Do bright children do better with an able cohort?

[rebus1]

Bit of an academic question really as I'm not really in a position to change anything for a year or so.

DS very bright and is just finishing year 2. According to the school's data the %s of level 3s very low- works out at 2 or 3 per class.

Should I be concerned - does this mean that the expectation for the Y3 classes as a whole next year will be quite low? I realise he will get appropriately differentiated work but I'm concerned he will spend lots of time listening to whole class input that he knows already.

Would he learn more in a school with a higher achieving cohort? I'm thinking faster pace, less need for constant revisiting etc.

Or am I just over worrying- he's only 7 and I can do stuff at home with him.

[rebus1]

Thanks mrz. That approach looks really interesting, I'll have a proper read of those links in the holidays. The school I teach at uses the challenges approach as well, especially for maths, but i'm not sure about DS's school.

It's a bit awkward asking things as a teacher parent, I don't want to sound like I'm being critical or think I know better than his class teacher. I'll see how he gets on next term (if I can get anything out of him that is!)

[downgraded]

Teaching them the vocabulary would take such a huge amount of time it would suck the life out of the story.

[Feenie]

What kind of school do you teach in, downgraded?

[mrz]

No we don't find it a problem or spend half our time explaining what words mean.

After the age of five oral conversation is a much less effective way of developing vocabulary knowledge so at this point reading and direct teaching of words takes over and it's important we provide opportunities that extend language.

Pie Corbett talks about "Magpieing" words and Ros Wilson encourages children to "steal" words from the books they read.

[downgraded]

One where a lot of the kids don't speak English when they arrive!

[downgraded]

Put it this way, we read Charlotte's Web with the year 5s, but the EAL kids couldn't access it and did something else.

[mrz]

Charlotte's Webb has a reading age of 7+
What type of things do you do to extend vocabulary, how do your EAL pupils catch up if they are excluded from quality experiences don't you discuss what you read and support development?

[Feenie]

A private school where most of the children don't speak English?
Are you overseas?

[downgraded]

mrz as from next year they will be out of the classroom all morning doing a specialist EAL programme.

In the afternoons they do topic, science etc, but the planning will be adapted to suit them. Many when they arrive wouldn't be able to do more than join a picture to the correct word, some not even that. They do lots of conversation about getting dressed, family, pets, school etc to pick up the vocabulary.

[mrz]

What age are they when they arrive?

[smee]

Someone's probably already said this, but I don't think you can judge too much on levels so young. My son's just about to leave yr6 and some kids who were flying in year 2, then levelled out. My son could barely read in year 2 and ended up the best boy at reading in his year. Lots of kids with EAL in his school did really well - a fair few with L6 in one or more subjects. A lot depends on the child, how much they like learning, personality. Also good teachers who get to know the children as individuals.

[Cloud2]

I think brighter children would done better with an able group. However, for primary school, I think the stuff needed to learn is simple, so no need to worry too much about learning. As long as DC is happy at school.

DS1 had a really good teacher at primary school, he let a few top students disign the experiments while other children learn the basic science knowledge. DS1 got the chance to show other children how to solve math questions. And he and friends got to be the judge while the whole class were doing quiz. Although the school was doing badly during those few years, the teacher had tried to keep his most able children interested. DS1 had always been looking forward to going to the school.

As I mentioned, primary school stuff are simple for brighter children, DS1 seems still get a solid foundation in a falling school. However, I think secondary school is a time to learn more seriously, so it is important to find a good school. We moved DS1 to an independant school, he still get to be top of the class for most of the subjects, but he does lose the first place on some subjects, and he now works harder than before to try to stay at the top. There are quite a few students with similar abilities as him. They do simulate each other in a positive way.