Would you consider a low-achieving cohort to be a problem?

[fircone]

Dd is in Year 2 and is the brightest in the class.

The trouble is is that not only is she the youngest in the class (August) she is also not that brilliant. She can read well, but certainly not Harry Potter, and her maths is reasonable but nothing spectacular.

Quite a large number of children in the class cannot read at all yet, and the maths consists of putting the missing numbers in a number line.

When ds was in year 2 he was doing all his tables and doing quite challenging work, as were most of the other children.

The Head has herself said that this year's SATS results would not be good because of the overall profile of the children in year 2.

Would you consider this a problem? I know dd is only just 6, but obviously she will carry on through school with this group, and then on to secondary school too.

I can't help feeling a bit uneasy about this.

As I said, it's not that dd is super bright and I'm bleating for recognition, the trouble is that most of dd's classmates are not doing what would seem to me to be ordinary year 2 work.

I know a parent helper, who tells me that dd has maths and literacy in a group of - one! Now, if she were doing calculus and reading Beowulf then fair enough, but she's only adding up and reading simple chapter books. So it's not her that's clever, it's the others that are not doing too well as yet.

Anyway, she likes her friends and there's not really much question of moving her. There is a parents evening soon. I don't know quite what to say though. I can't demand a class full of more able pupils!

But if she is getting one-to-one at her own level, what more can you ask for?

Yes, i understand that you're not looking for recognition re your DD's abilities!

I often feel I can't discuss these things with other people in RL because I'll be seen as an uber-pushy mum. Or that I believe my DS to be super bright when I don't - I just think he could be doing more. There are probably others in his class that could also be stretched further, but I only have my DS as the example.

Re: parent's eve, I think I'd seek reassurance that your DD is doing work that will challenge her. If she's getting that then fine - that would be my stance, anyway. If that's the case then it possibly doesn;t matter so much what the rest of the class is doing.

Agreed on the friendship groups etc. My DS is very happy in his class on a social level. Our school is very nice, but it is in a largely middle-class, supportive community, and I can't help feeling that it rests on its laurels a little.

I would check that the work is differentiated. My dd goes to a school with very mixed intakes. (She is not the brightest though) and the children's work is differentiated.

They are only year 1. A few have almost finished the reading scheme and some are only just reading.

If your child is exceptionally bright (e.g. destined to be a prof of physics at Cambridge) then they will probably coast until University level and - with only a handful of people in the uk brighter than them - no-one will be able to do anything about it.

My super bright SIL was sent to the corridor with a book to read after she completed everything in primary school too quickly for the teacher to keep up with her (shock).

She went on to Oxbridge etc. Didn't hold her back at all.

Sometimes I think we worry far too much, I know I do! It all comes out in the wash usually.

the teacher certainly shouldn't tell a parent their child is THE brightest in the class because it then tells you something about every other child which is of course confidential.What they can say is that a child is in the top group or one of the best.

The problem is that unless this is a very small intake say less than 10 it is very unlikely that they are all of low intelligence and that it is the teaching that is at fault.I would for example expect in a class of 30 there to be a couple of children reading to Harry potter standard 9.That's my experience although we are in a 'professional' area