The glass ceiling for very able children

[var123]

Has anyone else encountered the sense that the school is merely paying lip service to the ideals that they will challenge all children and work to bring all the children in the class to their potential?

I bumped along it a couple of days ago in a face to face conversation with one of the teacher's at my children's secondary.

He was full of buzzwords (like resilience and challenge) but there was a complete vacuum when it came to detail about how he planned to achieve that wrt to my children. In fact, he kept lapsing into telling me how my DC might help the others "by inspiring the less able".

Honestly, has there ever been a human being born into this world, who feels inspired to keep ploughing away at something due to being in the presence of someone who learned to do it without breaking stride?? People who struggle and then succeed are the inspiring ones because they make you feel like if you can do it, then maybe you can too. The ones who always find it easy and are just waiting for you to catch up so they can move on are just disheartening to contemplate.

var yes, I'm more than happy with the approach too. I also think it's great for her to be in a cohort where she isn't the lone outlier in every single academic subject, as she was at primary. Even in maths she has a couple of peers for friendly competition. She's still near the top in other subjects, but having to make the ideal level of effort to maintain it, rather than remaining far and away the best no matter if she did her best work. (Primary with a low ability cohort where normally top of top set would be 5c level in their best subjects, hence dds position as lone outlier across the board)

Also fantastic that there are subjects new to her that prep kids were ahead in, or in mfl some children fluent already. And in September being at the bottom of the class in mfl gave her huge motivation to catch up asap. I suspect in a cohort where they all started it new together in y7, she could just put her memory and general ability to use in a half hearted manner and end up as one of the ahead ones in a few weeks, which isn't what I want.

I'm also not in support of it being solely down to the parent to keep the most able motivated. Firstly because no matter how well you do that, that's still a lot of boring school hours to endure that can result in a lack of interest/ motivation when it comes to formal education. It also ignores the fact not every able child has parents that care, or have the skills/ time/ money to help. For the exact same reasons that nobody would think it ok to leave the lowest achievers on the basis the parents can support them.

People have different personalities - rare indeed is the child that finds everything easy - the academic, the physical, the psychological. And those that do can easily become complacent and a bit lazy. With your own DC you need, ideally, to be constantly vigilant about the proximal zone of development and what you can push next. This can be time consuming :)

"you need, ideally, to be constantly vigilant about the proximal zone of development and what you can push next. This can be time consuming"

And as a teacher, you need to be constantly aware of it for all the DC you teach - at secondary, that can be hundreds for 1 subject. At primary, you need to keep jugging 30 children x all curriculum subjects as well as maintaining an awareness of who is actually very gifted in a 'non school' area. Throughout, you need to keep balancing the 'develop area of strength or target area of relative weakness' question discussed way back in the thread. So while I absolutely agree with Lurked that it is NOT solely down the the parent to keep an able child motivated in their specific area of ability (remember that the teacher or school may be, at that point, considering that child's areas of weakness instead), it is very time consuming indeed and we may not get it absolutely right on a day to day basis.

That doesn't mean, of course, that we shouldn't TRY to get it right for 100% of the children 100% of the time!

It can be, btw, as a teacher very difficult indeed to get the parent of an able child to look at anything OTHER than their area of strength, and some of my most memorably difficult parent-teacher meetings on the 'teacher' side of the desk have been on such subjects.

teacher though we pay a lot of money for our DC's schooling, we have never expected schools to provide their education IYSWIM.

That large and baggy beast, is our responsibility. School and teachers help, but ultimately the buck stops here.

As bobo says , it is time consuming but I've never really minded that.

The trouble is of course, some DC have to rely far more heavily on what school can provide as their parents have fewer resources at their disposal. Which is why i feel motivated to try to improve things I guess.

"some DC have to rely far more heavily on what school can provide as their parents have fewer resources at their disposal."

Absolutely. And as a school it is so important not to fall into the 'he who shouts loudest' trap, and perhaps pay particular attention to the children of high ability - or SEN - or middle ability - whose parents aren't necessarily fighting their corner at the moment for what may be a variety of reasons.

