Worried about my dd's school- advice needed

[MsMeowington]

I need some advice from any primary teachers that may be lurking on here. I’m sorry but this is long.

My dd is 6 years old and currently in Year 2. She is a bright girl and up until recently I’ve had no issues with her school. She’s had fantastic teachers so far and she’s grown from a timid girl into a confident one.

This school year started well and her Year 2 teacher was brilliant. However, she left for a new job at another school at Christmas. During much of November and December this teacher was barely in school due to illness and during this time (4 weeks) the class was covered by a mishmash of TAs some days and supply teachers other days. The class have had one supply teacher since January but we’ve just been told she will only be here until Easter so there will be someone else for the summer term. The school appear to be losing teachers left, right and centre at the moment but they can’t seem to find replacements (4 staff have left so far this year, another is going in April, only one has been replaced). So in my mind we may find ourselves in a similar situation again in the coming years .

My dd is very able and is in the top sets for maths and literacy. She is also a competent reader and has a reading age 2.5 years ahead of what she is. At the recent parent consultation evening I was told that she is exceeding expectations in all areas and there’s nothing that she needs to work on (really?!?) or anything she struggles with. During the last week or so since the consultation a number of things have come up with my dd which I am concerned about:

1.	She has no idea what number bonds are. When I explained what they were she looked at me vaguely as if it was brand new information. I then asked her to give me examples of number bonds to 10 and she took ages thinking of them all, and made some mistakes as well. I’m baffled how a child who is supposed to be exceeding expectations is unable to quickly and accurately recall number bonds to 10. Its basic stuff. 

2. She has not been taught a single written method for addition or subtraction yet. I’ve seen her maths books and there were no written methods. When I asked her current teacher about it I was told that they don’t do written methods in their books, only on whiteboards. When I asked my dd she said they are not allowed to write anything but the answer in their books and the only way she’s been taught to work out answers is to use a pre-printed number line or cubes. Is this normal for a year 2 child?

3. She was trying to add 20 to 24 earlier and had no idea how to work it out. We went through it together and she didn’t realise that the ones stay the same and it’s just the tens that change. Again, surely for a Year 2 child who is exceeding expectations she should surely have grasped this by now.

4. She’s been on the same reading level since before October half term despite having been heard to read in school on a fortnightly basis. My dd flies through these books, reads with complete fluency, rarely comes across a difficult word, speaks with expression and has a complete understanding of what she’s read. I ask her inference based questions and she understands at this level as well. Her teacher writes in her book each week that my dd has brilliant expression and understanding of what she’s read, yet when I asked her what she needed to do to move to a more challenging reading level I was told she needed to read with more expression and improve her understanding of what she’s read. When I queried this based on her comments the teacher said she’d listen to my dd read the next day and reassess her. She did and then wrote another comment about her great expression and understanding again but kept her on the same level! My dd is bored with these books and has started refusing to read them to me so I’ve told her we’re just going to read our own level appropriate books at home and not bother with the school books. But my dd really cares about what reading level she’s on (like many new readers do) so now she’s feeling down-hearted and keeps saying that her teacher doesn’t think she’s a good reader. She keeps saying she’s rubbish at everything which is upsetting because we’ve always tried to big my dd up and make her confident in her own abilities.

These are just a few examples of things I’ve picked up on recently. I know I sound like a pushy parent but I’m not at all. I’ve virtually never spoken to any of her teachers about anything at drop off/pick up, and have never once spoken to a teacher about my dd’s progress unless it was at a parent consultation meeting. I’ve always had complete faith in the school but I’m starting to lose this faith given the lack of a consistent teacher and the gaps in my dd’s knowledge. The school has recently been downgraded by Ofsted which may also be affecting my feelings. I wasn’t bothered when it first happened because I was happy with the school and my dd’s progress but now I’m starting to see problems it’s playing on my mind. One of the reasons the school was downgraded was due to the poor progress in writing and maths, although this was related mainly to KS2.

My dd has always adored school and likes all the adults in the school, but even she’s started coming home upset about school. She keeps saying her teacher won’t help her when she gets stuck on a piece of work. Her TA (who is also leaving) spoke to me on the last day before half term to tell me that my dd has been in tears on and off all day and was she ok. I asked my dd what had upset her and she said that the teacher had told her off for not finishing her work (and kept her in at break time). She explained that she’d got stuck and didn’t understand what to do and when she asked for help her teacher said she didn’t need any help. The TA agreed this had happened but couldn’t explain why my dd had been left to struggle with her work on her own. The teacher was not available for me to speak to.

