dd started a new school today. She is a year ahead of the maths curriculum, what should I do?

[NineNine]

DD has just started year 5 in a small, one form entry school. She has come from a very large school with multiple classes per year. I guess this meant they could stream the subjects and dd was put in the group doing the curriculum for the year ahead.

I had no idea about this until she came out of school today and told me they had started on a topic she learnt last year. She's sure it wasn't just a recap, and says she was definitely doing year 5 maths when she was in year 4 last year, (and had done year 4 in the previous year).

What would be reasonable to expect from the school about this? They must be used to some children needing to be stretched, but having covered the entire syllabus already? I don't want her to be bored repeating stuff, or isolated away from her friends while she does separate work. What would the right balance be?

Primary teacher here. With the 'new' curriculum, as many teachers still call it, children are not supposed to bee moved on to the next year's objectives. Instead, they are meant to work on their year group objectives in greater depth, eg problem solving, using the skills in different contexts etc.

In many primary schools now, we are expressly forbidden to move children on past their year group.

Personally I think this is rubbish, and really hard to do in the classroom, but perhaps that's the issue...

yes but the other issue is that where do they go for Year 6 once Year 6 is taught - few primary school teachers are trained to take on the KS3 curriculum (where you get specific maths teachers)

I can sympathise my daughter has quickly mastered up to the end of the Year 6 curriculum and is going into Year 5 and is a gifted mathematician - stretching her beyond that wont help and good mastery and stretching (which she had last year) is what she needs. But it is difficult to do especially if maths is not your strong point as a teacher

Sounds perfectly standard for the start of Y5, recapping place value to 6 figures. There should be challenging problem solving linked to it for those who are ready for it. Give the teacher time to gauge your daughter’s ability and your daughter will be challenged. Remember y5 work should be building on y4 work so it is not a surprise if the topics are similar. Give it a couple of weeks and chat to the teacher if you are still worried.

It’s not just about the place value stuff she did today. She was explicitly told by her teacher last year that they were doing ‘year 5 maths’ and she said the books they were using said year 5 on them. I don’t know how meaningful that is, but there is also the fact that we have looked over the current school’s year 5 curriculum and she does seem to have done most of it.

I don’t particularly want her to move on to year 6 maths, as a PP said, what would happen next year? I just don’t want her to get bored and coast through the year, so some reassurance from the teacher at some point would be good. I’ll give it a couple of weeks, as most of you have said.

Chat to the teacher. Say your DD has settled well and ask to book an appointment to discuss maths with he teacher in a few weeks time. That way your dd and maths is on the teacher's radar but you haven't come across too pushy etc.

Or.... contact the old school and ask- did they do yet 6 maths?

Schools are now encouraged not to move children on to the next year's curriculum, but to add "greater depth" to the correct year's curriculum.

Y1 to Y6 have place value as the first topic in my school. We do a variety of fluency, problem solving and reasoning questions. If your DD was part of our class we would stretch her through varied problem solving and reasoning activities. We would not expect her to plough through fluency questions she was confident with.
All the children had the same work today so we could assess where they were. There are a few different options tomorrow.

My more able y4s were doing all that last year ( the ones who were exceeding by the end of year). There is a big overlap between years and I'd definitely give the teacher a few days to get her measure before you say anything.

I teach mixed Y3/4 and tomorrow my high ability Y4s will start with stuff they recognise. I'll be moving them on and challenging them very soon.

There's always a wide range in a class - the teacher should bewell used to challenging all.

Hopefully teacher will spot her ability soon and start to differentiate, but I think it really depend on school and teacher.
Since it's new school and new teacher, I'd agree to wait and see and keep an eye on it.

Meanwhile maybe she can stretch herself using sites like nrich, wildmaths, mathigon, geogebra, and others.

Place value? Seriously, there is no way that Y5s will not have done this several times before. Most likely the teacher is just adding a new slant and consolidating what was done before.

If it does turn out that she is ahead of the class, you should think about doing some extension work with her at home, as the current trend does seem to be more about towards moving at the pace of the whole class.

The teacher will quickly learn to differentiate with your DD. It might just take a month or so for the teacher to grasp where your DD is academically. It’s very normal to have children that are a year or two ahead or behind in one class. Each topic can be expanded beyond your DDs present knowledge.

Also here is the mastery assessment material she can use. This site is great too.

www.ncetm.org.uk/resources/46689

Kokeshi, even in yr6, they still cover place values, in different degree.

Do you have her maths exercise book from last year? That would show the new teacher what she covered.
I agree with all the others, wait a week and then approach the teacher.
Tell your DD it is great she knows the maths as it gives her more headroom for learning the new routines of the school and making new friends.

Hmm. I would leave it for a bit but then go and talk to the teacher if things don't improve.

When Dd left primary school she was working in maths at the level of a typical child at the end of year 9. She then spent 2 years bored to tears as her teachers did not give her appropriate work and in fact point blank refused my request to give her harder work on the grounds that "giving her something different would upset the others in the class" and "if I give her harder work then there won't be anything to teach her in Year 9".

I moved schools in year 6. The new school hadn’t been able to cover all the year 5 stuff during year 5. I was just happy that things were easy peasy for a while. I was good in maths and I wasn’t bothered. I had more time for things because homework was so easy. I got stretched enough later on (A levels and uni).

The maths teaching I have observed is certainly not teaching at the same pace. The initial part of the lesson will set the starting point but the brightest children are given harder and harder tasks and far more thought provoking problems. The work from y5 she has done may not be in greater depth at all. I think taking her old book along is a good idea as a basis for discussion and get a curriculum overview for y5. Ask the teacher to tell you what they do for greater depth. Rarely is there only one bright spark at maths.

For what it’s worth, where I am a governor, children have Hard, Harder, Hardest and Herculean maths tasks. The Herculean (in particular) are sometimes taken home for further work if the child wishes. It’s still within the curriculum but a good maths teacher will extend way beyond the chalk and talk at introductory level.

Also: all schools are totally focussed on progress these days. No child should be bored and all teachers should show progress in their class. We see the greatest progress from the brightest. We are in a grammar school county and plenty get to the grammar schools and even a top private school nearby. Schools should have maths evenings for parents to explain how they teach maths.

Firstly it is too soon to make a judgement about this.....and in fact, it will always be hard for you to make an accurate judgement.

I would say, wait a week or so and then just ask for an appointment to discuss the maths. Take the odd ex book if possible. Don't start by saying that she's covering work she's done before or isn't being stretched - instead, simply state the facts that last year she did maths with the year ahead and covered whatever topics to whatever level - here the ex book would be very useful (because all years cover the same topics just to greater depth each year) and simply enquire about what they are covering/will cover and ask if there is a risk of her only repeating work from last year or what they might do to stretch her. If you enquire about what is happening and will happen or could happen, you won't sound critical......and that's really important. Any child new to a school in Yr 5 may find things have been done differently previously and the new school will expect that too.

It may well be that the teacher says she needs a bit of time to assess your DD and to decide what's right to do - that's fine, but if they say this, ask for a date when you can come back to them for further discussion about it. If necessary ask to speak to the maths co-ordinator.

There should be a way to provide for her. It might be that other hild rein in the class are working at her level or beyond it......it is impossible to know this within one lesson.

Just wait a few days for things to settle down and then go in with an enquiry not a criticism.