ability groups in reception

[monairethu]

i've just had a little off the cuff chat with my ds this morning and have realised that he is in the lower group in reception. i'm no tiger mom but i am not impressed by this - either the streaming in itself or the fact that he is in the lower set (contradictory i know!). i had the impression he was bumping along at an average level which we were absolutely fine with. anyway i need to speak to the teacher about it to get to the bottom of their criteria for splitting them up because it's puzzling - for instance his bf is in the 'top' group but is at the same reading level as my child? so that doesn't make sense if they are attainment groups - or ability groups really! mind boggling!

anyway if anyone has experience of this i'd like to hear please! i hate the idea of my child being pigeonholed at such a young age.

The difficult thing with rewards is that other parents dont know the background of a child recieving the reward. You may see a naughty child but have no awareness that that child could have some kind of special need or invisible disability such as undiagnosed autism. i have been in this position, with a child undergoing diagnosis and other parents assuming she was being rewarded for naughty behaviour when in fact she was being rewarded for exceptional progress and effort (for her) which was impossible for anybody who had no knowledge of her background to understand. Other parents quite rightly are not entitled to know of a classmates special needs so dont be so quick to judge.

It's not so much judging others difficulties my2bundles. I personally don't begrudge any child being rewarded. DD does.

Why is a bright/quiet child not entitled to rewards for what they find difficult or to encourage and develop their needs?

Difference being a child with difficulties learns that effort gives reward, a bright child can instantly recognise that in their case, a similar effort does not warrant reward so why bother. At age 4 and 5 they don't have the maturity to distinguish special needs and adult reasoning.

A bright child of course is entiled to rewards and this is something that should be taken up with a teacher. A child of 4 and 5 can be taught to recognise those with special needs and disabilitys in class, my 5 year old understands special needs and disabilitys very well and can spot them in others and show compassion. If you take the time to explain to your child they can understand at this age.

my2bundles - so sorry if it sounded like that, I have worked with children for a long time so would never ever judge in that situation but I also know 100% that the children I am talking about do not have SENs.

I would never think a child didn't deserve rewards, there are a lot of children with SNs in DSs class and the children are very understanding of them but it is still hard for a 5 year old who behaves well and works hard all day every day to not get any sort of reward.

Well the top of the bottom set and the bottom of the top set can be the same level.

To be honest I wouldn't give it a second thought. It's only reception and you will find that many of the kids in the bottom set end up in the top set by juniors and vise versa.

classes normally have different groups for different things, so a literacy group, a numeracy group and a social group for want of a better word. So depending on what the task/subject is they will work with different children, some may overlap obviously but in general there will be a mix.

In some cases children will move around the levels, in others the top child might always be the top child or the struggling one may always be the same one but in between these extremes the others will shuffle around as and when they are ready to. It may well be that the groups above your son are working at a higher level than him, they may be the same reading level but they could have a much higher understanding of the text etc and be almost ready to move up to the next level, their writing may be more advanced, they may understand punctuation more. It may be as others have said that actually they have been grouped as a quiet group to try and give them the opportunity to speak out.

If you are really concerned then just ask the teacher but word it carefully. There is only half a term left now in reception, they will all be rejigged for september anyway, groups for september won't have been decided yet and to be honest I would expect they will wait until they are back and in yr1 before setting them as the summer holidays will cause some children to slip back and others to steam ahead.