Top/middle/bottom in year 2

[Sops]

Is it the norm to use terms such as top/middle/bottom group in year 2?
Dd came home today and used these terms, listing off who was in bottom group for spelling. She also said a group of all except three of the girls in her class, who "aren't very good at maths and need lots of extra practice" went to do maths separately.
Grouping according to ability is fine by me but is it normal to use these hierarchical and negative terms so early. I felt the need to explain to my dd that it wasn't important what group you're in but just to keep on learning, making mistakes, and making progress.
I'm not interested in how well she is doing compared to her classmates, only that she is making the kind of progress she is capable of. I hate to think that the children all know who is" top" and who is "bottom" at age six!

In my children's school it was all shapes, insects and colours to identify the sets. The children weren't fooled for a moment.

Exactly, I imagine the staff call them "butterflies, ladybirds and bumblebees" or some such but, try as you might, the children are super aware of the ability groups and, as children do, tend to cut the crap and rename them top, middle and bottom...

Sadly very true words by Pterosaur and TheFlyingOnion. I hate children being labelled like this. I wish my DDs school would mix them all up, like mrz's school, then the negative/superior labels wouldn't happen.

Our school uses different names but from observations it does depend on how the teacher deals with the groups as to what the kids know.

One of my DC always knew where she was in the heirarchy, but one year, for a whole year didnt. The teacher was dead against labelling and worked extremely hard to make sure the kids didnt realise they might be doing different work to other kids. She would also mix up the groups at random to throw the scent off for the nosey parents. In that year the kids realised it didnt matter one little bit about how good or bad you were at something as long as you tried your best and worked harder.

A different teacher tells the kids they are top, middle, bottom.

There have been lots of tears from the bottom and middle, because they had believed they were in the top groups previously because classes get mixed up each year (more than one class per year) and those who were top with one bunch of kids are not necessarily going to be top with next bunch of kids.

My main concern is that my children are stretched and working to their ability and would prefer they are working with kids of similar ability so that they encourage each other. As good as it is for all kids to mix, I have noticed that DC1 will only work at the level of the peers around him, and if they are struggling, she wont show what she really knows or can do. And then gets bored and switches off, and then the teachers assume she doesnt understand so doesnt encourage her to work harder.

Of course the children will have a pretty good idea of ability whether the names are explicit or not. But surely 'butterflies group' is better to hear around the classroom than 'bottom group'? Semantics, I think, do matter.
One of dd's friends struggles quite a lot and is in the 'bottom' group for everything- how must it feel to be constantly reminded that you find things much harder than everyone else and that you're bottom of the class? Not exactly confidence boosting I'd guess.
I also wonder about the effect of sending off a gender exclusive group and the teacher saying they are all "not very good at maths". That group of 13 girls now believe that they (girls) are all bad at maths and that the other 19 children (principally boys) are all better than them.

Yes, I agree that if the school is using labels like 'top' and 'bottom', that is crass. I suppose my point was to question whether the school was actually doing that, or whether your DD was simply applying her interpretive skills.

It seems highly unlikely that nearly all the girls are worse at maths than nearly all the boys; is that really happening?

I teach Y2 and don't have top middle bottom butterflies,ladybirds, circles, squares, red, green or rainbow groups but children work out who is good at maths and who struggles with spellings simply by watching their classmates

DS is in Year 3 and has brought home a Collins Big Cat ruby level reading book. Just wondered what the equivelant to ruby level is on ORT, and at what level do they generally become "free readers"?

Big Cat Ruby level is ORT stage 13

In reception they were animals. in yr 1 they were shapes, octagon being higher group than sqaure because more sides. Now, yr 2, they are split into two groups for english and maths.

They all know. They know which children are very bright. They knew in reception and all the parents were unhappy, but then it just came out that they just 'knew'.

My son is in reception and knows who is in "hard phonics" and who is in "easy phonics". The groups are actually Tigger and Pooh but he knows that the "hard phonics" group know all their sounds where as "easy phonics" group don't.