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.

*opposed

Just a thing, but has her eyesight /hearing been tested

No one said you should pay for tutoring. You said children in the top set were tutored & their parents were expanding their knowledge of the curriculum at home. .. hence why these kids are in the top set.
Your post title is questioning how your child can become a high achiever & when!!! So obviously you want your child to be in the top set but unwilling to put in the work needed to get her to be a "high achiever".
Other parents as you mentioned are doing the extension work to broaden their own DC's knowledge & that's why their kids are where they are.

By the way no one has implied you are a bad parent

By the way no one has implied you are a bad parentconfused

You are doing a pretty good job of heavily implying it pepper. I was certainly called a "crazy parent".

My question if you read the OP, is does school click later for otherwise bright children, who then go on to high achievement. There have been many thoughtful answers to this, including ruling out anything that might be holding her back. I haven't asked "how" to make her a high achiever. If I wanted to push her I could certainly have done that already, but I think it would have just made her miserable. She's six. There's another 12 years of this to come. I want her to be happy and meet her natural potential. As her mother my instinct is it's not happening at school.

I wish I hadn't mentioned the tutoring. It's a red herring. It was just to illustrate it's hard for me to judge what a proper yr2 baseline of achievement is when there's a lot of additional work being done outside the class. The metric of 'met' on a report is next to meaningless to a non-teacher. I'm trying to work out what she might not be getting in class - if the fact that Jessica knows all her tables up to 12 is the fact she's done it all at home, not that DD is missing a chunk of knowledge for some reason.

Anyway, thanks to those who have given thoughtful suggestions, encouragement and have understood where I am coming from. I'm leaving the thread now as it's descending into something unhelpful.

Just think about this for a MINUTE.

What are you going to do if she IS entirely average? How on Earth are you going to cope with an IQ 100, reading age =chronological age child? She is doing well enough, why aren't you pleased with that?

Also you mentioned the little 6 year olds in her set are disruptive & not focused how do you know this?!!
As above poster mentioned your child is fine, the teacher says she's fine. If you want her in the middle or top sets do what the other parents are doing & extend the curriculum. You said you have no interest in doing extra work so let her be. It takes a motivated parent or child to become a high flyer. Ideally both child & parent for optimum results. If neither child or parent have no inclination to put in the work outside school lower or middle sets are all you can hope for.
All parents have different aspirations which is why you have parents tutoring & going beyond the curriculum so their child is ready for it when the topic arises in school.
You said you have no intention of doing this or tutoring so why are you comparing your child to these kids? You're setting her up for failure...

No one said you should pay for tutoring, I just said you have to accept that some people do! And I didn’t call you a bad parent, only crazy, which is different! You seem to think your child is very very bright yet she doesn’t achieve above the expected level for her age, what do you want her teacher to do? Miracles? And this is a school that achieves above average according to you, so surely she should be doing a lot better if she is that bright! You are trying to find excuses as to why your dd isn’t doing as well as you expected, this is crazy, leave the poor girl alone! My god your obsession with the other children is not healthy! If it’s really true that most kids in her class are doing “extension” work is because they already know what they are learning at school. It’s important to push kids a little and to keep them motivated and this is why ability groups exist, because some kids know more than others and it doesn’t matter if it’s thanks to tutoring, loads of work after school or if it’s because they are super bright! stop being jealous and stop the excuses! If it bothers you that much do like the other parents!

And this is a school that achieves above average

My DC went to a school that did this with complacent, unimaginative teaching. It was simply in a leafy area, lots of kids with supportive and/or pushy parents.

Above average results does not necessarily indicate a excellant school. Even more so if you have a child with any developmental/sensory quirks.

Good luck OP. Pity PPs couldn't leave it at just saying it is ok to be average. I know loads of young people who were not fitting a standard profile at that age. Parents supported but did not push or pressurise. They have all done well.

Seconding colditz's post.

Honestly - she's 6.

And whosafraid - that's looking down at your dd (how old?) from her wall, in her room where she should be able to relax and be herself, constantly urging her to achieve, develop 'strategies' and have a 'growth mindset'? (The last three lines, not a bad message at all. But the rest of it? Honestly, when on earth did we start regaling little children with managerial motivational stuff?).

My ds went all the way through Primary under the radar. He was a bit dreamy so didn't come across well in the classroom. He could read fluently from an early age but no teacher ever commented on his good ability. At parent teacher meetings l heard all the areas he needed to improve in.
At home l found him amazingly bright. I am a Primary teacher so used to this age. He picked up things so quickly and was amazingly astute with a huge interest in history and politics from an early age. I said that to his teacher once and he said " l will take your word for it" in a slightly sneery tone.
He just graduated from a top university with a First in Economics. Loved his couse and is back now completing a masters. He is only coming into his own town.
But l could see it all along. School didn't really suit him. I often find when l say to a teacher of a class l have now..Claire is a very bright girl..they will look at me like l have two heads as they never saw it. Some teachers ( not all) judge intelligence by neat work and generally fitting the school mould but its not necessarily true..obviously.
When l was in school myself l was an academic high flyer as that envirnment really suited me. My friend constantly copied from me getting me to coach her etc. She is now a surgeon and l am teacher 4 year olds!!!

January the terms now are either special educational needs, or additional learning needs. I understand that terminology has changed over the years, which is why I didn't "yell" over here, and thank you for asking what to use instead. :)

My son (same age as I mentioned before) has just come home with a turquoise book. I know school aren't worried (I think he gets some extra help, but I know that they're having to look into a funded healthcare plan for his disabilities rather than a statement because he's doing so well academically, so that suggests he doesn't have that much help) so I hope it helps you worry less about your DD who is three bands higher.)

