Can I expect the class teacher to tailor their lessons more?

[CaptainTilly]

I was just wondering how far you would expect a school/class teacher to tailor work to different abilities?

I have an academically able yr2 child. For a 15mins a day they work with an older class (instigated by the school) but otherwise do the same work as the rest of the class. Increasingly I've noticed that there is a lot of repetition in maths in particular which is understandable when teaching a class, but there is also an increasing gap between what they are doing in class and what my DC is clearly capable of.

Nothing is ever challenging, and I don't think that is a good thing? I really don't push or try and teach things in advance, I just ask her about what she has learnt and supply mountains of books and access to kiddle! She is a voracious reader of all sorts of books and topics, and things like maths she just seems to 'get it' the first time a new idea is introduced and can then apply her knowledge to other problems/ideas.

I'm not claiming she is truly exceptional, I don't think she is. She's just very able and is a clear outlier in her (small) class.

I think that remaining with classmates for the majority of the day is the right thing. But parent's evening is coming up and I wonder how reasonable it is to expect her teacher to make sure she has some appropriately challenging work to do?

Any experience or advice would be appreciated

Can she show her working out and explain her reasoning?

Sorry pressed send too soon.

The way the curriculum is set can also give the impression of repetition,for example addition for a week but using different methods. For an able child that can seem like doing the same thing over and over ...and over again. As it might look in books,since at the end of the day it's all adding.

However if your DD has pages and pages of doing the exact same thing,always getting it right with no kind of challenge or extension work then yes speak to the teacher.

How do you know they are doing the same thing over and over?
They may need to revisit certain topics and I’m sure the work is differentiated?

It's tricky, because what looks like repetition to a non-professional might actually be work differentiated in a number of ways. For example, the basis for calculation is the same but the child is expected to do the more complex examples, or the work is similar but the child is expected to evaluate it and see whether there was a quicker method, or the problem is worded in a less accessible way. Differentiation as a pedagogical strategy was never meant to mean teachers planning totally different work for different children. It is supposed to be about how much of the 'scaffolding' comes off. The problem is when people reinterpret and reinterpret an idea until its meaning changes entirely, and the poor teacher ends up running round like a blue arsed fly, running three or four totally different lessons (which increases planning from 15 minutes to an hour per lesson - not acceptable).

Unless you've looked at the work of her lower attaining classmates, how do you know the work isn't differentiated?

It is impractical to teach the class in different areas but many (if not most) teachers will have lower and higher levels of independent tasks the children will do following the input.

Thanks all.

Cliff, no, I haven't studied the books of the entire class in detail. Without outing myself, I do (legitimately) see examples quite often though, and those of the higher year groups. Also, I know most of the parents and children of the rest of the class fairly well. I think some differentiation does happen, but from my vantage point it is aimed at those drifting off the bottom rather than the top.

She can show her working and will see and explain connections between things. I have deliberately not taught her every possible method of, for example, addition. I don't know if that's the right tactic or not (opinions welcome!), but figure when the class is taught yet another method it will be novel for a few minutes.

To stay with the addition example, they have spent since before half term learning how to add two digit numbers. She already could do two digit addition and subtraction in her head or using a written method. She could also add or subtract any amount of numbers with any number of digits (within reason) accurately, on paper. I appreciate that there are different methods to learn and she should exhaust them all, but they take so loong about it, and I wonder why they can't get her to do 3 or 4 digit examples at least?

I do agree with pengggwyn, the (lovely) teacher can't be expected to teach 3-4 different class in one. I hope to find some middle ground though, so will ask at parents evening. She is a very good girl, but can be a bit of a 'dreamer' and a few perfectionist tendancies rear their heads occasionally. I don't want her to be bored, and I want her to grow up knowing it's ok to have to work for things and to get things wrong! I'm trying to ensure this happens out of school with a couple of extracurricular, but I was hoping she learns this at school too.

To the less able, explaining and practicing all the different methods maybe a good idea. But to more able, I think it's waste of time. If she can do any number of add/sub in her head, she understands the concept. So learning other methods would not give her any more advantage.

I think you need to speak to the teacher about possible extension. If they do, great. If they don't/can't, just let her extend herself at home.
In the class, learn how to entertain/extend herself with easy problems would benefit her in case school/teacher isn't so great.

She can do two and three digits in her head, but not sure she'd juggle multiple large additions in her head. She can however, do so on paper.

I will have a conversation with the teacher, thanks

To the less able, explaining and practicing all the different methods maybe a good idea. But to more able, I think it's waste of time. If she can do any number of add/sub in her head, she understands the concept. So learning other methods would not give her any more advantage.

Not for that particular function of mathematics, but it teaches a mode of thinking that is much harder to teach later.

If you have a child who is really good at maths, you are very unlikely to find that he/she is challenged in school. The UK system is not set up to encourage kids who are very very good at maths.

Peng, I think I worded wrong. Yes, knowing other methods are good thing to extend the thinking. What I wanted to say is the child who knows all the logic behind the calculation, repeating the methods that the child get it once introduced again and again is waste of time, which seems to happen.(Ds recently had a lot of online homework practicing expanding and grid method multiplication, which the methods he is totally familiar with and find it tedious.)

I also have a Y2 'outlier'. We had this problem in Y1. Not so much in Y2 because the teacher is on it more.

Does she finish all the work that has been set, and is then given an extension activity? Is this also completed quickly? What happens then? Does she help others? Read? Twiddle her thumbs? Cause disruption?

I would encourage her to finish her work quickly and neatly, and then ask for an extension task. Then finish that, and ask for a more challenging extension task. Basically, make herself a very positive 'problem' in the classroom.

If there is time for her to start doing this prior to parents' evening, you will have more evidence of what the teacher is doing for her, and will be a step further at the start of your conversation with the teacher.

Thanks LetItGo. I'm glad to hear your dc is doing well in yr2 😊

The teacher has previously mentioned that further work would be set if she finishes her task early, and I've encouraged her to ask for it. However, in practice, I'm not sure this does happen often. I think how it usually goes is she either finishes and then is quite happy quietly daydreaming, or more often, helps other children. The problem with this has come when other children pester her for help and/or she gets engrossed helping them to excess before she has completed her own work. I have spoken to both dd and her teacher about this previously, and the teacher is apparently keeping an eye on it and I've encouraged dd to finish quickly and ask for more work rather than allow it to expand to fill the time or get distracted helping others. However this is hard to enforce because, well, she's six and in her own little world half the time and I'm not there to remind her! I'll ask about it more at parents evening. To my knowledge she is never disruptive.

I will step up the encouragement to make herself a positive 'problem', as I think that is what it will take.

The problem is that if a child repeatedly has to do a lot of things which are extremely easy for her, it becomes tiresome and also makes her at once fed-up and possibly big headed. Kids should immediately be given work which is interesting and challenging for them, and in my experience this doesn't happen regularly for children who are quite unusually good at maths.

Agree with irvine and clara

I know it may not be practically possible to differentiate for a true outlier all the time. But, if she's just an outlier for that particular class then it is reasonable to expect suitable work. And imo if for whatever reason that can't be done, it's far better for dc to work on another subject or read than it is to repeat 43 methods of the same concept they've already fully mastered. If they aren't learning then at least they shouldn't be learning that the subject is always easy and becoming ever more boring.