How has DS1 gone from gifted & talented to decidedly average in a year?

[sameagain]

And why did no-one tell me it was happening?

And what should I do?

I always knew the gifted thing was OTT, he was never gifted, but he was considered one of the brightest in the class at the end of year 2 and achieved all 3s in his assessments.

Just had his year 3 report which has him reading at level 4 (target for end of year 6?)but everything else is 2a, the expected level for the end of year 3. OK so, he's met the target, but backwards from year 2?

At the parents' evenings the teacher has been less gushing than previous ones, but never gave any indication that there was cause for concern. The report is scathing about his lack of concentration and focus.

What's going on?

Hard to say without knowing your dc.

Could it be that levels achieved in Y2 were the result of lots of extra attention from you at home and once he got the g&t label, you relaxed and held off and he found his natural level?

Just a thought as I fear this may happen to my ds at some stage.

Hi,

I don't think you should worry, Year 3 is a bit of an in between year (or so I'm led to believe based on some of the threads on here).

I could be wrong but isn't there something about the levels in year 3 being different from KS1? and aren't kids supposed to plateau in year 3 and then come on in leaps and bounds in yr4??

I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, and I'm sure his school would have let you know if there was a problem

HTH

This happened with dd. In fact the school didn't really worry about it until the end of yr 4 when she was still the same as yr2. We was told to get her 6 months of home tutoring dh was adamant that we had to x2 anyway it did the trick. It just left me feeling quite uncomfortable and sad

siouxsie - your child's teacher told you to get a tutor?

sameagain - my DD1 went a bit quiet in year 3, while DD2, whose SATs results were lower in year 2, made a lot of progress the following year. Sometimes children have academic growth spurts I think.

It's frustrating that it's too late to do much about it this year, but discuss it with his new teacher next year in case the lack of concentration becomes a problem.

Yep, and 5 years down the line, its still something I feel about.
Don't get me wrong, it worked, and dd was happy about it, she is a very hardworking 14yr old, who is taking 13 GCSE's and is doing well at school, its just at the time, it seemed wrong to dump the school and dh's worries on her.

My understanding is a level 3 in KS1 is not the same as a level 3 in KS2

another reason that SATS are daft.

It seems a bit defeatist of the teacher, siouxsie. Glad it worked out well - it certainly sounds as if she has a work ethic

'aren't kids supposed to plateau in year 3 and then come on in leaps and bounds in yr4'

My experience with my children, to0. Both got 3s for KS1, apparently stalled in Year three and did very well later on in primary school.

Keep an eye on it but don't panic just now.

There is a similar thread here where I answered a similar question.

Feenie, I'm going to cut and paste your very enlightening answer here:

'What I suspect has happened here is the school has reported the Y3 optional SAT level. This does not compare like with like - Y2 teacher assessment is built up from lots of sources of evidence, a very small part of which would be the tests, and Y3 optional SATs would be the first timed test that the children have ever done in their lives, hence the drop in attainment.'

sameagain, at the risk of repeating other posters, the Y3 dip is well known amongst primary teachers - the transition from Y2 to Y3 is huge for most children, esp boys, and they often appear to 'slip' a bit.

But others have said, you're comparing apples and pears I'm afraid - the SATs in KS1 don't often reflect those in KS2 and is a source of immense frustration to KS2 teachers (but then I'm sure KS3 teachers feel the same when they see some of the scores that my Y6s got in their SATs!).

Hopefully he will start to pick up again in Y4, but I would keep an eye on things if you're concerned.

Maybe he is bored and not being stretched.

Thank goodness we don't report G+T to parents in KS1. There is so much early/late development going on around this stage that it makes the tag meaningless.

I also think children can peak and trough. I have 5 dcs and all of them have devloped differently to how they originally started out or what was expected of them. That doesn't mean, OP, that your ds is going to get less smart - perahps this year he didnt have such a good rapport with teacher and so didn't make such great strides as last year or there may be some other reason. I would just keep a careful eye and make sure he can do the homeowrk and is ok with work generally.

Have you asked the teacher ? Just had similar situation with my DS. He came out of infants with 3's, and hasn't really moved on much in Year 3, especially in writing.
I was told that he is basically too slow writing things down ( very neat) and that because tests are now timed, unlike before, that is the explanation.

But what is his teacher assessment for day to day work in the classroom?

That isn't timed, and should therefore show progress.

DD1 (also all 3s in KS1 SATS) plateaud in year 3 too. Din't really look like she'd progressed much at all. However, I think it was partly due to an uninspiring teacher who didn't challenge her at all. So she was getting bored with the work and regularly not completing tasks, and we were having conversations with the teacher about lack of focus and trying to convince her that if she had harder work she'd rise to the challenge. In class 4 she has been challenged more and has shown more progress (after a bumpy first term). I'd be asking the teacher what they've been doing to develop the promise that was shown in year 2.