My dd has been upset about her teacher on and off during the entire half term holiday and keeps telling me about things she’s done that have upset her or her friends. Some of the things are silly little non-situations, but other things are genuinely unfair.

I don’t know where to go from here as I feel there are a number of different issues in play here. The supply teacher isn’t great but she isn’t to blame for the upheaval this school year or for the gaps in my dd’s maths knowledge. I don’t want to remove her from this school when I’ve always been so happy with it, and she loves the staff and her friends. But at the same time, I’m seeing these gaps in her knowledge, and the constant upheaval this year, and I’m very concerned that she’s not really getting what she needs. Or maybe my expectations of my dd's ability are too high and it's perfectly normal for her not to be remotely secure in these areas.

Any advice would really help as I feel like I can't see the wood for the trees at the moment.

What reading scheme do they use to have a level 23? I can't find anything UK based with that level so just thought I'd ask. I also have a 6yo who's doing well at school in y2. Her 'reading age' has never been mentioned but as they read in groups the book she brings home is consistent with the rest of her reading group, surely if your dad's reading age is 2.5 years ahead she already reads loads of other books at home to have got that good. Anyway, my 6yo reads David Walliams, Jacqueline Wilson, Enid Blyton and starts chapters of Harry Potter but it's a bit long for her attention span. She rarely reads the assigned book unless she's interested, they're just a way for the teacher to assess reading not what they should be reading at home? Doesnt really matter if they're interested or not, just have to be able to read it!

No idea what any of the maths things you've mentioned are, my dd is also on the top table for maths but I don't coach her at home.

But it's not inaccurate, it's factually correct as stated on the LEA website. I was offering advice and things to consider, not dictating how it will be. There's no need to shout someone down just because you have a different opinion or have experienced something different. This site is really tiring sometimes.

I was offering advice and things to consider, not dictating how it will be.

It was probably your use of ‘most local authorities’ ...

Most local authorities discourage it don't allow moves mid term unless it's from out of the area, so you're looking at Easter or September to move her really.

that made people reply to reassure the OP that isn’t the case all over. Maybe if you’d said, ‘my authority tends to not allow this, so it might be worth checking the admissions info’, people wouldn’t have commented. I don’t think you were ‘shouted down’ though, people were just letting the OP know that wasn’t set in stone for most LEAs.

I have only read your first post OP but am a teacher myself and think there's bigger issue going on here with management in the school. Sounds like teachers are going off with stress/illness.

Sorry to say your daughter doesn't sound like she's exceeding if she doesn't know number bonds (to 10 AND 20) or a written method. She may be exceeding other children in her class but not of national expectations which is where some teachers go wrong. Having a supply teacher is really not ideal, could you contact the governors about appointing someone permanent?

I have ignored the reading book level bit....its easy for parents to get hung up on this. As long as she is reading and understands and can answer questions etc that's fine. Get her to read books from home or library books to get the range of new vocabulary.

You sound like you know about education so could you try printing old year 2 sats papers from the internet, trying her with them (no pressure just get her to have a go now and then) if you look at it and mark it you'll easily see the gaps. Plus you'll be able to see if she actually is exceeding or not from her score. You could do this for maths and reading. Don't help her at all though or it's pointless. I'm a bit anti testing but it'll be an easy ish way for you to assess.

Canadianpancake

@steppemum there's no need to be so rude

It was rubbish though. You were simply wrong to assume every LA is the same as yours. Better advice would have simply been to advise the OP to get in touch with her LA, which she should probably do ASAP because once the exodus from a school starts, it gets harder to secure a place elsewhere.

I’m in Lancashire, DC bounce in and out of schools all the time here, its simply untrue that it has to be at a term end.

Our local primary sounds a lot like yours, it was haemorrhaging staff and pupils due to management issues (a shit new HT) and people left at all times of year, one family yanked their 3 DC out just 2 weeks into the new year. These things can take years to settle down and DC can be the ones who pay the price.

I’d move her straight away, its clearly not a good fit for her. We did and have never looked back. We only regret not doing it sooner, once we noticed the problems, staying and trying to sort it was a huge waste of time.

I have had a mid year application submitted today and the child is starting tomorrow!

