How to talk about DD's abilities without sounding irritating/precious

[clemette]

Dear all,
DD (4.5) starts full-time in reception in January. She is almost the only one that won't have been to the school pre-school/ attended part-time this autumn.
The pre-school that she is at keep stressing to us that her abilities are unusually high for her age, but TBH I am not sure if they are. She can count to 100, count back from 30, count to 20 in French, can do addition and subtraction, read simple words, write clearly etc etc Most of this she has learnt a her very small pre-school.
Anyway, we went to the open evening for her new school and the reception teacher was talking about how they were working with the children to identify shapes. I was wondering whether it was worth phoning the teacher to talk about what DD can do, or whether I should just trust their professionalism to see that she might be a little beyond what they are doing with the majority.
I don't think she is G+T particularly (and working in secondary education realise that children often even out eventually). I also don't want to present myself as an ultra pushy parent, as we have really tried not to be and let DD develop as she will.
I just wondered if anyone had any advice?
Thanks.

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Oh, and with regard to the 'one local primary' dinner party gossip - just that. Meh.

They had probably drunk too many G&Ts

They had probably drunk too many G&Ts
Hilarious! and soooo original. How do you do it? All on your own?

Feenie, an experienced teacher who helps in a class can get to see more than the usual parent volunteers do (and ends up doing a lot more than she should!) She's in a better position than most parents to form a professional opinion on the capabilities of children she's been helping every week for the last few years.

So let me get this right.

Fact: My wife sees multiple cases of under-assessment first hand in the class where she helps.
Your conclusion: She doesn't know what she's talking about.

Fact: A local head admits in confidence that underassessment happens regularly.
Your conclusion: She's starting a rumour/she must be drunk

And the best one...

Fact: My DS was under-assessed earlier this year by a wide margin.
Your conclusion: I must have another DS I don't know about.

And to think that when you said underassessment can't be used as a tool in the stats any more I had the hope that you actually knew of some system they're introducing/just introduced that would eliminate this fiddling by teachers... or even reduce it a bit!

You have a strange definition of fact and hard evidence, DaL.

"Fact: My wife sees multiple cases of under-assessment first hand in the class where she helps." - I am also an experienced teacher, but would never dream of presuming to give a thorough levelled assessment in children that I did not teach day in, day out. She cannot possibly assess those children across all the Numeracy attainment targets in the role she has undertaken.

Much of the numeracy curriculum at level 4 just would not have been taught to these children yet - and if it was, why would the teacher bother, if only to underassess them?

Take Data Handling (AT4), for example. Are you really telling me that your wife has seen, first hand, evidence of Y2 children working on probability, line graphs, range, mean, mode? Because I don't believe you.

I think what is more likely is that she saw them working at a level 4 in one or two aspects of number - which is fantastic, but does not a level 4 mathematician make, I'm afraid.

"Your conclusion: She doesn't know what she's talking about." I didn't say that.

"Fact: A local head admits in confidence that underassessment happens regularly."
Really? That's not what you said.
"Your conclusion: She's starting a rumour/she must be drunk" When did I say that? You presented the argument as hearsay, not hard fact from the Head of the school in question.

"Fact: My DS was under-assessed earlier this year by a wide margin.
Your conclusion: I must have another DS I don't know about." I didn't say that, either, I said your stories are conflicting - is your ds the one under assessed this year - in which case, why haven't you or your wife, using your knowledge of assessment, asked the school specifically which aspects of 4c there is no evidence for?
Or is your ds the child who has remained static for several years? It is very unclear.

The teacher had the kids for four days a week for almost a year. My wife has been around them one day a week for the last three years. And outside school (for some of them and the couple who come for tea). She's seen them grow up. She knows their mums and socialises with a few and I guess they talk about kids sometimes. But most importantly, she has no motivation to claim those kids are ahead/behind where they really are.

I said your stories are conflicting
No conflict if you read the thread. One DS. Every time I talk about "a child..." it doesn't mean "my child..."

I am also an experienced teacher, but would never dream of presuming to give a thorough levelled assessment in children
I have every reason to believe that the "thorough levelled assessment" is often a piece of fiction. Not with every teacher. Not in every school. But often. Too often. And it won't change till the DCSF remove the motivation for schools to fiddle the books.

Bottom line: We'll have to agree to disagree on whether under assessment is possible/happens.

"My wife has been around them one day a week for the last three years. And outside school (for some of them and the couple who come for tea). She's seen them grow up. She knows their mums and socialises with a few and I guess they talk about kids sometimes. But most importantly, she has no motivation to claim those kids are ahead/behind where they really are."
No, but nor does any of this explain how she came to assess 6 children across an AT target which the children wouldn't have been able to access and which the children wouldn't have been working on in the classroom.

You seem to evade a lot of questions, DaL, and I've tried hard to answer yours.

You've also not answered (twice now) why you haven't asked for hard evidence regarding the 4c work which your ds was deemed unable to access.

Evasion is a funny definition for not wanting to bore everyone with repeated details about my DS.

We didn't ask for "hard evidence" of anything. DS was becoming very distressed with boring maths at school, end Y2, we had to speak to the head (his teacher gave us confidential background information including that she was under pressure to cover up his ability - but I can see you calling it "hearsay"). Long story short - the school finally put him on the G&T, got him "properly evaluated" via a KS2 paper (up from a 3 to a 5) and are now catering for him with an IEP, some input from a secondary maths teacher and an SEN teacher, other resources and a lot of work from me finding out-of-curriculum material to help them keep him amused (and so he doesn't go too far up the curriculum). Happy child. Satisfied me. All covered in detail in other threads if you're so interested.

Are you saying that if I haven't asked for evidence regarding his 4c work then somehow my story doesn't ring true and I have something to hide? Yes, sure.

I take it you can't agree to disagree. Never mind.

I'm off to a business conference out of town so Honeybarbara, here's your big chance

I'm not saying that your story doesn't ring true at all, DaL, I just couldn't work out why you hadn't challenged the underassessment.

I think my questions regarding the spurious secret assessment of 6 other Year 2 children were fair, given the circumstances.

You haven't given me any information on what his class teacher said - so I haven't had an opportunity to call it anything. And nor would I, when it is quoted directly from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

I am sincerely glad to hear that your ds was properly belatedly assessed and, more importantly, that he is happier now.

I am happy to agree to disagree that underassessment is more unlikely to occur in most primary schools in the present assessmen for learning driven climate.

assessment

You've chosen to reword what we're agreeing to disagree about. The "more unlikely to occur in most primary schools" demonstrates that we are actually in agreement and that under-assessment is not an impossibility (whether it's made to fiddle the stats or not)! That's good news. We seem differ only in the extent to which we believe under-assessment is possible. Fair enough.