Y5 - adjustments to curriculum - what should I expect?

[GretchenWest]

My eldest DC is in Y5, and it seems that she cannot cope with the demands of the curriculum. It's in all areas, really, but especially in maths.

She's just about managed in previous years, but this year she is struggling more. I don't know at the moment if it's the content, the way this years' teacher teaches, or if she's given up, or if the years of only just coping have caught up with her. Or something else.

I just wondered if anyone could advise what (if any) adjustments it would be reasonable to expect the school / her teacher to make, and if I should just let them get on with it or intervene. She's often upset at home, and is getting increasingly anxious about going to school, although I think she hides this when she is there.

Thanks for any advice x

(Name changed for this)

She's often upset at home, and is getting increasingly anxious about going to school, although I think she hides this when she is there.

This alone makes me think there needs to be some intervention for her own well being. If she hides it the teacher may have no idea and will probably be willing to work together with you to help.

If she's learned the previous work superficially it may be that there are some fundamentals that are on shaky ground and she'll need to firm those up before moving forward with the syllabus.

I would arrange a meeting to chat with the teacher. At the very least you need to discuss the anxiety and secondarily you could make a plan for how to support her academically too.

You really need to raise with school that this is causing anxiety that's only visible at home. Otherwise by its very nature - school aren't going to be aware of that fact and able to act on it.

Any decent school should be fine with that - I have to do it quite frequently with DD2 in particular whose default setting is to look very very upbeat and then quite often she only pieces together the language to tell anyone something is bothering her at a later time, invariably 5 minutes before bedtime, at home. Now school know that this is often a pattern for how she communicates issues they're much better at working with us on this - and they've put things in place to try to provide time to build relationships in school for her to express that there.

Likewise DD1, who is actually a real high-flier in terms of ability, has complete periodic wobbles about how utterly terrible she's convinced she is at maths - she's not, school know she's not and I know she's not - but we have these moments of complete drama and tears everywhere about the subject...and school are working on building her confidence with it.

What ReverseTheFerret says. School should be pleased you're keen to support at home as well.

Thank you for your replies. I have told school about the anxiety, but they don't seem to take it that seriously, although I have told them that DD is sometimes physically sick with it at the end of the weekend. As with your DD, @ReverseTheFerret, it all comes out at bedtime. SHe says her current teacher "doesn't believe in her" and that she feels like she is always about to be told off.

I think a lot of her anxiety is to do with the academic side of things - she says there is a problem with the work she is expected to do and she needs different work, and looking at knowing what school is expecting of her, along with knowing her as an individual for 9 years as opposed to knowing her as one of a class for 10 weeks, I tend to agree with her. Would it be reasonable to suggest that some intervention was put in place do you think?

My ds is now Y5. He gets 10 - 15 min a day usually at the end to discuss his emotions and how the day has been, usually with a TA, which means the minor comment can be put into perspective rather than him fretting all night. Figuring out exactly which aspects of the work are a struggle is also key - is it social interaction, imagination, certain maths problems? If you talk to the teacher then you'll have the info to ask your dd more about what she does and doesn't get and can explain that you all need to know what she doesn't know so the teacher knows how to help.

Most class teachers really do know when a child is struggling. The assessment data will be telling the teacher that all is not well.

Many classes have a TA for the children who need to touch base more frequently. The work given to the children should be differentiated but some schools get the children to choose the level of questions they tackle. Is your DD being asked to do this and over-facing herself? I would find out what the practice is in the classroom and how the teacher ensures the work is suitable for each child. If you don’t talk about this, it cannot get sorted out.

I am sure most schools have a TA that children can talk to in the way NotCitrus suggests. This can really help.

@NotCirus - the 'de-brief' at the end of the day sounds like a good idea, especially if it's working. I think DD is reluctant to express her feelings to any staff at school, unfortunately, as this issue has been ongoing for a while now, and she thinks they don't listen, so she doesn't bother telling them.

They don't get to choose their own work @BubblesBuddy. They are grouped according to ability - there are I think 4 groups. DDs group has 7 in it, I think, but that is more than a quarter of the class because it's only got 20-odd pupils in it. In the past - and at the start of this term - she was effectively in a fifth group, which only had her in it, but the teacher has said that there isn't time to teach her on her own so she's now expected to do the same work as the group, IYSWIM?

