Having to help less able children in the class, is this normal?

[NotWorkingOut]

DD seems to have been spending a lot of time this year helping other children. When I asked why, she said it was because they couldn't read/didn't understand the questions, so she and a couple of others had to help them do their work. Apparently this was because they'd done the work ages ago, so already knew and had to explain.

The odd occasion I wouldn't mind too much, but is this the sort of thing that's going to happen throughout the school now? She even had to miss play time to do her own work once because she'd been helping someone else!

I have this gut feeling that this is the whole in depth knowledge/mastery of a topic thing!

Here's why I think this is absolutely fine, has positive effect on DS and I have no problem with it whatsoever:

• If your child is G&T, he/she will be ahead of everyone else in the class. So to work in groups or pairs, he/she will HAVE to work with someone less able. Unless you want your child to work on their own all the time, which is unhelpful as they wont learn to work in groups.
• Often when we explain a concept (a maths rule, a grammar rule) to our kids at home, we say 'now explain it in your own words to your brother' and that way, we know if they have understood it correctly. Same applies at school in my opinion.
• People have to work together in life, at work, at home, at school. For some, it's a learned skill and I am very pleased (so is DS) when he comes home and says he's worked with X today and even if I know that X is in the bottom group, I focus on the positive, not on the fact that my precious G&T child shouldn't work with less able children.
• I support and encourage my G&T child (and my not so G&T child) to play with kids of all abilities.

DS (the gifted one) was once on the SEN list because of a speech disorder. I overheard two mums in the playground complaining that their precious daughter had to work with my DS again and they didn't like helping him. You know what, shame on them. Now my DS is helping their children and we are all absolutely fine with it. I hope they are too.

DD has executive functioning difficulties, and the teacher has asked one of the more organised girls to help DD have the right things, get the right books at the right time etc. (though also clear that it is ultimately DD's responsibility) And DD has the responsibility of helping to take library books back for the class (she is very 'enthusiastic' about volunteering ). It works well if it is an 'everybody using their talents to help each other' way. But not if it's holding any child back.

which is unhelpful as they wont learn to work in groups.

Read this: teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/group-work/

Life/ childhood is full of opportunities to mix with different kinds of people (whether you are talking about personality, IQ, wealth, culture, political views etc). They do not need to be artificially created in the classroom or out of it. Your DC will have those opportunities whatever happens (unless they decide to become a hermit).