Curious as to what happens in other primary level to support those more able in maths

[secretsciurusvulgaris]

Basically DD(8) loves maths and always has. She picks up concepts very easily and currently is happily capable of working at Y8 level. Our problem is that school, a prep, have essentially told us that they won’t do anything on an individual level for maths, so she gets the same work as the rest of the class and is finding it rather frustrating to say the least. We have suggested nrich etc to school but nothing forthcoming. We have been providing support/ challenge at home and trying to widen rather than accelerate too much.

I’m interested in what happens in other schools (state and private) in terms of provision/ support to those at this sort of level.

Sorry should say other primary level schools.

You do definitely know that she is getting the same work as everyone else?
My class all the get ‘the same’ work, e.g. we all work on division however my less able students won’t be getting the same as my more able students

My DD (year 4) and her friend were allowed to work on the computer during maths lessons. Apparently they were doing year 9 maths. State school. My D's who is older and similarly good at maths seemed to spend much of primary very, very bored in maths lessons. Different teachers.

Yes, I have seen it. They are in sets and in top set they all get the same. There are ‘challenge’ sheets available which she finds as easy as the rest of the work.

It’s a long time since DD was at primary, but her little state village school (only 100 pupils in total) simply liaised with the high school in the nearest town, to send senior school maths textbooks along for her to work from. Her primary teacher didn’t feel confident about marking her work, but her DH was a physicist, so he helped out!
The primary headmistress then took me to the high school for a meeting with the maths department before DD was due to transition, and they arranged for her to sit the maths exams a year earlier than normal.
She went on to do a maths degree at Durham. I was v impressed with how both schools handled it - I doubt the private sector could have done better.

That sounds fantastic babdoc . The prep goes up to y8 but there is no option to do work at a higher level being offered. Even an open ended nrich problem would be welcomed here. It just seems very intransigent given the school are very good at supporting children struggling with maths and other areas. Neolara that isn’t an option either unfortunately.

We are just at the start of this whole thing. Reception. First term was focussed on phonics more than maths and getting them settled in but this term, as they get to know her, they are providing more for her. Good and well supported village state primary. They seem to be stretching her and getting resources from elsewhere. When the other kids were learning shapes and she was doing nets of shapes free hand, they just went with it and sent her to Year 5. Likewise she's been sent to Year 6 for division. How the school will cope with it as she gets older, I don't know. They were focussed on a depth of knowledge e.g. I think they were originally concerned she had learnt her tables by rote but it was only when she explained 12 X 7 was 84 because 10 X 7 was 70 and 2 X 7 was 14 and you add them together...that I think they realised she understood the concept and logic.

I feel she is better supported in a smaller village school with a community of learning (essentially where she can move between classes for certain subjects but stay with her peer group normally and socially). Time will tell though and we'll assess it as we go?!

My 9 yo attends an "outstanding" state school, they have top and bottom sets for maths and English but working within the curriculum, never go beyond. We questioned it initially but have come to a conclusion that we can get him to attend outside workshops/courses or to watch maths and science YouTube videos at home to satisfy his curiosity instead of pushing him to do more at school.

A while ago now but ds's state school arranged a few things for him - some sessions of 'fun' maths with a Secondary Maths teacher who they got in for some sessions. They also got a 6th former to come in a work with him one day a week, again doing fun stuff and introducing him to Maths Challenges and problem solving. In Y 6 he was allowed to work from the KS 3 text books (he had a very confident class teacher who had done Maths A level).

In Secondary (again state) he followed the curriculum until Year 10 when they gave up and let him do his own thing. He took his GCSE's at the usual time but sneaked in an AS in Maths in Y10. Alongside this he concentrated on UKMT challenges and Olympiad problems when he was finished in class.

It has not been easy to keep him interested and occupied but I would say start on problem solving and look at nrich and UKMT. Later on if she is still mad keen there are websites like Brilliant.org. He is now preparing for A levels and has an Oxford offer and has just taken British Mathematical Olympiad round 2 and managed a Distinction. The careful thing to keep a watch on though is that she is completing class work - ds went through a phase of making silly errors because he was jumping stages or not solving in the way that was required.