That can be quite difficult to explain: 'Why wasn't my child chosen for the enrichment day at X? He / she is the very able in that subject' can't, for reasons of confidentiality, be replied to with 'Well, actually, we sent Y instead, because while potentially also able, they've not been achieving quite so highly just recently and we think it may be due to [insert any / all of poverty, housing worries, not enough food, having to care for baby sister, parental separation, parent in prison/hospital etc etc]'

Personally, one of the things that makes primary teaching most stressful is not necessarily the paperwork or mindless directives, it is the constant crossover (when concerned with a child's education in the widest sense) between 'actual teaching', social work and parenting. For some children, the 'actual teaching' is all that they need and all that they demand, because they are well-parented and have their physical and emotional needs well met in their home environment. For others, it can be a full-on mix of all 3, with 'actual teaching' being by far the least important.

Dividing oneself up, on any given day, between those different aspects of the role and demands of specific children, is really hard, especially because the personality type of most teachers makes it likely that they will ALWAYS want to do the fullest job that they can, for every child.

I agree with EricNorthmanSucks in that education is the parent's responsibility although specific things are delegated to schools. That's not dismissing the schools input, just saying the buck stops with the parents. They are our children and therefore they our responsibility.

Teacher, if I may suggest why your conversations with parents of more able DC tend to be focused on the talent, rather than all the rest, it could be because the parents are fixated about that and can't think of anything else, or it might be that this is the area that they think the school is not meeting their child's needs, as has been described at length on this thread.

If your knee is really painful, when you speak to the GP, he may want to discuss how good your hearing is or that your arm could do with more exercise, but really what you want to discuss is the thing that feels like its really going wrong: the painful knee.

At the risk of over-emphasising, when I went to all those parent-teacher meetings, the teachers might want me to hear that DSs is progressing well at English, or that he plays well with other children, but I know all that. I wanted to talk about what he is doing in maths lessons because that's the area where I would see him becoming disheartened and over-confident (sometimes at the same moment!).

I think parents would mither teachers a lot less about the minutiae if the general structure were in place.

Obviously some parents will always want special treatment but if structure and policies are in place on a macro level, parents are more content to let go minor niggles.

var,

If I have only positive messages to give in other subjects - as you say, plays well with other children, doing well in English - then I have no problem at all spending virtually all the time on the 'subject of strength': those meetings aren't difficult at all, and tbh very familiar to me from the other side of the desk.

The REALLY notably difficult ones are the ones where there is an area of very significant weakness, either in a subject or in the social side of school, that I need to discuss, but the parent is entirely either oblivious to (because they have become so focused on the area of strength) or not wanting to hear about.

The kind of thing I am thinking about, to give some idea:
'Your child is very able at maths but their reading is very poor. They are making no progress in English and this is starting to impact on all subjects'

'Your child is very able in maths but the attitude that they have developed as a result means that they do not listen to corrections or suggestions in other subjects, in which they are therefore falling behind.'

'Your child is very able in maths but they are at risk of becoming very socially isolated because of their violent behaviour. I would like to explore some of the reasons behind this behaviour with you'

I think I understand you now.

You might be looking at a child who is abrasive around other children, or refuses point blank to change for PE or loves reading but struggles massively with the maths topics and then the parent comes in and only wants to talk about how advanced their child's writing is and dismisses the maths issue with a wave of their hand and the words "oh, I hated maths at school too. Luckily machines add up for us now."

Is that it?

cross posted!

I can well imagine, teacher, that parents do sometimes think that their children's high ability/achievement in one or more areas is a trump card for underperformance in others. TBH I think this a weakness exacerbated by early specialization in the English school system.

Bobo, as I teach 9 and 10 year olds, we are a long way from specialism

"That can be quite difficult to explain: 'Why wasn't my child chosen for the enrichment day at X? He / she is the very able in that subject' can't, for reasons of confidentiality, be replied to with 'Well, actually, we sent Y instead, because while potentially also able, they've not been achieving quite so highly just recently and we think it may be due to [insert any / all of poverty, housing worries, not enough food, having to care for baby sister, parental separation, parent in prison/hospital etc etc]'"

This is very interesting. One of the biggest roastings I have ever got on Mumsnet was when I talked about my ds being chosen to go on a particularl enrichment day that was utterly wasted on him for various reasons but which would have been fabulous for some of the other kids in his year, and whether or not I should say something to the organizer along those lines.

