I have twins who have just gone into year 3 so last year they were still working on the old curriculum (as all year 2's were). Both are pretty good at maths and achieved 3A's at the end of the year, they had been going up to work with the year 3 teacher to stretch them a bit and they were really enjoying maths.
However, this year they are working on the new curriculum and so far they have been completely bored in their maths lesson. I wonder if anyone with any knowledge of how the new curriculum works could tell me whether it's normal for the entire class to have to start off by doing tasks that are very basic and they have been confident in since year 1 ( basic ordering numbers up to 10, basic partitioning of 2 digit number etc). They seem to have different bands of tasks; bronze, silver, gold and platinum which get progressively harder and everyone has to go through every task even if the work is way too easy. I don't have a problem with this system in itself but even the platinum level work still seems basic ( so yesterday was order numbers up to a thousand ).
They are really not enjoying it but we've been led to believe that under the new curriculum they won't be given any harder work from the year above for example so what do I do if I have children who are bored and are not being challenged.
So sorry for waffling - just wondered if anyone had the same problem, or if any teachers can clarify that this is how the system is now and we just have to accept that. I don't want to go harassing the teacher about it, she's a NQT so I don't want her feeling that I'm questioning how she does her job - or should I be expecting a bit more from the school and what would be the nicest way to raise it ( without sounding like I'm criticising the school ). Thanks in advance.