I am surprised the lower progress group has 7 in it. That’s too many for targeted support from a TA. Schools I know, with classes of 30, have around 4 working with a TA. Sometimes this is consolidation work because they cannot always access the lesson without it. Could you ask for this approach?

20 in a class should be a massive bonus. Is this a state school? It seems odd that the teacher cannot give appropriate work with such small numbers. I think you are being fobbed off by a not very good teacher. All children like to feel they are achieving something and her wellbeing in class is important. I would be surprised if she really was on her own regarding attainment. Try and see if she can work with 2-3 other children and not 6 others. Many schools use groups of 4 and this is perfectly possible in a class of 20.

I know of schools where the level of work has 5 grades for those who can access the curriculum immediately. Hard, Harder, Hardest, Herculean and Extension Work. Those who have had the booster work to access the curriculum start with Hard. You can call it what you want but this shows the amount of differentiation that should be done in one class of mixed ability.

There are more than 20 in the class, I'm just not sure how many exactly - I think it's 23 or 24. It is a state school. I did think it odd that her group is so large - from my (admittedly basic) understanding of statistics, I'd have expected the bottom group and the top group to be the small groups, with the middle two being larger?

I think the teacher had a sense that it seemed unfair that she was in a group of 1 / being taught on her own. DD says that when she was given her own work she was basically left to it with no input from an adult. That doesn't seem right for a 9 year old whatever their ability, though: they should all be getting work that is challenging for them, so they should all get some degree of teacher or TA input I would have thought?

Our school has a 'worry box'. Children are encouraged to scribble down anything that they may be worried about and post the paper in the box. It takes away the pressure of having to speak face to face with an adult if the child doesn't feel able to cope with that.

Could she have something similar at school to help her to manage some of the anxiety?

It isn’t good practice to separate a child out to work on their own with no input from an adult. Was she doing access/consolidation work at that point? For example, if the class are covering area calculations, she might need to revise her tables and multiplication.

I would ask to see the teacher. Quite often children in the lower group are a small number due to them needing revision/consolidation before they move on to the curriculum. Some may just stay with this work if they are really struggling but you need to find out if this work is needed or not. You do need to find out how they teach maths to lower achievers and how your DD is actually meant to make progress.

Even if the class is 24, a small group of 4 with a TA wouldn’t be unusual. They may be working on different work but they sit together. Sometimes schools don’t separate out a top group, which can be small too but not necessarily, and mix children up a bit so the middle group don’t feel second class.

I don’t think a worry box is a substitute for good teaching practice.

If the school/teacher uses ability grouping the group size should be based on ability not some arbitrary idea of how many children it should include. The idea of this group work8 g with a TA is poor practice. These children need a teacher just as much, if not more than their more able classmates.
I would hope the teacher is addressing individual difficulties rather than some generic idea that this is a low ability group to do this requires identifying barriers to learning which won't be apparent from data alone (this simply shows that the child is or isn't meeting the schools expected standard).
I'd ask for a meeting with the teacher and approach it from "How can we support our child?" And "how is the school supporting her?"

Just because children work with a TA it doesn’t mean there isn’t teacher input! Of course there is. No TA works without teacher input and if the consolidation of previous learning is successful, the children are then able to access the curriculum along with the others. There may well be barriers to learning but it’s not acceptable for one child with the barriers to sit on their own. No teachers that I know can spend all their time with a small consolidation group and not teach everyone else. It’s all a balance.

If a group need to revise tables, for example, this is what they do because not knowing tables means accessing the next stage of the curriculum is a problem. Why they cannot remember their tables may well take a lot of investigation.

They're entitled to teacher time not just input. It's poor practice.

"it’s not acceptable for one child with the barriers to sit on their own" you don't have to sit alone to have individualised work. It's how mixed ability grouping works.

Thanks again for your input. To clarify - when DD says she wasn't getting any 'input' from an adult, she was on her own doing a maths program on a computer - it has instructional videos and then some questions. She says that she was just left to it - presumably because the videos were thought to be enough. She says she never watched the videos though - I think this is because she doesn't like wearing headphones. She says she prefers to sit on her own, to be fair - she finds the other children distracting - but she doesn't mind being sat with others too much.

