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.

One thing I think you are missing is screen time. Limiting it doesn't equate good results.
My ds has opposite. He was allowed to watch tv all the time when he was a toddler. Learned to read from watching cartoons with subtitles.
He has unlimited access to games consoles and computer. He has massive vocabulary. And he does a lot of fun educational games on line, write stories, etc., which clearly had good effect on his attainment.

I agree with PP that some people just get it later. Not based on anything scientific.
I was a very dreamy child at school and very slow and unsporty.
At about year 9 things just clicked and from then I was top in everything and got straight A’s at GCSE and a level. Was v happy socially too.
I did read ALL the time as a child though. I think that has a lot to do with it, and i feel that my Dc are bright but could do more if they simply read more.
Also in my school (private girls) there were quite a few girls who were average at gcse (for that school this meant A-C as opposed to all A’s and b’s) but when given the opportunity to follow their interests at A level really shone and got all A’s and B’s. this happened in a lot of cases.