Can an average child in YR2 go on to be a high achiever?

[User54546767]

DD is at a good primary, which achieves well above average across the board in the annual stats.

DD has met age related expectations in all her reports so far, and has just started year 2. She is bringing home White book band books (level 10) which are a stretch, but she can systematically read them. Purple band (level 8) she reads fluently. She writes well creatively, although not very long pieces, but still spells phonetically mostly. Maths took a while to click but now addition and a few tables are secure. She still can't tell the time.

She has excellent fine motor skills, an really impressive ability to construct and fix things, and a noticeable flair for non-verbal reasoning (i.e. recalling recurring patterns etc.). Her social skills are also excellent. She seems generally bright to us and all around her - until she started school she was ahead in all her milestones, and in the initial screening at school slightly above average in everything.

However for the last two years she has been set with the bottom third of the class much of the time (I assume there are some children in separate remedial groups which I'm not aware of) or at best the middle group. Her teachers have consistently said she is 'doing fine' and 'where she needs to be', but their impression and expectations of her in class simply doesn't reflect the child we know. I feel we're being fobbed off with the subtext of 'she's not that bright', when actually something isn't working and she's not meeting her potential.

I'm concerned that I'm going to look like I just have an over inflated idea of her abilities - and maybe I do! - but does school just 'click' a bit later for some children? Can she go from being average to being a high achiever later on in the years? The school obviously has the potential to get children achieving at those higher levels but I can't work out why it's not happening for DD.

Any insights would be helpful. And please be kind, I might sound like a bit of a dick worrying about this, but I just want DD to have the best chance in life she can.

I just mean she was determined to do well herself so applied herself in class, was diligent and chose the hardest levels to challenge herself (question work papers in class are set by levels and children choose the level of question they answer - she always choose the red levels ). No tutors and no real work from us except from explaining an odd maths problem or meaning of a word. She didn't get a spelling wrong in the weekly tests for 2 yrs.

I was averagein primary school, describes as a dreamer. It all clicked in secondary though and I got the top GCSE/A level results in my year.

I personally think primary school should be a time where kids learn for the love of it, rather than worrying about what levels they have met etc. I’ve been pretty relaxed with my kids and by year 6 they’ve done well. You sound like an engaged parent and your DD sounds lovely...I’d just keep up lots of interesting out of school activities, lots of books and lots of talking about the world. I appreciate the grammar system puts the pressure on however.

I don’t really understand what the issue is. The teacher must know which set is the most appropriate for your dd. It seems to me you were expecting a lot more from your dd and you are disappointed that she isn’t in the top set! Would you prefer if your dd was top set and completely struggling? Maybe she isn’t as bright as you think or maybe the other kids are just brighter (regardless of whether they do extra work at home or not!). What’s wrong with being average?

In my experience children can and do move from middle to higher achieving.
My little boy is in Year 4. He is a lovely inquisitive little soul and does things at his own pace.
Reception - met the expected standard
Y1 - met the exoected standard
Y2 - met the exoected standard x3 & Greater Depth x2
Y3 - Greater Depth across the board. He had a great year and really engaged with his learning.
Y4 - We'll see....

I was average at that age. Moved to a reasonable prep school in year three. Went on to score top scholarship to secondary and Cambridge. Siblings were the same. Far too young to worry, and many friends (and DH) who did worse than me at school ended up with better degrees. Having said that we have just moved DS to another school because he is exceptionally bright and motivated, but was not stimulated at his school (and miserable therefore). He is now thriving and they recognise the boy we know him to be at the new school.

I took a long time to learn to read. English was eventually my top subject with top grades. My DD seems very average but I try not to worry given my experience.

My ds didn't even achieve average in yr2 in some areas. Now in yr 8 and top set in everything. Still doesn't have brilliant handwriting but it is legible.

I can remember feeling quite worried.

Most definately

My DD was not Grammar school material her teacher said. So we didn't bother trying years later and she went to a standard high school. She got A's and a few B's and went to the Grammar School for Sixth Form. Should have applied for Year 7 all those years before but she did more than ok

Hi op, I totally get what you are saying!

My dd is a year above yours in year 3 but we had the same issue in that I didn't feel like she was being pushed enough and was coasting. This was in reception when I found out that she was on the "top table" but was on the red reading band for the whole reception year

I approached her teacher who I had heard amazing things about ( ds had been through the same school but had missed her as she was on maternity when he was due to have her ) and her actual words to me were "well if you're not happy then you can always look for another school" I was shocked at that. She finished reception ahead of targets and had a brilliant year one.

However, year two was when she showed them who she was. She absolutely flourished and ended up doing amazing in her sats and is flying academically now.

Dd has always been very bright but did not come across that way in school which baffled me. She is the chattiest little girl I know and at parents evening in both reception and year one we were told how quiet she is. I told her to be "more like the Rosie we know" not her real name!

So after all that, what I'm trying to say is that it seems year 2 is a butterfly year as I call it. The children change so much and really come into their own.
I have bought a couple of Collins workbooks only this week from Asda which were £5 for 2 and they are designed for the individual school year that your child is in so I bought year 3 maths and year 3 English.
Dd loves doing work at home and it will only enhance her learning.