Yes, but parents know that their DC can get through secondary school and into university without pursuing all subjects to their final school leaving exam.

In many other countries DC will need to maintain a wide range of subjects in order to progress to HE and this means that parents are anxious about achievement in all areas.

"Yes, but parents know that their DC can get through secondary school and into university without pursuing all subjects to their final school leaving exam."

They still have to maintain them to the age of 16, though.

Bobo, as you will see from my specific examples, the type of issue I might have been raising would be to do with 'universal skills' such as reading, writing, attitude to learning and behaviour towards other pupils. None of these are aspects of a primary child's learning that a parent can avoid thinking about under the banner of 'specialism 6 or 7 years into the future'...

Bwertrand,

Different schools have different policies around enrichment activities - in the same way as they might have different philosophies around selection of sports teams etc.

Some schools will 'send the best regardless' - so some children will repeatedly go, others will never go, but there is an objective 'we sent the most able x' that can be used to justify it.

Others will try to spread opportunities around as much as possible, so nobody goes twice, and everyone might expect to go once, but the targeting won't be particularly precise.

Still others might collect a loose group of possible names who 'are in the right ballpark' in terms of interests and abilities, and then use a variety of softer measures to determine who might get to go. This might be based on whether they have been to other things, but may also be based on pupil premium, children who need a motivational boost or a boost to self-esteem, who have shown particular focus or engagement or who have untapped potential that our gut feel may be that this opportunity may help to unlock, or who we know that we are the 'only provider of enrichment' for, compared to other children who have very wide and fulfilling extra-curricular lives..

The last version is the hardest to defend / explain, which is why some schools adopt the more 'rigidly explainable' versions.

Well, yes, because when you think about it, what you are saying to the able child who knows he's the best mathematician in the class and who you know has been treading water for most of the year without allowing him or herself to become disruptive is that now that there is an enrichment activity in the very thing that they are good at, you are sending 2 or 3 others who are not nearly as good, and the children all know how they compare.

So, the most able children don't get work set that is challenging for them and they don't get the rare enrichment activity either. What do they get apart from extensive practice at being patient and thinking of others needs first?

Car, there might well be 4-5 Maths enrichment things each year at my school. The point is that we don't send the same 3 most able mathematicians each time - but nor do we send anyone outside, say, the top 10 or 12 of a 90+ year group. So the top mathematician WILL get, say, 2 enrichment days per year, but the 10th (who if we only took the top pair would never go, but we also know has parents who don't really care about his education and has the potential to be at least as able as the top mathematician but is held back by a variety of factors over which he and the school have no control) does get to go to one.

But I would also say that, while the most able child doesn't get their absolutely full needs met EVERY day in my school, they will get them met regularly (in the same way as the child with dyscalculia doesn't get intervention every day, but does get it 3 days a week, and will have 'targeted but not quite as pinpoint targeted as would be 100 perfect' work the other two), so it isn't a case of the able child having to wait for enrichment to get their needs met.

I think I agree with teacher actually as its very hard for the teacher to do it all even how hard they work. If school is focusing on the target that lifting the quality of the whole school up by only focusing on the lower ability group as its much harder job to do rather than stretching the more able ones as the able ones are always willing to work hard, love learning . Its the school that spare the resource and have clear guidance and policy to tell what they are are doing and/or plan to do more for children who are more able so they feel the love of learning and knowing that knowledge is endless and there is always so much more to learn

Var, it's a bit like with sports teams. If the school only ever plays the top 11 children, the 12th a) never gets better and b) never gets a chance to show what they COULD do. So many schools and sports teams select flexibly from within a squad of, say, 20 children - no-one who is 'bad at the sport' but not always 'exactly the same team every time'.

teacherwith2kids - not in your school (and your G&T kids and their parents should be exceptionally grateful for that), however in other schools there are only one or two enrichment days per year and DS1 and DS2 weren't always on them, probably for the sort of reasons you give.

Your reasons are good, worthy (not in a bad way), but unfortunately, other schools apply the social policy without applying the regular classroom policy of appropriately differentiating the work.

The way I see it, the problem lies squarely in the fact that some schools don't differentiate the work adequately and worse, some don't even attempt to.