How much progress in Year 2 England?

[2cleverlovingchildren]

Hi my daughter is in year 1 currently. She was allowed to take the KS1 past exam paper with the year 2s at her school before Christmas. She currently scored 100(maths), 100(SPAG), and 102(reading) marked by the teachers at school.

My question is how many scaled score marks would you expect a child to make in a school year? What mark would I expect her to achieve at the end of year 2?

With all the extra curricular she already does, play dates and parties, and with having a toddler too it’s difficult to do any more than what I’m already doing with her at home. She should be learning at school. I know she won’t learn all that stuff but they’re not stretching her at all.

I looked at moving schools too and the reason I didn’t as the others said they wouldn’t let her move years and they wouldn’t give her anything even to the standard she is being allowed to do in English and Maths. They said it’s all about consolidation.

She doesn’t need more consolidation. She needs to be challenged. She’s never experienced getting things wrong at school and that’s not good for anyone.

You need to check the LA policy on children moving to secondary school out of their birth cohort.

I've heard some LAs offer it just fine, but only because a child has been dropped back a year (a summer-born delaying reception by a year). I work in SEN and we've had to fight the LA before who've wanted to send children, having gone through the whole of primary in the year group below their age, off to secondary with their birth cohort and completely skipping Year 6.

So if you really want to fight for this, find out what it'll mean at age 11 first.

Otherwise, arrange a meeting with the class teacher and talk it through with them (although surely you've already done this!). If nothing changes, speak to the head/deputy. If still nothing happens, take your complaint to the governors. Ask them to show how they're giving your child opportunity to learn and demonstrate mastery in all areas and how they're challenging her.

Done all this. They said that they want to test her for SEN. She hasn’t any. She’s just clever. But they’re doing it anyway in two weeks time.

You might get better advice posting on the gifted and talented board now I've read your reasonings etc. As you've said she's one of the oldest in the year, you're right, there wouldn't be much age gap between her and the youngest in the year above. All I'd say is that if you manage to get her accelerated, be prepared that it probably won't fix the problem. Sadly the pace will probably still feel slow for her.

If it’s at the head’s discretion and they’re unwilling then your choices are to move schools or to pick up the ‘slack’ at home, I think.

What on earth would be the point of 3-4 years of sixth form?! Imagine - all your friends are off to pubs and uni and you have to stay at school for another year. Seriously don't do it.

As an aside you can't know that the secondary will take her in four years - they may say that now, but a change of head or policy will change that.

I agree with this too. DD1 works with the year above and academically, she still finds it easy.

She wouldn’t get bored as she’d take different subjects in the first few years then in the latter the ones to get into university. She’d just have more A Levels and a wider range of understanding.

eg. English language, Chemistry and Biology in the first two years and Physics, Maths and a language in the last two years. So ends up with 6 A levels.

From what I read here Op is that she is currently at the expected standard for end of Year 2. I'm not sure if this would be enough to convince school to move her up a year, as there will tend to be others at similar level, and making an exception for your daughter may cause problems in the future.

Thanks for this.

If you really want her to skip a year, I would take a long hard think about all the social interactions that she will also skip. Eg. Boys, phones, dating etc will all come earlier too.

If it was me, I would put her in a prep where she can be suitably challenged for her current age.

Your DD sounds a lot like my DD.
In fact I remember writing a very similar post on here when my DD was 5 or 6.
She is now 22.
She stayed in her Year group. From ks2 onwards she was challenged a lot more.
We took advice from parents on here and concentrated on expanding her learning at home - she learned some instruments, read widely, started learning French via an app and developed a huge love for languages.
She ended up self-learning several alongside her regular schooling all the way to A-Levels, and school arranged for her to sit additional GCSEs in Latin, German and Spanish (self taught) over years 11 and 12 as well as the GCSEs and Alevels she did via school.
One of the things some wise person on here said that stuck with me was to stretch them wide not high.

(She's just Graduated from Oxford and is now doing a fully funded post grad so it all worked out fine )

Agreed but that’s a risk we’ll have to take. She can’t keep not learning and being miserable about school. Her well-being now is something I can try to sort though.

I think your understanding of consolidation is different to what the school mean. The current thinking about the curriculum is all about mastery, making links and solving things in different ways. Therefore it isn’t just right and wrong, there isn’t just one way. She need to develop those reasoning skills, the wider picture of different options shows to teachers a broader and deeper level of thinking and sound knowledge. Many of my highest achieving students do not have this skill as to them things are just right or wrong and they are unable to vocalise why. That is where their deeper learning comes from.

i would be open to the SEN assessment and I am not surprised School have suggested it. SEN as I’m sure you know can be a gift as well as being it’s challenges, so actually by assessing, school are acknowledging there is something unusual that’s warrants further assessing. I would hazard a guess your daughter may well be on the autistic spectrum from what brief I formation you have described.

i honestly do not think it is in your daughters best interests to be a year ahead. There will come a point when she is so far removed from her peers in terms of maturity (if your version of accessing sixth form is correct) that she will become isolated and feel left behind socially, ability to drink, drive etc - don’t socially isolate her.

You need to look beyond school and see how and what you can do to foster her interests at home. School is teach everyone a set ‘list’ of things, if your daughter is truly that gifted, it sounds like whatever year you out her in she will find too easy in the traditional sense! Which takes me back to the mastery and reasoning of her answers …

There is no one else working at this level. The school agrees there is a crevice between my dd and the next child in her current year group in all subject areas.

Yes I agree with @twinklestones here, she's doing well though not miles ahead so why the rush?

She’s in year 1 and you’re already planning that she will sit her GCSE’s early and study multiple A levels over 4 years?

Poor child.

Agree with you on this totally.

This

The mock sats result suggest she’s working at ‘expected’ year 2 level so I’m surprised there aren’t more in her year group working at that level.

You've such a strong focus on exams and qualifications. I think this will be a real detriment to your daughter.

She should be being challenged at school. That isn't happening and needs to be the focus of your energy when talking to school, not arguing over skipping a year or taking pointless SATs early.

Moving up a year will be exciting for a bit, but won't challenge her for long. It might make her feel confused for a bit. It will definitely mean she develops gaps where she just hasn't learnt something fundamental (though if she's this bright, it'd be unlikely to cause any major issue as she'll fill in the untaught info herself). Quickly, it'll get boring. If she's this bright, she'll still be bright in year 2. She'll still need challenging. And again, you'll need to focus on the challenge when talking to school.

Exams-wise, you can't put a value on the number of marks a child would gain in a year. The Seats tests are only meant for the end of year 2, to assess their understanding of the year 1&2 curriculum
As for A Levels, she doesn't need 3-4 years. 2 years is plenty, with lots of encouragement for wider reading, projects and work experience. She could look at open university courses, or experiences linked to her subject. Better than having 6 ALevels by a long shot .

Poor child, and poor teachers.....

I was a secondary school teacher until 6 years ago. I taught for 9 years so I do understand the term consolidation. I taught maths upto A level and science upto end of KS3. I was second in department for maths and was involved in teacher training and going into primary schools to aid teaching of year 5 and 6s.

I have an understanding of the education system and have been in touch with local primary, secondary schools and the council and DfE.

I really want what’s best for my daughter. She hates school and is bored. She feels she has more friends in the year above. She feels challenged more in those lessons. She is only a few months younger than some of these people.

She will not benefit from sitting Year 2 next year as she will be repeating what she is already doing. If you look at my posts you will see I am not talking about her repeating a year EVER. I’m talking about her having a wider range of deeper subject knowledge especially at A Level.

And poor teachers....

This is part of the reason it’s just failed OFSTED.