Your dd sounds a lot like mine and her class has a pretty even split of boys and girls and the girls are unusually bright. There are two top tables which are all girls apart from one boy on each table. Your class may be similar.

You are worrying about nothing. It's also really not okay to use the term "remedial" anymore (but I'm aware that you may not have known that.)

Both of my children have additional needs (autistic amongst other things) and have required extra support for various different reasons. DS1 is in Year 6, and left year five only just on Silver band (which is actually fine, he was still middle average for his English end of year tests). He started juniors (year 3) on (I think) Turquoise, and was significantly behind. He leapt up several book bands during year five which was absolutely incredible.

For maths, however, he scored literally off the chart for one test (as in higher) and for the other unfortunately had a panic attack during his test so scored in the average range rather than significantly above average. He's always had an aptitude for maths, but if you based his intelligence on his reading ability across primary, by the standards set on this thread he'd have been classed as low attaining.

DS2 (who has just started year 2) was bringing home green books. My goodness he worked hard to get to those green books. He started year 1 on red books and was struggling. He still doesn't have concept of time (he knows tomorrow, then "the other tomorrow" for anything after that) and is probably low average for most subjects.

Neither of my children are classed as having a learning disability, and school are not concerned about their academic ability and neither am I. What does worry me is when their anxiety gets in the way of their education, when school is missed due to medical appointments, and unstructured days causing panic and meltdowns.

White band is classed as "secure" reading level for a year 2 child (end of, probably.) As your DD has only just gone into year 2, she's doing well! You are definitely worrying about the wrong things, and whilst you want your child to do well, as long as they're trying their best and are happy they are doing well.

I think it's quite unfair of PPs to say the OP's DD isn't very bright based on her book band. For goodness sake, she's six!

DS1 was obviously really bright but slid back at primary school. School didn't see a problem, but eventually I had him assessed for dyslexia. He was very dyslexic but in the 99th percentile for verbal IQ, he could also read well even though he couldn't spell and struggled to get things down on paper. He moved schools and got support and is now at university.

I think there's a huge difference between the process of learning to read vs comprehension. And also then creative writing and understanding spelling and grammar. Different skills and i expect different parts of the brain.
Same with maths, arithmetic vs TT vs geometry/trig/calculus/statistics.
You can definitely be ok at primary maths then do better later on (maybe because others drop back and start to struggle).
Ive got a maths alevel and yet still cant remember some TT, nor could i do mental arithmetic. I just dont seem to have the short term memory (this also affects my planning my writing).
Dd seems to have an ability to recognise what a word should say ie she can make a correspondence to a word in her vocabulary. I think spelling may be a struggle though.

I would be worried about the use of rigid sets in y2. This seems wrong and rather demotivating.

You may also find there are several ultra bright children in the class and that’s making you feel your DD isn’t doing so well. Some classes just have several very bright children who may well be going to the best universities in the country eventually. This happened in DDs class so most children couldn’t compete with them.

As others have said, could it be dyslexia? She sounds exactly like my daughter who was diagnosed as dyslexic last year. Even down to the bookband ! Her general ability is very high and this is evident when you speak to her but she was middling at school , having started ahead. I got all of the "she's fine/ where she needs to be/ the summer born kids have just caught up with her" etc etc from school but it just didn't add up! I knew there was something not clicking for her. By the start of year three it was having quite a massive impact on her self esteem as she was slipping further and further down the cohort and was very aware of it. She started refusing to go in, would cling to the fence in the morning and not budge! I raised the possibility of dyslexia with school several times and it was immediately dismissed. I don't think many schools are that good with dyslexia to be honest and a lot goes under the radar. Dyslexia runs in our family. Her uncle couldn't read at all at 9 and is now a high flying university academic so yes attainment can change but there might be a very good reason it ! Anyway we had her assessed privately and she is indeed dyslexic. It cost £300 and despite my initial concerns about throwing £300 down the drain because of my own neurosis it turned out to be the best £300 I've ever spent. Her general ability is within the top 10% so she should by that measure, be towards the top of her class , especially within her school which is low to average in terms of national attainment levels. As it was she was scrapping average with big deficits in some areas.

The difficulty was that although she had a diagnosis she still wasn't a priority within her old school. There were kids in her class with far greater and more pressing needs and the fact that she was just about average, attainment wise meant that she never going to get much help. She was also switching off. She refused to read her school book for the second half of last year and they just let her drift. We made the decision to send her to a local private school which has a dyslexia unit and the change in her has been phenomenal.

I definitely wouldn't let it lie if you feel she's underachieving. Trust your instinct because often parent's instincts are right. She might, understandably not be a priority within her class but she is your priority and sometimes as uncomfortable as it is, it's necessary to push for answers. Good Luck OP

HugandRoll I apologise that I don’t know the correct term. That was the official language when I was at school. Could you tell me what it is so I don’t make the mistake again?

I’m honestly not ‘disappointed’ she’s not in the top set, username, I am concerned she’s at the bottom and it doesn’t reflect the abilities that we see at home. I do think it’s possible that for whatever reason the teacher has a different experience of her, and that’s what nags at me.