Russell, well this is my concern. They are telling me one thing (that she's exceeding, no issues, no weaknesses etc) but it is contradicting what she actually knows and what I'm personally seeing. She's a bright girl and she picks things up easily, however, there are these basic gaps in her knowledge which should absolutely be there by now given what the school are telling me about her but which are obviously missing. My concern isn't which group she's in or how clever or not she is compared to anyone else, it's that I feel they are doing her a huge disservice by telling me that she's doing brilliantly when actually basic knowledge that underpins everything is missing. And when I asked if there was anything I needed to work on with her I was shut down and told there was nothing that needed any work. I feel very disappointed in the school and feel that through bad management, inadequate assessment/interpretation of assessment data that they are stopping my dd from meeting her actual potential.

She reads constantly at home so I'm not concerned that she won't progress, it's more that once again it's a sign that they're not really on top of where my dd should be and they're happy with her coasting along. I feel frustrated.

For fucks sake leave me alone.

Tfoot, it appears to be a mishmash of various reading schemes that they've combined to make their own level system. In Year R and early Year 1 she was bringing home mainly (but not always) Oxford Reading Tree books until she got to around level 10ish and then after that it's been all sorts of different schemes. Not just one scheme. Each level is made up of a variety of different scheme books. I'm not sure what level they end on. Maybe 25? 30?

I've just sat down with dd to do a SATs paper so that I can see how she solves maths problems. She's done half of the arithmetic paper and tbf she's got everything correct so far but she also has no proper written method for ANYTHING! She just draws lines (64 of the bloody things on one question) and adds or subtracts from the lines. A teacher friend of mine has said that as long as she a method, any method, to solve the problem then it doesn't matter how she gets to the answer but I think she should have been taught a much more reliable and less time consuming method than drawing 64 lines to solve something that should have been solved in about ten seconds.

The 5+10+5= question just shows where that lack of number bonds knowledge is coming in to this.

Sorry...I sound like a dog with a bone.

It's a heart next to 44 btw 😆

Don't worry about the time of year etc just get on with moving her unless you are completely convinced by heads response....

Depending on where you are spaces could be tight so talk to admissions re spaces ASAP ... although in some areas spaces often free up in year 3 as kids go private then

Level 23 is Reading Recovery another good reason to get out of there

Norest, yes Reading Recovery sounds familiar. What's wrong with it out of interest?

Nothing wrong with RR as far as I know, but it's an intervention programme for children who are struggling with literacy.

Oh right. It's not the only scheme of books higher up but she's definitely read some RR books as I recognise the name. Her last book was an Early Reader which she flew through. Not a single difficult word in it. She's also had books as part of the school scheme which were just normal books and not part of a specific reading scheme. Just level appropriate books I guess. Anyway, I told her this morning we weren't reading the school books anymore and I've just checked her book bag and she's put her old one back and not bothered getting a new one. So that's one issue sorted.

Those answers to the SATs paper are so interesting. It's true what your friend says but it does show a lack of mental understanding and knowledge of number. I'd expect that kind of working out from my lowest ability children. (Ex year 2 teacher - taught for 6 years in year 2)

Any chance you can teach her column addition/subtraction? Although I'd say her knowledge of number bonds and patterns needs to come first. That first question should have been done mentally. She should recognise 'I know 5+5=10 then plus another 10 is 20'

sounds like they're being taught to test.

That method of calculating is what I would expect from my less able year 2 children. I would definitely move schools if it is an option. Knowing pairs of numbers up to 20 is a year 1 objective, so for her to have that gap and it not be mentioned is a concern.

As pp have said... sounds like poor leadership and management in the school. I taught at a school with a constantly high turnover of staff. It was due to bullying management.

My Ds in year 2 was struggling a bit with maths so I bought subscriptions to DoodleMaths and times tables rock stars. We just do 5-10 mins a day and he's really improving. A lot cheaper than a tutor!

If schools have spaces OP, just make appointments to look round them. If you are able, see if they will share with you the work their y2s are doing in Maths. A book sample? I’m not sure if they are allowed to do that though! I think you are right to be disappointed and if Ofsted come, it won’t be great I would imagine.

Oh god. I'm so worried now. I don't understand how they've managed to let her down so badly. I'm so upset.

Don't worry OP, at least you've identified this now and not at the end of the year. Get her on some mental times games, theres one called hit the button online and is about speed of working things out. If you can work on the number bonds first it'll really help. Google some number bonds songs, find one she likes and keep playing it. The main thing she needs to know is that number bonds are always the same and they are commutative (can be swapped round and still = 10.)

I meant timed* games!