Have you looked at the ORT website? here I think this will alleviate some worries too. Perhaps your DD's school and Mumsnet are full of early readers and aren't typical of children as a whole. ;)

She's 6, let her come home from school and play with her dollies or climb trees rather than do workbooks. Theres more than one way to skin a cat, natural and creative child's play will do far more for a developing brain than rote learning and tutoring.

Oh and my dc (7 and 10) are very good readers, dd in particular not only inhales books in a matter of hours but is the strange type that re-reads books (mulitple times). I have never, never, placed any value by school book bands or their relevance to my childs reading ability. If I had, I wouldn't have introduced them to more challenging and interesting children's literature. Ds is y3, I don't think he's even as high a book band as your dd, but he's free reading greek myths at home (of his own choice) and will tell me all about the characters and storylines so I know he comprehends what he reads.

You can stretch a young brain in lots of ways, does she like music? Learning an instrument can also help with language learning, even maths (don't ask me how!).

@junebirthdaygirl did you help your son at home in anyway or did you leave him to it?

In Primary l just kept an eye on his homework and read to him. Got books he was interested in. Went interesting places as he loved museums and new cities etc. He read the newspaper from age 8 on so bought one everyday and just left it lying around. ( Helpful for economics degree later to be an avid newspaper reader) . He also played chess competitively for a few years and loved it. Played lots of sport too but not to any great success just for fun. Generally just a regular kid.
As he got older and a usual teenager there is no way he would have accepted help.
We live in a country with no grammar school stuff so he plodded along in school although he did well on most tests.

My DC went to a school that did this with complacent, unimaginative teaching. It was simply in a leafy area, lots of kids with supportive and/or pushy parents.

^^this was us too. Quality of teaching was very inconsistent and my dd was unlucky and got a string of mediocre teachers. Dd was middle sets. I work and have no talent for teaching so couldn’t provide additional input at home, beyond usual reading together. Dd had no appetite for workbooks.

Now after two years at senior school she has made fantastic progress and is top sets. So the answer to your question is yes. Lots of people are late bloomers.

I was very slow at school and quite behind. Hit 15 and something clicked and I got all A's at gcse and A level and went to oxford. Took a while but I got there!

"How on Earth are you going to cope with an IQ 100, reading age =chronological age child? She is doing well enough, why aren't you pleased with that?"

In my daughters case I would have coped perfectly well with her being average. I had her assessed because I thought she was underachieving and I was right. We don't know if the OP's daughter is reaching her potential or not. Maybe she is maybe she isn't but the OP isn't going to find out without asking the question first. I had no issue with my daughter being of average intelligence, most of us are aren't we? There isn't a problem with that! What I couldn't live with was the suspicion that she was quite bright but not realising her potential. Her assessor's words were " She's a very bright girl, don't underestimate her. She's a long way from average and it would be a travesty for her not to be given the opportunity to reach her potential. Don't leave her to switch off"

Behind every successful dyslexic there's a parent who has recognised their potential and helped them achieve it. It makes you feel like a prize twat as a parent, making those demands for your child, especially when facing the type of criticism above, but what's important it's that you've got your child's back not what other people think of you!

Yes, chicken, that's exactly the situation I was in with DS.

Two things were causing warning bells: my sense that he was far brighter in conversation/breadth of interests than was apparent from school test results; and the fact that he was getting upset and frustrated because he knew he was falling behind his peers.

When your child is coming home from school saying "I'm so stupid" and you know they're not, you have to act.

(Also the teacher was brilliant - I actually went to her with my concerns and asked outright "Am I being one of those really annoying middle class pushy parents here, or is there something worth investigating?" and she said "no, I'm seeing the same mis-match between spoken ability/general knowledge and written work/reading.")

There is nothing wrong with being average, or with having an average child. There is a whole lot wrong with sitting by and letting your child believe they're stupid when they clearly are not, and restricting their future opportunities by blindly going along with a set of test results when you suspect they might be capable of so much more.

Yes fermatstheoram, it was when she started coming home crying in years two and three saying she was stupid and then later refusing to go in at all, when I knew we had to act on it, not because I wanted the kudos if a clever high achieving child but because I thought it would totally destroy her if we didn't do something! Before then I'd spent about two years swinging from thinking there was something not quite right to thinking she was fine and it would suddenly click. It just never did !

Low self esteem is very common for children with dyslexia. They hit a certain age , usually 7 or 8 when certain things become incredibly tough for them and they start comparing themselves to others. They can also drop off a lot in KS2. Some go on to do much better at A level and providing they get through their school years without it complete destroying their self esteem!

My nephew aged 3 was always the slowest to pick up colours, shapes etc over siblings and cousins. When he started at school he wasn't very quick with reading. Apparently at one point he did a test in reception that indicated he might have some developmental issues. However, with each year he "got it" more and more and left with good (but not top) SATS. He always struggled with maths and languages but finally left school with GCSE's of 3 A*s 3 As 3 Bs and 2 Cs with some tutoring. By the time he got to A Levels though it all clicked and he got 4 As and ended up with a 1st from a top Uni in Biology. I think for him, he learned that he perhaps has to work harder than some to achieve, rather than he got clever!

My brother was written off by teachers at 7.
At 13 he passed the 11+ and went to grammar school (after 2 years in a comp)
He then went to Cambridge
He was just a late developer.