And if you are drilled at extension maths one-to-one nightly at home you are simply going to perform better in class than kids who are doing 15 mins a few times a week in a group of 30 with little individual attention. It will make a difference and that’s not just about ability or being ‘brighter’.

I think lots of bright children are drilled and not necessarily brighter (I tutor so I’m well aware). So school is not necessarily a good reflection. Is she happy? I’d be mostly concerned about her attitude towards school and academia at this age. She might flourish once the basics are covered and she starts developing other academic interests. I peaked at around gcse because I was great at sitting exams but not really an academic (but concientious and at an academic school so I worked very hard). Others went on to achieve much more because they developed interests later on.

It did happen to my cousin. Very average student, not particularly interested in school, struggled a bit to learn to read but nothing major. He just made it into the grammar by the skin of his teeth. Continued to be average until GCSE's decided he wanted to be a computer scientist and needed certain grades - ended up going to Cambridge and getting the top first in computer science. That's an extreme example but it can happen.

Well if that’s the reason why other kids are getting better results than your dd and that’s bothering you so much, why don’t you do the same? It seems that your dd is so much better than everyone else with little effort (and others are good only because they do extra work at home!!) but the school doesn’t seem to agree with you, maybe because she isn’t that bright!

Reading is largely practice so they are practising more with their dc.
Also you ger siblings the parents will know how everything works and they will possibly get off to a faster start.
At band 10 there are loads of library books you could read at home too.
Also imo it can make a huge difference the timing of dc making a big leap. Our school the dc read to the teacher once maybe twice a term. So if they arent ready to move up at that point they will continue getting the next book. Or some schools dont want to move them too quickly as it affects the progress they make per year.
Just get her reading several levels higher at home.
We had the project x collection at home (from the book people). Theres some grey/brown band in there.

I really wouldn't be considering booking a private tutor at this stage! It sounds like she is bright and doing well, her teachers are happy with her progress. Please just stop panicking and let her settle in. She's still so young and I hate the thought of all this pressure being mounted onto her at such a young age. If you are concerned, have a quiet word with the teacher but leave it there.

Whether she is dyslexic or not (my DC are dyslexic) my advice wpuld be to play the ling game. Early primary education seems to be more and more about reading, writing and arithmetic. If you are slower with this clicking or have long term deficits in specific areas then the focus can really affect your self esteem and motivation

So what does play the long game look like?

Reading - do a bit of the reading scheme but don't stress over it. Read with your DD. Read to her. Share reading (take it in turns with pages or paragraphs), listen to talking books in the car, at bedtime, watch films of classic children's stories. You DD can be well "read".

Find something she likes and feels she is good at - art, music, dance, drama, swimming etc. It will help her self esteem, her eider education and her social skills.

Do things together - walking, museums, theatre and talk about things (I'm sure you do anyway).

A really good class teacher said about one of mine who wasn't reading fluently in y5, "Every teacher needs a Dennis in the class. If my lesson is going a bit flat I know I can ask him to contribute and he'll have something really interesting to say." This child is in secondary now and still had poor spelling and maths but he is learning all the time and we are helping him make the most of abilities.

School can be really tough if you don't fit neatly. This video is a really inspiring account of a late bloomer

m.youtube.com/watch?v=6nmXrSvewRA

newuser I think you are deliberately trying to be provocative by misrepresenting what I’m saying. No where have I implied she’s better than anyone else.

Oh chickenmayhem it saddens me to read about your experience with your DD, as it was as if I was reading about my DS, especially the bit about school not providing help as DC attainment was average and there were others with far greater need. What worries me is how many other kids like ours will fall into the middle when they could achieve so much more. OP, bide your time this year as dyslexia trsting is best from 8 years, support her all you can, but don't ignore your gut feeling. All these posters querying how bright your DD is do not help. My DS has heard on more than one occasion, from both kids and adults statements along the lines of "You're clever, so you can't be dyslexic....." Makes my blood boil. The impact on self esteem for that child cannot be underestimated.

I had similar concerns about my 6 year old ds. I struggled internally with the fact that he seemed so bright at home and at school was in the lower reading bands. I was actually a primary school teacher at the time and I used to volunteer with the school. I did the phonic screen for the class and realised that ds got 100 % correct. So I thought there must be a problem and I took him to a behavioural optometrist who immediately diagnosed a muscle tone issue that was causing him to find reading a massive strain. One month after getting glasses he was reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe for fun at home.

It took the school a while to catch up with his increased ability and I resorted to doing BARTS reading age test on him to prove he needed to change book groups I was tactful though, the school were brilliant on the whole.

So I would say definitely check out a visual issue, even just to rule it out.

Thanks all for your thoughtful posts. I think what is angst inducing are the very questions raised: could she be dyslexic (in which case we need to wait two years to test) although there isn’t anything specific that would suggest that yet; could she have a visual problem, which I assume I can check now? Is she distracted/not trying in class? Or is she genuinely not ‘getting it’, compared to a large chunk of her peers. Something just doesn’t feel right, and maybe I just do have to ‘play the long game’ and see how this year goes.

She’s mid year age wise, not hugely mature either. But not a summer born.