Progressing through sets and Mum guilt

[MrsLSR]

Really needing some advice please. My daughter is an August baby, and is the youngest in her year (Yr 1). I have massive health issues, both physical and mental and so really struggled to do any home schooling- I was also run off my feet looking after my mum, who has health issues too and had two big heart attacks in the past year (only exacerbating my stress and mental health issues). My daughter is now around a year behind where she should be in almost every area in her schooling, and is in bottom sets for everything. I have massive mum guilt, which, again, is detrimentally affecting my mental health. I have no support network so am struggling to do everything on my own- and it's just so hard. I am university educated, and my daughter's dad has two MA's- I really want my daughter to go to grammar school and excel in her education, and love school the way I did- but her being so behind has affected her confidence and is making her not want to try. It's so difficult motivating her and encouraging her.

I plan on spending the summer assisting my daughter as best I can to "catch up" and cover all those areas she's missed or struggles with so that hopefully she will be moved up a set. I'd love her to be able to eventually go to grammar school. I feel so much guilt about my daughter being in the bottom sets as I feel it's my fault- and want to do the best I can to help her improve by doing some intensive work with her over the summer and beyond.

What courses/ books etc can people recommend for me to use please? Has anyone any experience of their child progressing from the bottom sets to the top sets? Thank you.

Is the grouping by ability since lockdown? I find it difficult to imagine a primary school streaming KS1 like that, but I wonder if they've looked at who dropped behind during lockdown and have put them in a smaller group or with more TA support to try and help them get caught up. That would perhaps make more sense - children like your daughter may need to go back over the things covered when they were home-schooling.

Some summer-borns do take a while to find their feet, too. Don't make a big thing of "catching up" over the summer, but do lots of reading books together, reading recipes, playing board games (especially ones with numbers in), etc.

DH and I both went to Grammar school, got good degrees/masters etc. We all found school easy.

Our younger DD is following in our footsteps.

Our elder DD has additional educational needs... likely dyslexia, but no formal diagnosis. Her literacy is very behind. Grammar school would be the worst place in the world for her. But she still lives learning. She just learns differently. Her big achievements are stuff which others find easy... but she finds some non educational stuff easier.

Maybe your child will 'catch up and go to Grammar School. But its not the end of the world if she doesn't. Shes had a rough start to school with Covid etc. But there's still plenty of time.

'Bottom sets' aren't failure, please don't think like that. Its a child getting the right level of work for them, so they can develop.