My child's work is way too easy.

[TrojaninTroy]

Just that really. It is maths and is being massively under-pitched to my child's needs day after day, week after week. I can't pretend I know what's going on in school right now, but the work is only ever differentiated to two levels of ability and sometimes only one. I've taken it up with DC's teacher but got nowhere.

Should I just accept that teachers are under massive pressure right now, or is it worth taking further?

It's an independent prep school, so we are paying for this. I'm not sure whether that makes a difference.

How old is your child? If you're concerned, why not find online worksheets, Oak Academy or something similar, a year or so ahead.

It shouldn’t make a difference that you are paying. All children should have work set which will challenge them at an appropriate level. But the fact that you are paying and your DC is not being challenged effectively means that DC is not learning at the same pace and that you are paying a huge sum for that stagnation. I can see why you would be miffed.
Have a word with the class teacher. Yes they are under a lot of pressure, but they would be differentiating for your child if they were in class so why not out of it?
My DS’s teacher has set him individual work by sending out a pack containing booklets and her teacher’s guide for us to work through at a set pace.

This infuriates me. I am a teacher an every one of my lessons is differentiated three, sometimes four ways. One of my levels of differentiation is for the benefit of one child only.
I also provide individual SEND work for two children with high levels of need.

My daughters school have literally chucked Oak Academy or text books to work through at them, regardless of ability. After I complained, they say that if we want differentiation we have to email and ask for it. For every individual piece of work!

I would definitely mention it to them if I were you, hopefully they are more understanding than my daughters school. x

Yeah if I were paying I'd expect my money's worth. Complain. My DD is at an average state school, work is differentiated at 3 levels plus a daily maths challenge for kids who want or need more . In addition we have full access to two really excellent online resources where you can watch instructional material in every area of the KS1 and KS2 maths curriculum, do games and questions - the websites mark the work so it is extremely easy to set additional work if you find a topic needs greater depth or stretch.

You are being ripped off I'm afraid.

There is a limit to how much you can differentiate remotely. In class you can walk around giving Child A a word of guidance and asking Child B if they can try the same problem with different numbers. With remote learning you might add some challenges at the end of the lesson, and plenty of scaffolding at the start, but it’s hard to do much more than that. Does your school use a mastery approach? I’m a big fan of mastery personally and it works well in school, but when you’re learning remotely can end up with some children struggling and some sailing through. I would continue with the maths each day but add on some extra challenges which will depend on the child’s age. Times tables practice is always welcome, and games like Hit the Button are a nice way to do that. Or maybe some word problems - that’s what my class tend to find the biggest challenge. At the moment it’s not feasible for the school to change how they teach lessons for one child so if you ask for support from school, your best bet is to ask for some one-off suggestions of further resources for you to investigate yourself. And please be understanding of how hard teachers are working right now! Our hours are longer and we are completely out of our comfort zone.

It might be that the work he's being given would be the right level for him if he were at school, but at home working 1-1 in a different environment he's finding it easier.

If they’re really not differentiating for them I think that’s pretty poor, whether you’re paying or not. My Y2 DD gets 3 zoom lessons a day (maths, English and foundation) and the accompanying tasks plus reading comprehension are all offered at bronze, silver and gold level. There’s generally an extra challenge in the gold papers if they have time. She also gets feedback on everything from teachers including suggestions which stretch her a bit if she’s clearly found something too easy. So yesterday morning she wrote a poem and within a couple of hours the teacher had added a comment in google classroom requesting she add two more stanzas and more adjectives.

This is at an inner London state school with high levels of FSM and ESL pupils. If they pitched the work at one level it would have to be quite basic.

Yes, it certainly has been very basic for the last few days.

I appreciate the range of responses on this thread. It's not just a lockdown issue: we had a conversation with school's senior management about this last November, but they become quite defensive, and took it that we were having a go about the teacher, even though we made it clear that we were not. If I could understand their rationale it would help, but it would seem that is not for us as parents to know. We asked if we could see the school's maths policy and were told that it was only for teachers. When we pushed a bit more, it turned out they haven't even got one.

I'm fairly sure we would get a better experience with the maths at another school. We chose this indie because we wanted our child to have better opportunities with the Arts & PE than we thought he would get at a state school and, to be fair, they have been. But we thought that good teaching of the core subjects, properly targeted to our child's needs, would come as a given. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Our child is so happy and settled at this school and the other kids in the class are really lovely, so it would feel truly brutal to move to another school just because of the maths.

@VashtaNerada, I appreciate your insights from a teacher perspective. If I could understand why school cannot differentiate to more than two groups, I wouldn't feel quite so disappointed. But there seems to be this massive wall between parents and teachers now. Hence the stand-off that seems to have built up between parents and teachers on other threads.

A couple of my friends are teachers and I know they have gone through the torments of the damned with parental flak. So when I became a parent I wanted to be a really supportive parent. Instead, I seem to have become the school's worst nightmare parent. Which is quite ironic.

Independent schools should be arranging for extension sheets for each maths ‘theme’

My DC is at a non leafy state school and gets differentiated work. If it's too easy or not enough we do something on an app or maths factor to work on areas she needs more practice in - mostly speed of mental maths.

If he's not really lightning quick with times tables time on that would never be wasted and there's loads of online resources (top marks gets set a lot for us).

It is rubbish for a school you're paying to be so unhelpful though!

Ugh, parents evening call last week. Teacher says DD is very able and we'll always have to push for her to be challenged. This week when I ask for the more advanced version of a book I'm told no because she'd be too far ahead!

She goes in 3 days as I'm a key worker but the other days we don't do the remote lessons as they're much too easy. I have bought CGP workbooks for her year and the year above to do at home but I'm an ex teacher so it's easy for me to see.what she does and doesn't need

@FiddlefigOnTheRoof
We found out that some of the other children in the class are getting extension sheets. When I asked why DC wasn't getting this, we were told that the 144 Times Table Challenge had to be completed with full marks first. But DC is only in Year 2, and I thought they didn't have to know all their tables until Year 4. But the rest of the maths teaching is the straight Year 2 Maths Curriculum with no extension work beyond more of the same. I just don't get it, and school will make no explanation.

Well I agree with you that seems silly OP. The extension sheets should be available to any child that has easily finished the work, not just the ones who are good at times tables - that's only one very specific area of maths. I think you should just keep asking your DC's teacher if there is anything more he could be doing.

That doesn’t sound right at all OP. Mine go to an independent school and every maths class includes an extra 1-2 harder sheets for children who get through the first sheets quickly. Some kids are better than (eg) multiplication than measurements or shapes etc. There shouldn’t be some bizarre single challenge for them before they are ‘allowed’ to do any stretching work at all!

I'd be looking to move my child out of that school come September.

What is the approach to maths? Is it maths mastery?

If the challenge has to be completed, why not? Child may not need to know all the times tables until yr4, plenty of children does way before that.
But if the school isn't helping, I would consider changing school since you are paying for it, or I would supplement myself. Maths extention is not difficult. There are so many good websites/work books etc.

Our school give the normal maths work then additional extension which they stress as optional. My son usually completes it all easily in the time but we used the last lockdown to extend his maths knowledge and I realise we've taken him well ahead of where his class are so I'm not pushing it. I actually think this period of lower stress for him at home, coasting a bit isn't a huge deal - but we aren't paying for his education so its a bit different.