RE: child started in secondary school

[Shazy123]

Hi, I would like some advice from someone, and see what they make of my situation. My child started secondary school at the beginning of September. After about a week she had a letter to say she needed extra reading lessons as her reading age was 8.5. She had a level 5 in language and knew she had scored really high at primary school. Of course I rang the school to be told by the receptionist that my child would benefit from these extra reading lessons(done by form 6 pupils). After several hours I did get a phone call from the deputy to say that it did not make sense that she was level 5, but was reading age 8.5. She advised me to ring the primary school to find out her actual reading age. I rang them, but the head was not there for several days so had to wait for an answer. In the meantime my daughter was really upset as she knew she had done well. Found out few days later that my daughter's reading age was 13.3. Rang the secondary school, who then telephoned me to apologise several days later.
My daughter had a level 4a in maths and scored above the national average in the tests she was given in Primary school. She has been set in maths this week in set 3, now doing work she was doing in year 4 in primary school. I contacted the school as I knew that mistakes did happen there! The maths teacher told me that they had given the children a test when they started and that my daughter had scored very low in that test. She explained that they added both the Primary test and secondary test marks together and gave her an average mark, which brought her average mark down considerably. She had a maths lesson today and she had to keep asking the teacher for more work as she was finishing the work before everybody else. Her primary teacher told me that she was the second best student he had in maths. Her friends obviously scored better than her in the secondary test has been put in the top set, despite them being not so good as her in primary school. I feel my child has been unfairly treated between everything. Do I sit back and hope for the best or do I do something about it??

DS's (very normal) primary got 15% level 6 maths, and other schools which feed into the same comp had similar levels - so even if the picture nationally is of smaller percentages, locally there were enough for a full top set (If the 7 sets are of similar size, then about 14% would be in the top set - so it is numerically possible for the whole top set to be level 6s.)

Perhaps a few top 5as who scored 6s on the initial year 7 test were added, too, because it is likely that the top set will be bigger than the bottom.

DS just reported that the teacher started the lesson with 'well, because you all got level 6s we'll be starting off by consolidating ...blah'

Pleased to say that my eldest son came home today to say that the maths teacher had spoken to him. She said to him that she had feedback to say that my child stood out in that set and that she would be moved up next week. I realize that schools are probably receive phone calls every day to complain about their child's set, but I can assure you that I never complain. I feel a mothers instinct is often correct.

A teacher spoke to your son about your daughter? I wouldn't be best pleased if I were in your shoes. What set your daughter is in is really nothing to do with your son. Neither is he meant to be a substitute for the school speaking to you.

Glad all is sorted, but I wouldn't be happy with that.

I agree with amck5700

She told my son, to save her phoning would he give me the message. She told him that she had scored really low in a school test they did on my his younger sister two days after she had started and that she was extremely lucky that his sister had a high score from primary school otherwise she would be in an even lower set. I feel that the teacher is all out to upset my daughter and myself. She knew that I was upset about the situation when I had a conversation with her 2 days prior to this, so maybe that's the reason she didn't want to phone me! I can't believe she decided to move her up 2 days after the conversation we'd had where she point blank refused to move her. She also told my on the phone that the number of pupils in the second set would not allow room for my child, but all of a sudden there's room for her there.
Should really complain about all what's happened, but I'd probably make matters worse!

Can you please define your use of set? Do you mean band
as said above 4a is not a high score. 35% will have got at least a level 5 or more. Unless this a very poorly performing school this does not make any sense.
To put this in perspective when my dd started in secondary she got a 5a (before level 6) in her sats. She was not put into top set. She was a bit upset. I told her to go out and prove herself. She did by getting top marks in the class and was moved up in year 8.

I would be complaining about the unprofessionalism of asking your son to pass messages about your daughter and even more so of giving him info about her scores. That is not on. What if they didnt get on and he used that information to bully her? Sorry, but either that isn't true or you are not thinking it through. The issue here is no longer about the set, its about misconduct.

I don't discuss my children's academic performance or reports in front of their siblings as it is none of their business. Children are entitled to privacy.

I know this has been resolved but just a few points to note:

If a child in our current yr7 had a 4a, they would probably be set 3.

We take pupils from 3 main feeder schools along with several others. We know for a fact that 1 of these schools does the ks2 exam after a normal year of teaching, another does nothing but practice papers and exam coaching for the 6 months before the test. The last school actually teaches a topic then picks out the exam questions relating to it and gets the pupils to do them before putting the papers away until the end of the next topic. Guess which school gets the highest and the lowest results?! There is absolutely no way that we can set using ks2 data when it is generated in this way.

Lastly, we always get calls from parents to say that pupils are finding it too easy at the start of term. This is because we put the easiest topic first, in order to avoid worrying pupils at the start of high school. It's a way of helping them to feel settled and confident about their Maths.

Hope that helps.