We are debating moving DC2 (year 1) to a different school based in part upon DC1’s (year 5) KS2 experience at their current school.
DC1 is relatively intelligent but not extremely so. She’s also no trouble and relatively keen, but does tend to rush her work rather than do it with care and attention.
I cannot think of a time in year 4 or 5 where she has had a learning partner whom I felt she could learn from and there are a good few in her class she could. She is always paired with someone who needs a lot of help or who is disruptive.
The class hasn’t had a TA since year 2 as they’re presumably seen as a relatively easy year group and I know school budgets are tight. There are however at least 3 in the class who are reading at year 1 level and so that must take up a lot of the teacher’s time,
DD has also fed back that in KS2 she is spending hours per week reading her book. In year 4 the class seemed to have a very large amount of scheduled reading time, and in year 4 and 5 they seem to be told to read as soon as they finish their work. DD and her friend have said they read for hours each day.
I know reading is important but not instead of actually being taught or being given additional work if they finish surely?
DC2 is similar to DC1 and I worry she will just be forgotten if she stays at the school and won’t meet her full potential.
We’ve been naive with DC1 and haven’t raised any concerns as we didn’t want to be “that parent”. We know teachers have a tough job and didnt wanted to be a pain and make it harder.
We have now spoken to the excellent year 6 teacher she will have who has taken the time to look through her books and found a few areas she can focus on that will be easy to address. I can’t help feeling though she’s behind where she would be had she spent years 4 and 5 somewhere that would have put her first, not just used her as a calming influence on others.
So we are thinking of moving DC1 somewhere else, somewhere where they have assured us she would be pushed and put with learning partners at least some of the time with a similar ability, and be given more challenging work if she finishes early. Are we being naive though, do easy students who are meeting targets get forgotten everywhere?
This other school has at least 1 TA in every class. Presumably that makes a big difference?