We've had issues with the level of work expected of her for years - she's a late summer baby, and school have at times had her work with another year group, they've had her in groups with others doing the same work as them, they've had her in groups doing different work, and they've had her effectively in a group of one with her own work, which she liked in theory, but she said she wasn't getting any help from anyone. So now she's in a group of seven again, getting the same work as the others. I've spoken to school about it several times, and their view has changed several times - as is shown in the various arrangements for teaching her. In the last meeting an IEP was drawn up saying that she needs her own lesson plans / different content, but they're not providing it. I feel like going in again will make me 'that parent' but what's the point of an IEP if they don't do what they say?

It's a shame she didn't watch the video properly. I think some tutorial videos are way better for children to understand the concept than teacher trying to teach whole class/group of children. You can re-watch again and again, until you understand.

You need to be "that parent"

I know the videos can be good and are used quite a bit now. It’s a shame she didn’t like it.

When I said teacher input I did actually mean teaching. It’s a bit childish to argue this point mrz.

Yes, op, do keep trying. However the fundamental problem seems to be that she cannot access the curriculum because her basic skills are not good enough. The question is: how can she catch up? She may have to accept that a computer course might help as will repeatedly going over the basics and revision. I’m not a fan of putting children down a group because I think it’s says they are not good enough to stay with their peers. Obviously not all summer borns struggle with maths and she has had the same teaching as the others over the same number of years but the stats say summer borns don’t do as well.

She needs a plan to establish how she will be taught in order to catch up. This is what I would ask for. In view this is a special educational need and should be addressed as such.

"When I said teacher input I did actually mean teaching" Its never childish to challenge poor practice

DD2 was that child for a while. It wasn't so much that she wasn't capable, but she couldn't access group learning in a meaningful way. It would overwhelm her and she would shut down, panic, and stop hearing.

The school approached it by pulling her out of assembly before the maths lesson for "Pre-teaching". It would go something like:

"Today we are going to be learning about X and it is going to blow your mind, so I want us to look at it first, so you know all about it when we look at it together in class. Let's look at it....."

OR Overlearning:

"A while ago, we looked at X, and we're going to be looking at it again today, so I want to remind you about it before we look at it together as a class...."

That way, when it was introduced as a whole class subject, DD2 was a) expecting it, b) familiar with the words, and c) comfortable with the subject matter. Instead of spending the whole time thinking "Chunking, what's chunking? Why are they talking about blocks of chocolate in a maths lesson? It's not cooking? That's really weird, you use chocolate in cooking.....

Hopefully the school can help her, but since she is still in yr5 and have quite a while until secondary, what you do to help her at home daily can make a huge difference in the long run.
Use teaching site like khanacademy and start from the basics. They are superb at video tuition on maths from basics to advanced level.

Thank you all for your replies. It's good to be reassured that in insisting that DD gets work at an appropriate level, I am not being 'that parent.' It's been reassuring too to read that some schools are able to be supportive, and make innovative modifications to their delivery, even if it is only to benefit one child.

Apologies if I have come across as a little vague in some of my replies - I was trying to be as vague as possible, and in doing so I have not corrected the assumptions you have made that DD is struggling because the work is too difficult. I accept that my opening post strongly suggests the former, but I couldn't think of a more neutral way to phrase it. Please don't think of this as some sort of stealth boast - I've changed name for this specifically so it's not like any of you 'know' me from other threads. The actual issue is that DD finds it difficult to cope with the boredom and lack of challenge in the curriculum. (This supported by Ed Psych assessment) and yet I seem unable to persuade the school to give her something more difficult because they say they cannot teach her at an appropriate level because it would need to be 1:1, and that would take time away from the other pupils.. Whilst I accept that resources are finite, I do not find it easy to stand by and see DDs self confidence and joy of learning undermined.

Back to school it is, then ...

I dont think 1:1 for a bright child is appropiate. I have a v.bright child who often feels different to the class and to teach her separately would just add to the alienation.

There is a lot of added depth where a child can expand the work they do in say writing. In maths ours have optional challenges for when theyve finished the work that my child works on. But shes sat in a group with other bright children for some subjects and mixed ability for others.

Being able to explain concepts to other children is also a skill, and learning to work as a team and with other people which isolating with a ta wont do.

Can you extend sideways outside of school. Sport/music. Mine does both in school and music in particular is teaching her tok work hard at sometjing as schoolwork has come easily.