Has anyone's child ever been put forward a year for Maths?

[TrojaninTroy]

Back story: I am an ex-primary school teacher and have taught all the year groups. I have posted before regarding DS's well above average mathematical ability and his independent school's failure to challenge him. He has strong verbal skills too, and is exceeding expectations in all areas. For three years now, we have been asking school to provide more challenge to him in maths. School initially denied that DS wasn't being challenged even though they could not give any examples as to how. We were on the brink of changing schools, but pulled back because he is otherwise in a lovely year group with several strong friendships, because of the uncertainty surrounding Covid, and because of the lack of availability of state school places near to us anyway.

We have so far had two meetings with the Head, and have a further 'catch-up' meeting scheduled. We have virtually begged for our son to be challenged more, and the Head fervently replied that challenge was what they were all about. School has now redeveloped its maths curriculum, which is based on White Rose, but is part bespoke, this latter bit appearing to consist of intermittent revision weeks 'to help put the learning into the children's long term memory', notwithstanding the spiral nature of the maths curriculum in England anyway.

Now that he is in Year 3, DS brings home his school maths book to do his homework in. The work he has done is at the same level as that which he was doing in Year 2, which was already too easy. He is just treading water here.

To be fair, his teacher has provided a 'challenge' sheet just for him, although it is unrelated to the strand of maths being taught. It is an open-ended problem which asks 'Which of these numbers can you combine to make 100?' and so could run for weeks. Meanwhile, the bulk of his lesson is taken up with the usual introduction and main activity, which appears to be differentiated for the class to two different levels as has been the case ever since he started school.

It appears to be school's unwritten policy only to differentiate maths work to two levels of ability all the way up to Year 6. Despite our conversations with the Head, I don't see them shifting on this. One could argue that as there are only 20 children in the class and it is two-form entry, surely in their planning the two teachers have capacity to consider the actual cohort in question and differentiate according to actual need rather than to Year 3 expectations (especially as a TA supports in class), but No. Or rather, 'Yes we do, but in reality No we do not'. At every stage, school have talked the talk but they have not walked the walk. They are outstanding at this, beyond all expectations.

If we were to start again, I don't think we would have sent DS to this school and he might well have been better served going to a nearby State school. But we really don't want to move DS away from a school where he is so well settled, so are now wondering whether to push for DS to be put into Year 4, just for maths lessons, remaining with his Year 3 class the rest of the time. Having looked at the maths curriculum, I can see that this would provide a far better 'biting point' for him. I think school are more likely to agree to this rather than to a wider in-class differentiation. My one reservation would be that, if he went forward a year for maths, what would happen when he reached Year 6? Has anyone else's child ever gone forward, and how did it ultimately work through?

My son was put up 2 year group for Maths (3 -5), admittedly 12 years ago.

Honestly, it achieved nothing because he was still left doing the same classes and easy work, albeit delayed by 2 years.

Was much more productive to do the challenging maths at home.

more often than not children who are good at calculating and who are then told they are good at maths (being a good mathematician is a whole different thing) can be over confident in their own abilities and there is a lot of bravado going on

Yes, but some children really are naturally good at maths, and intensively interested in all aspects of it, not just calculations.

If I was paying, I might feel differently, but I’ve gone down the music, music theory, sport, philosophy for kids, books etc outside school for the stretch.

Some years she gets lucky and has a teacher who has lots of extra challenge resources that extend sideways as per the school’s approach. Other years she gets a lot of extra reading time in maths lessons, when she finishes all the challenges early.

11+ prep has actually made things worse, as of course it covers the Y6 syllabus, so now that’s being covered again at school. But next year, assuming she does well and ends up at an academically selective school, will be much better. I am not co spidering any secondary for her that doesn’t set for maths.

DS went up a year for maths in primary, I'm not sure it made much difference really. The thing that worked well for him was entering the UK maths challenge and local school competitions.

I'm a mathematician, and coasted all through school. Never found maths challenging at all at school. At primary there was no differentiation so I was doing 20 questions a day that took me less than 5 minutes pretty much throughout.

But questions like:
Which of these numbers can you combine to make 100?' and so could run for weeks. were brilliant. As a mathematician, I would take that and expand on it. You look for patterns, how things work, how you can work it out, if there's a general theory that works. No one taught me to do this, I just naturally thought that way.
I learnt far more from my investigations like this at home than any maths I did at primary.

Even at secondary I used to fill the back of my maths books with things like this-normally done while the teacher was explaining something I thought was simple to the rest of the set.

Thing was, if they'd put me forward by a year, it would have made no difference at all. When my sister was stuck on her homework (3 years older) she'd ask me to explain and I never failed to manage it.

So if he really is good, then far better let him investigate the open ended questions than just give him the year ahead's work. He'll learn far more and it will be more interesting for him.

My DD was in a tiny (state) village primary.
The head arranged for the high school in the nearest town to send secondary school maths textbooks over for DD to work on, while the rest of her class were doing basic arithmetic.
Her class teacher said she would ask her husband (a physics graduate) to mark any of DD’s work that she (the teacher) couldn’t understand, as her own high school maths was rusty!
DD sat her Higher Maths and Advanced Higher Maths a year early, and went on to a maths degree.

My DD is in a state primary school and the provision sounds better than you are paying for. It has been a little uneven over the years - some years, I've had to have some meetings to fix it, other years the teacher has just "got" DD and sorted it.

