Higher achiever in state school

[Pandadream]

I wanted to find out what people’s experience and expectations around children who is talented / be able to do more than standard curriculum at primary state school. Would the school do more to challenge those or they would simply be treated as everyone else, if they are bored, then be it. If any school you have been to or heard did do more, what kind of things did they do?

schools should be stretching the dc who can do more by given them more to do to deepen their knowledge.

Do you mean they’d give them more challenge homework or would they teach them more at school?

In my experience, they are just lumped in the ‘top group’ and aren’t really stretched. It can also really vary between teachers.

@Pandadream at my dcs school
homework is optional. The “exceeding” dc should be doing more in school eg they are placed in differentiated groups based on ability & get extra questions.

I just realised you didn’t specify primary & secondary. My answer was relevant to primary school. At secondary school my dc’s school set from Yr 7 with dc learning higher level maths for example. There are different teachers depending on the sets & homework is different.

Ex teacher.

in the first few years there is generally a lot of learn that is not specifically academic.

so for example in reception children are learning how to sit and listen for longer and longer periods of time. They are learning to be independent with toileting etc. social skills such as getting on with the other children around them are also a big thing. Emotional regulation.

so for example an activity in reception might be going for an autumn walk and listening to the autumn noises and collecting autumn things (leaves, pine cones etc) and looking at autumn colours.

there would then be work on this for a few days - writing words about autumn (and an advanced chold could write sentences or even a poem about autumn), drawing pictures of autumn (to work on pen control and on art) and so on.

a lot of the work in reception - year 2 is about developing skills that the academic work (phonics and maths) rests on, and quite a lot of this is very easily adapted to challenge advanced children.

once you hit year 3 there are subjects where this is still the case - art, PE, music, languages if done, etc. it becomes trickier in terms of maths and English.

There will be high achievers at every single state school up and down the country. It's not an unusual phenomenon. A good school should adequately support, stretch and challenge all learners of all abilities.

Ds was given more indepth work at primary school and was on the gifted and talented pathway. We supplemented this with music lessons, reading, general knowledge and extracurricular. At secondary school I would say there was less stretch but again he did a lot extra at home because he wanted to.

i meant primary. My understanding is secondary they do get separated into sets depending on their capabilities. However primary, school aren’t allowed to do sets?

Primary schools are allowed to do sets and some of the bigger ones (so where there is more than one class per year group) do so. Usually maths only although some do English as well.

at primary I wouldnt worry. They do so much through the day I don’t think they need to be stretched constantly. Use the spare energy for reading at home, days out, music lessons etc

@Pandadream they do still group in lessons at primary. My dc had extra maths classes instead of assembly as well.

Primary school work in groups for different subjects and mine seemed to have plenty of stretch and opportunity. They’re at gcse / a level stage now and getting top grades, all via fully comprehensive primary / high school / sixth form college.

Primary teachers are super heroes. They teach all abilities in a class from the lowest abilities right through to the highest academic achievers.

Not all secondary schools set students tbh; most do for maths and some do for all subjects. Not usually in year 7 tho. But a teacher should set differentiated work. Totally standard ion my lessons (MFL) was a bronze/silver/gold task after input where the more able could challenge themselves to take the written or speaking or reading task further.

Primary schools IME (where there is more than one class per year anyway) often have groups for maths and English where the work and the pace is different. The same child may not be in both top groups depending on their abilities. This does vary by school.

In other aspects of the curriculum the teacher would again have differing targets and expectations. Just as a 5yo who can read chapter books will be given different reading books from a 5yo who is still blending words.

Are you concerned about your own DC @Pandadream ? It’s worth asking possible schools about this. But differentiation should be totally standard.

ETA: I am talking about England here btw. I don't have knowledge of Scotland and Wales and NI.

Oh wow. Great to know! I’ll see if I can suggest that to my school to do that. the school has suffered a lot of low academic achievement due to Covid and a couple of changing heads but now finally with a good leadership team. I really want them to be more appealing to the locals as well, as they’ve been losing kids to other surrounding school. Although academic isn’t the only thing but so many parents tell me it’s high on the selection list.
It also would benefit my DS and few of his friends so they can be challenged and do more to keep them interested.

Also my dcs primary consistently gets over 30% exceeding so they work at it!

I am enquiring because of my DS. However I don’t think I’m concerned just yet, I just feel a bit “wasted” and maybe slightly worried that he’d lose interest as time goes on. He’s only in yr2 atm. DD is doing well aligned with curriculum so I haven’t no question. DS has always has a curious mind and also quite talented in a few things. The school is a good school but suffered with covid and change of heads so at the moment isn’t very desirable. I really wanna push them to do more for the more able children but so far I haven’t seen anything. Hence wanted to get some perspective and understanding of what other school does so I can find opportunities to suggest something.

thats great! Were your dc selected by teachers? I am dubious my school would take up this idea mainly because I can see many parents will complain and ask why their kid aren’t in it!

It’s hard as there’s such a spread of abilities and a tick list of milestones. If you can meet a milestone already, you are not really stretched to go further. If it was a nursery where x children can’t walk, y children can take a few steps and z children can walk confidently; being a z child means being limited to taking a couple of steps during the daily ‘walking’ lesson and being asked to sit and wait patiently. They will be congratulated on being able to stand unaided, confused as it’s something they’ve been able to do for ages. They have to learn the lesson on what to do when confronted with a genuinely challenging task years later than many of their peers.

Changing heads always creates some instability but hopefully things will settle down. I’m sure it’s part of the Ofsted criteria to differentiate.

I think I only knew about the extra maths classes when my dc told me she was going. At the opposite end another one of my dc struggled with phonics so had lots of intervention, I was told about that prior as it would happen before school.

Reading is really important. My eldest was always really strong with reading/comprehension. Her maths got better as she progressed through primary. I bought some workbooks and she would do a little bit each week.

Can you call any kid in year 2 a high achiever? Is it not just a case of some kids are a bit better at maths & reading than others.

I guess that’s a label and probably too early to say they will be a high achiever in life, but anyone who’s capable of doing more should be allowed and encouraged to do further and in my opinion that’s how you lift the education standards.
to me, it is great the education system to align everyone to a minimum standards and many are given extra support when they aren’t met with that standard. However I don’t feel the same applies to the kids who maybe able to do a lot more. I am not saying my ds will
be outstanding or “high achiever” kid always but I hope there are provision in the state school to push kids like him so anyone who is shown some abilities would be guided to be better, rather than just enough once they achieve the min standards.

My DDs aren’t geniuses or anything but always been at the exceeds expectation level at school, at primary school the children are given work at different levels according to ability. At secondary they stream according to ability in core subjects fairly early on so the more academic ones get challenged more