying that he will know even more and therefore be even more bored at school...
Beside, what difference will it make for him? Will he get a better mark at CGSE or A level?? I have been wondering if, instead, the area I should concentrate is all the emotional intelligence stuff, teaching him resilience, enjoying effort and getting very much at ease in social settings. In effect, putting a lot of emphasis on the non academic stuff instead.
Maybe I'm barking at the wrong tree there but the battle to get him more challending, interesting work is, in effect, lost. So maybe I should be putting my effort in something else.

I spoke to Ds1 about why he's not contributing. He told me what I'd said to the HoD and added another one, which is bothering me.

He said that the teacher gives them some questions, he knows how to do the work anyway, works out the answer and has it written down in his book in front of him. Then she comes over to speak to Ds and the boy sitting next to him. Ds just does his best not to engage with her because he's bored thinking about it already. He knew how to do the work before the lesson started, he endured the lesson and then was bored solving the various problems, but there's no way he then wants to start talking over how to do the problems with the teacher.

So, he's bored, becoming disengaged and, I think, showing a lack of respect to the teacher too. This is not good (I spoke to him about always being respectful and keeping an open mind that maybe he will learn sheathing new even when he thinks he knows it already).

sheathing = something (not sure how I managed to mis-type that!)

That sounds exactly how I felt at secondary var. Except by y9 I was more than demonstrating my lack of respect and was already at loggerheads with practically all staff bar a couple.

I know a year is a long time but is it worth hoping for a different teacher for ks4? Or is there anyway you could prove his ability? Gcse is the obvious one, and although I know there's drawbacks to doing one early, I wonder if you did an old paper at home they'd let him do another in exam situation in school under their eye as evidence of his ability?

Its the department, not the teacher, so I don't see how things will improve until A level, unfortunately.

The worrying thing is DS1 is my ultra-compliant son. You can get him to do anything just by explaining why its a sensible idea. Whereas Ds2, who so far has been even better at maths than Ds1, age for age, is far harder to sell to. So, if its like this with DS1, what will it be like with Ds2 in two years time when he's a year 9 teenager?!

The school know that DS1 is very able. they have his exam results. They've levelled him. He's got the highest attainment ever in the school's history, 2 years running.

The HoD either knows that, or isn't interested enough to find out. However, he is willing to blatantly lie about an exam that never existed.

So, its time for me to privately give up on the school wrt maths. I'll home teach for an hour or two per week. If that means they are ready to do GCSEs by the end of year 9, or not until the end of year 10, I don't care. The only point for me is that they are making progress.

Does anyone know where I can get hold of a copy of a sample GCSE paper and a detailed list of the topics children need to learn for the exam?

I agree they'll know his ability, I did mean more offering something they can't blatantly lie about.

No idea, perhaps whatever council/ lea dept that deals with homeschooling? Or the exam board themselves?

I think justrichmal's dd took GCSE early?
May be she might have some ideas?

Once children are doing their GCSE early, what's happening then?
Eg you do your maths GCSE I'm Y9, what do the children do until they are in KS4? Does it mean that for 1,2 years they don't do maths anymore?

PacificMouse - you are right - there is no good answer. It is the exact reason I've tried to avoid it so far.

To adopt the phrase used by the commentators about the Greek debt crisis until this summer, I won't solve anything by teaching DS GCSE maths early, I'll just be kicking the can down the road.

The situation last year (Y8) was that DS learned very little in maths lessons because he was waiting for others to catch up.

Now, in year 9, he's still waiting. He says they have been doing work from the level 7 curriculum this term, which takes no account of the DC, like DS who were level 8s last year, having mastered level 7 stuff at least 18 months ago. Obviously they will hit level 8 at some point, and probably there's something that DS could do with a bit more practice on (trigonometry, I think), but given that he got an 8A after just a few hours of teaching, I seriously doubt that the classwork will challenge DS even once this year.

If DS could just hold on a bit longer - 3 years more - then undoubtedly the pace will pick up, but that's a long time in a teenagers life and he's worrying me by becoming disengaged. He's been bored for a while but the disengaged bit worries me for obvious reasons.

So, I'll teach him at home and maybe he will do a GCSE privately, or maybe not. Its up to him really.

It means that year 10 will be a revision year at school, as will year 11. But so what? No one seems to think its a problem to make all the classwork revision in year 8 and 9, so why should they bother if that's what year 10 is too?

In DS's case, it will just mean that he can relax in maths during the GCSE years and save his energy for working in the subjects that his dysgraphia seriously effects.

If he did do the actual exam (or just proved beyond any grounds for school denying he could) then do you think they would be amenable to him doing another? One good school near me said in theory it only offered one maths gcse as an option, but the most able in past years would do the stats/ further maths one alongside it in normal lessons, even if the rest of the class weren't studying both. And then take both end of y11. Based not on it being a necessary qualification, but just to keep the most able learning during ks4.

To be honest, I don't know. Its a good school, great reputation, and I thought the maths dept and I would be on the same side. Its come as a bit of a shock to me to realise that our interests are not fully aligned and I am almost scared to find out how far apart we are.

The lying to me bit about the exam that didn't exist came as a particular shock.

It's strange that the HOD would lie about the exam. I'm trying to think what would be in for him to lie about something like that.

If your son was doing the test at that exact moment he was writing the email, or after he wrote you the email, he has no way of knowing whether your son could actually get 100% thus disproving what he just told you.

Is there a way you could request to see a copy of the exam to see what questions he got wrong and then see whether he was telling the truth or not? It just doesn’t make sense.

By the way, I didn’t realised your DS1 was the one from the thread about a DS not copying with his Y6 teacher until I got to the end.

It was such a horrible situation for him to be in, that even after all these years that awful teacher has left her mark. Thanks for the update and even though we have been very lucky with the primary teachers we have got so far, I will always keep in mind those words and the idea that there could be such cruel persons out there.