For my DD it is the teacher input part of the lesson that is particularly dull. Typically she's given a folder of related but challenging tasks that she works through in that time whilst keeping an ear out for anything new from the teacher. Quite a lot of materials in her folder are from nrich. I've also agreed that the folder can come home and I will go through any bits that DD has found tricky. I don't expect her teachers to spend time with her on something that is really a bonus for her and I am capable of supporting.

DD is the same. We have begged and pleaded with the school. Nothing changes. She is y5 now. We have decided with her to just get in with it, do the work set and remember seconda school will be better.

Sorry typos

Get on with it

Secondary

DD (state middle school, Y4) is working above the expected level for her age in numeracy and literacy and has been since the start
She’s given higher level work, there’s never been any talk of her moving up, but she does get occasional 1:1 time with a TA, to do “extra sheets” (her words).
OH and I both moved up at primary age, me at state, him at independent school.
DD may be going to a local, fee paying school next year, it’ll be interesting to hear their take on it, but she’s a very “young” 8, in every other way, so I’d rather give her time to develop in other ways.

(being a good mathematician is a whole different thing)

Couldn’t agree more. A really good example of this is the child mentioned further up the thread who could do hard algebra but couldn’t order decimals. That indicates a child can ‘do’ maths and who’s been pushed down a narrow, formulaic path, rather than one who has been developed as a mathematician. Mathematicians grow through their understanding of the number systems and their ability to see pattern, to generalise and to apply their understanding to different concepts.

Is the school academically selective? An academic prep in London at least typically teaches on year ahead of the maths curriculum as standard and then further differentiates from there. I have personal experience for my DD of her school doing small group extension work two years ahead of the national curriculum but with other advanced math students in her year rather than with older kids.

State schools will more focus on mastery and greater depth challenge within the topic which works for well for 90-95 percent of the class but for the truly gifted top 1-2 percent it doesn’t always provide sufficient challenge. It’s down to budgets and I have a friend who was in charge of this area as a governor at their child’s school who realised the additional stretch would have to come from home.

As others have said the main thing is to develop a good work ethic and resilience and if challenge isn’t coming from school learning an instrument is a really good sideways stretch.

My DS is very good at maths - his last teacher was great and gave him lots of extension tasks to do, lots from NRich which are like those open ended ones described above. I don’t think his new teacher this year has got the measure of him yet but it’s only been 2 weeks so I’ll give her a chance!

Have you taught him to play chess? Over the summer we taught DS to play chess and he loves it, really appeals to the mathematical side of his brain I think. He’s steadily improving.

Same issue here OP, at a prep school. Resorted to home maths to keep up the challenge and interest. So frustrating the school unwilling to help. My DS spends his time helping others.

don't think that moving up a year for one subject could really work unless all years do that subject at the same time?

has your son actually said he is bored or doesn't like maths at school? maybe he's fine as things are - he's only Y3 - better to get the basics solid before progressing to secondary? the example question he had been given by the school sounds really interesting and you could encourage them to set him more open ended tasks like that if he's interested?

I say all this as someone who was put up a year in primary school - never really saw the benefit...

We had exactly the same problem at our last independent school. I asked for 12 months for more challenging work and lost the will to go on... we moved her in the end. She is now at a small prep school where they seem much better at teaching at multiple levels. There is one child who is 3 years above for maths!!

You don’t find the best teachers in independent schools or best maths practice either. Except independent peeps who are sending pupils to top senior schools.

You need to look for maths mastery and a teacher with ability in maths to set challenges. Schools might refer to these as Herculean challenges! State schools can and do challenge bright mathematicians but it’s all down to teacher competence.

Your prep should have a maths specialist teacher from Y3. If they don’t it’s not a great prep. The maths lead in all schools should evaluate quality of curriculum and teaching. You should also ask to see proof of his progress. It all sounds unprofessional and not what a good school (stare or private) should be doing. Our state primaries have links to the maths departments at our grammar schools.

Just to add. My friends DD went to Cambridge for maths. She stayed in her standard class at state primary. But she was challenged by work to a greater depth.

‘The goal of primary state education is to try to get all children to the same level before they leave; it’s definitely not to provide opportunities to stretch the gifted students’

Well my DDs stars primary are clearly not working towards that goal then! They split children into four different cohorts and above that, they also have a Gifted and Talented Programme. They use a number of online tools which are based on ability and questions are increasingly challenging based on their success rate.

It sounds like he needs to be pushed here.

Perhaps you need to find a tutor or request a meeting with the teacher in order to discuss your concerns. Find a math tutor or look at the option of after school external math tuition.

Kumon centers are all around the country, have a look to find your closest one and attend it fairly often. Alternatively at home you can use math workbooks and print out difficult GCSE papers to do and mark with him. You can order recommended workbooks from Amazon, or buy them directly at your local bookshop instead.

Dd1 was for y4 and y5 back in around 2006- ended up being more problematic as she was very bored during Y6 having completed the work. She’s naturally extremely bright and ended up being bored and got lazy.

The whole idea of modern maths teaching is to teach beyond the curriculum if needed. Teachers should be able to extend depth of the topic so it’s not boring. The big issue is that most teachers cannot do it. They don’t have the knowledge themselves so they need further training or the maths coordinator of the school should do it. My local junior school linked to the local grammar maths dept for this and it helped. It’s important to teach all children and bright ones have special needs too.

Gifted and Talented disappeared from schools a long time ago. Too divisive. All children need what they need. Not labels.