Year 1, good parents evening but moving groups again?

[DeathMetalMum]

I'm a bit confused recently had a good parents evening with dd (6) meeting targets for reading for the end of the year and lots of other positives. Now dd tells us she's moving groups. They are in ability groups of some sort (it's pretty obvious) and this will be her second group change this year both down, I'm concerned that the teacher hasn't suggested anything at parents evening but yet dd is moving groups again later. Would you try and speak to the teacher about this or would you just leave it.

Does your DD have any idea why she's been moved down?

This has happened in my DD's Y1 class a couple of times, and DD has always volunteered information about why (eg someone was messing around too much, or someone is just working a bit too slowly for that table etc).

Of course, it could say less about your DD and more about some of the other children in her class. At this age some later maturers might just 'click' with something and be ready to race ahead and overtake.

A couple of times, after DD told me someone has moved down, I've seen that child's parent go in for a meeting after school with the teacher, so I'd guess the parent has wanted to discuss it. I think that, if my child told me she was moving down a table, I'd want to know why. I think it's reasonable to ask.

In yr3, my ds was moved down to second sets in writing. I didn't even know, but the teacher told me about this at parents' eve. She said he still gets same work as a top table. It was because he needed a bit more supervision, because he was easily distracted and day dreamer.
In the end he still got exceeding for his attainment.

groups of some sort

If you're not sure on how the grouping is, are you sure they're ability groups? DD moves groups every so often, those groups are not ability groups, but yes if you want to know more, ask the teacher. But of course groups can be impacted purely by other kids and nothing to do with yours.

1. They may not be ability groups
2. They may be multiple groups of the same ability.
3. Your child may be doing very well, but others may be doing better
4. There may be a particular reason for your child to sit on a table such as it being at the front of the class, or the TA spending more time with that group
5. Your child may be sat with someone they work well with
6. The teacher may have had to split up children that are a nightmare together

In short, don't worry about groups, don't worry about everyone else in the class, worry about how your DC is doing - which is well as per parents' evening!

Meeting targets means achieving the minimum standard required I'm afraid.

Unless the teacher means meeting individual targets that are above the minimum. i read it to be minimum targets set

If you are talking about reading groups(guided reading?), your dd may still be progressing nicely but maybe few children clicked suddenly and possibly over took her. Now the top reading group maybe consists of higher level than before?

If your dd is worried, ask the teacher. Could be total misunderstanding. And even if it's a ability group and she did go down, these groups are fluid anyway, may change again soon. I wouldn't worry too much, unless dd is worried.

This happened to dd (p3/y2) recently. Last year she was getting extra support for being advanced and this year,coinciding with an unmotivated teacher she was moved down to a lower group for one topic which meant she was working at a lower level than she had done last year for the same topic she excelled in. We spoke with the teacher to ask why and didn't get satisfactory answers -things like oh it's not moved down a group (the targets went from using more connectives and starting sentences with multiple openers to using full stops and capitals, same as p1/reception targets) and even maybe she's regressed(!!)

We ended up speaking with a more senior member of staff as the stock responses from her teacher were unsatisfactory. This teacher is the one who did her benchmark testing and surprise she's back doing the top group work again and excelling again.

I think you need to at least work out why she's been moved and what that actually means.

Meeting targets is one thing but if she's in a high achieving class I would expect the top groups to be exceeding the targets

Thanks all. Spoke to the teacher and she's just changed the seating arrangement in the classroom to smaller tables. Dd wasn't worried just said it matter of factly to me and I got concerned.

That's good news - it's normally worth checking. You can enjoy the Easter break!

🙄
Why it's always good just to ask the teacher rather than becoming anxious for no reason.

If you do some work with her at home you may be able to help her get up a bit from meeting the expectations