Extra help for Y6 child

[Franklinia]

I have a 10 year old DD in Year 6. She's doing ok in school - meeting expectations. I've been told by her teachers though that she has the potential to be at greater depth.

My dd is happy at school and I'm pleased with the school overall, but I feel that it could do better academically. At their recent OFSTED inspection it was rated as 'requires improvement' for quality of education. One of the areas for improvement was better clarity over the most important knowledge that pupils needed to learn and how it would be checked. I'm not knocking the school for a second, as I know how hard the teachers work, but I believe my dd could do better than she currently is doing and maybe she isn't getting all the support she needs from her school. For this reason I'd like to do more at home to help her achieve her full potential academically.

The problem is I just don't know where to begin. There is just so much info online and so many different books available. I just need to pinpoint the areas that matter most and find the right resources. Do I concentrate just on the areas that are tested in SATs, in which case can anyone recommend a book or online resourses? Or do I focus on all subject areas? Would it be worth getting a private tutor for maths and English or is that going to far?

I don't want to burden her with an excessive amount of work to do at home. Currently she gets Emile homework, has to read several times per week and has a list of spellings. Altogether she spends about 30 mins per week on homework. I'm thinking maybe she could do 30-60 mins extra work at home each week. Would that be reasonable?

She also has a 30-minute music lesson at school each week. To attend this, she has to miss another lesson, but because the music timetable changes weekly, it isn’t always the same subject she misses. Usually she's unable to catch up on what she’s missed. I’m wondering whether it would be better to cancel the music lesson so she doesn’t miss any of her Year 6 national curriculum lessons, or am I worrying unneccesarily?

Thank you in advance.

We’ve just had a stack of SATs books from the school which seems a good place to start as any.

DD has just been diagnosed with dyslexia so we’re already doing 10-15 mins each morning on a Carol Vordeman spellings book which has been really helpful so when that’s done we’ll do the SATs books.

The other option is to be child led and be really open to extension work on topics she’s interested in or that she’s been set for homework.

DD is loving all the WW stuff so you can always just do independent research together - look for “WW2 information for Key Stage 2” or “fun science for key stage 2” then choose stuff to do together?

@FusionChefGeoff thank you. The school hasn't given parents anything at all about SATs apart from a solitary link to a website. Did your school give you actual physical books? Would you mind giving me the name of them so I can try to order them?

When you say WW, do you mean world war?

Thanks.

I'm an ex year 6 teacher.
GCP books are good.
Don't drop the music lesson. They will already be doing less Humanities, arts , science and PE due to sats so definitely keep that up.

@User415373 thank you. Do you mean CGP books? Are there any in particular that you recommend?

Thank you for your advice on the music lesson. I just want to do the right thing by my daughter.

The revision guides are good, also the 10 minute test ones.
The comprehension broken down by genre are useful, particularly poetry and non-fiction which tend to be harder.
Just to say, GD in the sats is just based on a higher score. It's not a true reflection of how bright a child is. Her secondary school likely won't care either. If she enjoys the work then that's fine but if it's a pain or taking up lots of her free time I don't think it's worth the effort just so that she 'gets' gd.

Focus on maths and reading if you must. Don't bother with EGPS - its nice to get a good result, but it goes nowhere. Even the government only judge schools on the reading and maths SATs plus the writing assessment.

Spelling practice is pretty much a waste of time unless your child makes mistakes in commonly used words (spelling has to be mainly accurate for the writing assessment). Though it's hard for a poor speller to get better (not so much for a lazy one).

The most important thing is to give her a good understanding of the world in as many ways as possible. Visiting museums, exploring the countryside, following her interests, reading, watching documentaries together. Talking about things that interest her. All of those are going to have a longer-lasting impact than tutoring in Year 6. There's nothing wrong with CGP books, but it's not the be-all-and-end-all.

It’s the SATs buster ones (not the test just the content) from CGP - there’s 3 English (grammar, spelling, punctuation) and 3 maths (arithmetic, geometry and number)

yes WW2 - world war