Primary school just had top set and would give regular extensions as part of the regular class work. We spoke to the teachers every year and agreed that if DS would find the homework too easy, we would set our own challenges at home and add it to his workbook so that the teacher would know what he was up to. The school also had a coding club, a science club and a chess club, all of which DS did. There were also maths days at other schools etc.

There was no 'moving up a class' or doing an accelerated curriculum, it was all about 'mastery', so doing the same subject but more in depth. He got the top score in SATS (120) and is doing well at state secondary.

DD is pretty decent at Maths. They have different tables at school and occasionally are given some extra work. Questions tend to be a bit more challenging but nothing special.

I occasionally do Maths at home with DD, mostly just solving some complex problems that I wrote. I have tried my best to not teach DD ahead of what she is learning in class but it gets to a certain point she can figure things out herself and starts to accelerate beyond concepts that being taught at school. I am at a cross road of deciding what to do with her next.

Getting ahead is not always the best thing to do actually. I can accelerate her to whatever direction she wants to take but she will be bored senseless at school. If I was you, I would just do nRich problems with your DD at home if you have time and let her do the work at school like everyone else. There is something called Beast Academy if you want to look into a more structure program for your DD

At dd's school, yr 1, state, requies improvement, there is no option to move up a year curriculum wise, and she is "expading sideways" within the years curriculum. She is also teamed up with less able children and expected to teach them. I'm not confident that the school is giving her the opportunity to reach her potential accedemicaly even if they are doing a good job stopping her being bored. It going to be raised atthe next parents evening.

My dc is excellent at maths. Some teachers tried to extend, some didn't.
But overall, our primary wasn't what I hoped for. But the thing is, maths is so easy to supplement at home. There are many sites like nrich/wildmaths, parallel, brilliant, mathigon to name a few to extend and stretch mathematical thinking. And also the site like Khan academy to teach maths skills. There are many you tube channels that inspire children. Check out UKMT questions, and AOPS videos.

We live in Australia, but I agree with Yeulis that in this digital age, talented kids can readily extend themselves. Khan Academy is an awesome free resource. My son used to love watching Numberphile videos on Youtube since the age of five. They inspired him to grapple with concepts such as relationships of different infinite sets to each other.

WRT teachers, we never asked them to extend our son, but we supported him in whatever he wanted to do. For example in Grades 1-2, he received multiplication sheets like all his classmates even though he had mastered multiplication, so he would provide his answers in Roman numerals, in binary or other number bases. The teachers didn't mark his work so I did. It is relevant to appreciate that many teachers aren't actually capable of teaching maths much beyond the stage they are assigned to teach. Many kindergarten & Prep teachers won't remember the Roman numeral system, Yr 3-4 teachers haven't studied high school maths in a long time and many junior high school teachers aren't necessarily proficient at senior high school maths. My son has been better at maths than the majority of his teachers and some of them have even stated this in his reports. Last year, at 14, he sat the Yr 12 HSC maths exam & scored 98%. When he started training for the Maths Olympiads and received an invitation to the AMT Selection School, the HoD even suggested that he was the strongest mathematician in the school, including her faculty.

From the start, at parent-teacher interviews, I would communicate that I didn't expect any special efforts to extend him but that he shouldn't have to waste his time doing worksheets and textbook exercises if he had already mastered a topic. Throughout most of his primary years, he was given a fair bit of time on the classroom computers to do his own self directed learning. In high school, they used Maths Pathways & then Maths Online programs so that he could work 3-4 years ahead of his class peers. We've been very happy with how things have worked out in maths and he is now working ahead by himself in physics & chemistry. I'm very glad we encouraged him to be a self directed learner as he has applied this to all aspects of his life.

At dd's school, yr 1, state, requies improvement, there is no option to move up a year curriculum wise, and she is "expading sideways" within the years curriculum.

Along these lines is preferred now, in state primaries, anyway. It's mastery of skills and application in a range of ways, rather than just getting them to do the work from above year groups.

White Rose maths is useful for mastery things.

Of course, if your DD is massively way ahead, do look at skills taught in higher year groups, it would be a terrible shame to have her turned off from the subject. But only if you're confident of application of skills in different ways.